Kawasaki W175 REVIEW: This commuter bike is an under-the-radar workhorse that’s different

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Don’t look now, but everything retro is back in a big way. People are buying vinyl records, shooting photos on film, switching to feature phones, wearing late-’90s fashion … and riding lots of vintage-styled motorcycles.

In India, we have Royal Enfield to thank for this (I say thank because I think retro bikes look great), and virtually every manufacturer has a throwback-style bike in its arsenal.

Kawasaki is no exception – its W800 is one of the best-looking bikes on the planet, and it looks like the firm decided to go down a similar path with this, the W175. The W800 costs an arm and a leg, so the shrunk-down version is intended to (hopefully) put butts on seats.

What is the W175, then? At first sight, it looks like a bike from the 1980s, and it gets that look quite right. The round, chrome-lined headlamp is a dead giveaway to its throwback styling, and the teardrop tank confirms it. There are more elements as well — chunky side panels, a large tail lamp, round indicators, curved fenders, a simple monopod instrument cluster and a long seat, among others.

The design

For a generation of young buyers that is used to slick and edgy design, the W175 may come off as looking fuddy-duddy, but there’s an elegance to its simple design that can’t be faulted. I happen to like it, at any rate. In one of the brighter shades of paint, it’ll look just fine.

As mentioned, there’s one instrument pod that is part analogue/digital. The speedometer is analogue, and a small digital display below it shows you information like the fuel level, the time, the odometer and the trip meter. There are warning lights surrounding this pod, as well as buttons to operate the digital cluster.

Nothing stands out in terms of quality, but there’s nothing to fault either — again, Kawasaki has opted to keep things simple. Or maybe they’re a bit too simple. In this day and age, a single disc brake with single channel ABS is a bit odd, as is the lack of a tachometer and a USB charging port – and the headlamp is a halogen unit (well, so is the one on a Royal Enfield Classic 350).

The seat, at a height of 790mm, gives you a nice, upright riding position, with the handlebar within comfortable reach. The footpegs are set a little to the front — which I appreciate — and the overall ergos are fine for just about any rider. The seat, however, is on the thin and narrow side, so a long ride will definitely cause some fatigue — I’d recommend swapping the stock seat out for a wider and more padded unit.

The engine

The business end of the W175 is a 177cc, single-cylinder, air-cooled and two-valve engine with 13 bhp and 13.2 Nm of torque… not exactly class-leading. Still, weighing in at 135 kg, this bike is quite light (the RE Hunter is a 175 kg hulk in comparison), and when you wring the throttle open, it’ll get from 0 to 60 kph in just over 5 seconds, which is respectable. Keep the throttle pinned and it’ll sprint to around 90 kph before it starts to tire, and the sweet spot is an 80-odd kph cruising speed.

The W175 we get here is fuel-injected in order to comply with emission norms (the one sold abroad gets a good old carburettor), and it’s very refined. It goes about its business in an unhurried manner, and the engine note is quite muted, as well (no ‘thump thump’ business here). In the mid-range of the revs, it has appreciable tractability and pulls very cleanly, and it’s only when you reach the higher end of the rev scale that some vibrations set in. The gearbox is smooth and showed no tendency to mis-shift, and the gearing itself is tall, which means you need to rev the engine a bit before slotting into the next higher gear. The clutch action is light, making riding in city conditions easy, and the single-disc brake setup actually works well (I’d still expect twin discs and dual-channel ABS, though).

The ride

The simplicity continues in the ride and handling departments. The W175 has a no-nonsense tubular, semi-double-cradle frame with a telescopic fork and twin rear shock absorbers. Everything works as it should, with the bike feeling light and nimble around corners, and I was surprised at the tyres — the rather thin Ceat rubber doesn’t look like it’ll amount to much, but there’s actually enough grip on offer. The W175 goes through bumps easily too, and I never felt the rear shock absorbers bottom out fully even through large potholes. The ride quality on offer is pleasing — on good roads, the bike feels very stable and comfortable, and there’s just enough stiffness in the bag for when you need to start carving corners.

The catch

This is a perfectly competent motorcycle that does pretty much everything you can ask of it – but there’s a catch. At Rs 1.47-1.49 lakh, ex-showroom, it’s pricey for what it offers (or doesn’t), and for some extra pocket change, you can ride away on a Royal Enfield Hunter, which has significantly more power, torque and features, not to mention street cred. There are plenty of other motorcycles other than the Hunter that you can look at as well — such as the Yamaha FZ-X and TVS Ronin — that will offer you more features and power/torque. So, in the end, it comes down to what you’re looking for in your bike.

If you want edgy design, lots of gizmos and outright performance, you need to look elsewhere; if a simple, no-fuss, retro-bike experience is your jam, the W175 could be the machine for you. I enjoyed my time with it in a variety of riding conditions, and even though it’s not a bike that screams ‘look at me!’, I wouldn’t hesitate to recommend it to anyone looking for an under-the-radar yet different commuter bike.