Kawasaki ER - 5 ¡
cateva pareri de pe un forum englez
Performance: 3 Reliability: 5
Parts Availability: 4 Overall Value for Money: 5
Hi,
Bought my ER-5 on 08/03/01 and have
only had 1 problem with it. Snapped
clutch cable. I have also completed
22,534 Miles since I bought the bike!
I think this is an excellent bike for
the money and I would recomend it to
anyone who wants a very cheep reliable
bike to run.
Shaun.
Submitted by: Preloved Visitor 5 June 2001. Owned for 3 months. - http://members.tripod.co.uk/basmaf/index.htm
Performance: 3 Reliability: 5
Parts Availability: 3 Overall Value for Money: 4
Used through winter and most parts now
rusty!!
Submitted by: Preloved Visitor 22 April 2001. Owned for 6 months.
Performance: 3 Reliability: 3
Parts Availability: 2 Overall Value for Money: 4
Original tyres are not avaliable in
Spain.
Its price has increased 17.33%, since I
bought it
It has not an outstanding hangliding
Ir requires more power.
We need more accesories
Submitted by: Preloved Visitor 2 November 2000. Owned for 1 year.
Performance: 3 Reliability: 4
Parts Availability: 0 Overall Value for Money: 5
Bland and reliable but has little character compared with my old BSA A65L.
I dont like the six gears. I always seem to be notching up or down compared to the A65 which grunts on regardless in top, but then again its not broke down yet in the rain on the way to work.
Submitted by: Preloved Visitor 15 October 2000. Owned for 6 months.
Performance: 4 Reliability: 4
Parts Availability: 0 Overall Value for Money: 3
Kawasaki's ER-5 is somewhat of a forgotten bike - certainly the conventional press don't go out of their way to write about it. Whilst Suzuki's GS500E was greeted with joy when it was launched, and the Honda CB500 is regularly shown due to the one-make race series, the little 500 twin from big K has rarely even been tested (as far as we can recall).
Nevertheless the ER-5 has sold very well, and is, at the time of writing, top of the UK sales charts in its class. So maybe the ER-5 is one of biking best-kept secrets? We took a look.
Sweet memories
Takes me back, you know. The first "big" bike I ever owned (and bought new) was an eight-valve, 500cc, vertical twin. 17 years ago, I was one of the few who bought a Yamaha XS500 twin - at the time the very pinnacle of engine development for a twin. 105mph, 55mpg, disk brakes front and rear, took me and the missus to Le Mans for the first time, and was sold with a tear in the eye three years later.
Anyway, enough of the rose-tinted sentimentality - how have things progressed in 17 years? Well actually not very much - if the ER-5 is anything to go by. It's got eight valves, 500cc, two rear shocks, clocks with chrome surrounds, a real seat - and even a drum brake on the rear! OK the engine is liquid-cooled, and the styling's more up to date, but other than that there's not a lot to surprise the average time-traveller from the 80s.
Personally, I think the ER is the prettiest of the 500 twins around today - certainly it looks more "modern" and purposeful than Honda's CB500, for instance. The tubular cradle frame wraps around the engine, but as it's a twin it doesn't actually make the bike any wider. The tank and sidepanels have waisted shaping, which suits your knees when riding, and makes the ground easier to reach for the shorter riders. Pushing the bike around it felt light, and yet when examining the specs it was surprising to find that it was only 2kg lighter than Hondas Hornet!
As already mentioned, it has a "proper" seat - a rare luxury these days - and a passenger grab rail, so pillions are well catered for. The switchgear is in the strange khaki/green colour that all Kwacker switches seem to come in, and the ignition switch/idiot light arrangement is perfect for a key fob to obscure the lights - just like the Hornet, in fact. However it does have a fuel gauge, and there's a centre stand (another rare feature these days).
The forks and shocks are very basic - 37mm conventional and unadjustable forks, and twin shocks with just preload adjustment. The disk front brake is a twin-pot sliding-caliper design, while (as already mentioned) there's a genuine drum brake at the rear. Clutch and brake levers, as with all Kawasaki's, are span-adjustable, which is great for those with smaller hands.
Overall the quality of finish seemed high - Kawasaki claim to have given the engine case screws an anti-rust coating to help keep the bike looking good - let's hope the rest of the bike lives up to that.
Whirring away
Wot no kickstart? Well OK, that would be going back a bit. The bike fired up easily with a bit of choke, yet didn't really give any hints that it was running - it's certainly no Triumph Bonnie, either in vibration or sound! Clunk into first (the only clunk you'll hear - usual Kawasaki gearbox) and away we go...
Coming from mega-powered four-cylinder sports bikes, the ER-5 doesn't take your breath away, but nevertheless it was capable of reasonable acceleration, and with a good stirring of the box and handlful of revs, was surprisingly quick. The engine was slightly lumpy down low, just to remind you that it is a twin, before it really smoothed out - probably due to the heavy flywheel which Kawasaki have given the bike over it's ancestor, the EN500, from which the engine is derived. It's certainly a very well developed powerplant, with no carburation glitches are any real power bands to speak of.
Of course with only 50PS to play with, and a broad power band, you can be deceived into thinking that it's a bit flat (or in the Deputy Ed's case "boring"). I disagree here - perhaps because of my fond memories - but I actually thouroughly enjoyed riding the ER. Wind 'er up, and I saw 115mph on the clock, and that with the engine barely run in - not bad at all. Furthermore the engine seemed so understressed that 90-100mph cruising would not be out of the question. Naturally a pillion or some hills knocks this down a bit - but what do you want from a 500 twin?
Where the ER really deceived was in the handling, which on the standard Dunlop GT401FG tyres was amazingly quick and nimble. You didn't have to make any effort to turn corners - just think and it was there. In fact it was so quick that initially I oversteered and cut corners! The way that it was possible to change direction was also ahead of any four cylinder bike - the centre of gravity is concentrated so low and close to the axis of the bike that it just flicked from left to right as fast as you could manage it.
Surprisingly the engine actually contributed to the bike's handling. Perhaps due to the heavy flywheel, it seemed that engine braking was less violent that a four - there was less chance of locking the rear wheel changing down into a corner, for instance, which meant some fairly serious liberties could be taken.
On the down side, the basic suspension and brakes are not really up to being pushed hard. The forks and shocks worked smoothly over bumpy roads at steady speeds (miles ahead of my old XS) but start to up the ante a bit and they got all hot and bothered - initially there was not enough damping, and then the forks started to bottom out under hard braking, and the shocks started to pogo. And "hard braking" is relative too - the front disk is barely up to the job and takes a good strong squeeze to make an impression - no single-finger stoppies here.
Those Dunlops aren't the grippiest tyres around, but in the dry it was possible to drag the footrests, so there's not too much wrong there, and we are talking about a bike that will primarily be used for commuting, not tearing round a race track.
Economy? Yes, plenty thanks. Oh - you want to know how much? Well frankly we've lost the receipts because it was so far between fill-ups - around 200 miles per tankful is possible, which for the 16 litre tank is 56mpg, and that was with all the knee-down, 100mph plus stuff too. One reader/owner we know gets around 65mpg!
The Verdict
I liked the ER-5, and as Editor I have the final say. The Deputy Ed on the other hand, didn't like it much, but that's probably because he had to run it in (Kawasaki didn't have time before the bike was booked out) - 4000 rpm on a bike with 50 PS and a redline at 10,500 is a little tedious.
The ER is a capable, sorted, lightweight twin. It handles really well, and around twisty smooth roads I reckon you could give 600 four-cylinder bikes a run for their money. If I had to commute daily in traffic, or dispatch, it's the sort of bike I'd get - it'd grow handlebar muffs in the winter, possibly a half fairing, some throwover panniers in the summer for camping and I would potter about happily knowing I was using very little fuel and little effort to get around. I suspect ER-5 owners get to love their bikes too - we've had more mail about why this test was late than any other!
On the other hand, being used to so much more, it doesn't have enough performance for me, so I wouldn't have one as an only bike.
What it won't do is improve your street cred, pose, or increase the size of your balls compared with the average Fireblade owner - but then if you're thinking about buying an ER-5 I'm sure that's of little consequence...
Engine:Liquid-cooled, 4-stroke, Parallel Twin,8 valves
Bore x Stroke:74 x 58mm
Displacement:498cc
Compression ratio:9.8:1
Carbs:Keihin CVK34 x 2
Max. Power:50ps
Ignition:Digital
Starter:Electric
Transmission:Six-speed
Final Drive:Chain
Wheelbase: 1,430mm
Seat Height:780mm
Fuel Capacity:16 litres
Wheels:3-spoke cast
Tyres:
Front - 110/70 l7 54H
Rear - 130/70 17 62H
Suspension:
Front - 37mm telescopic fork
Rear - Dual Shock with preload adjustment
Brakes:
Front - Single 280mm disk with slidingdual-piston caliper
Rear - 160mm Drum
Dry Weight:174kg
