Kawasaki W175 Review: A True Retro for Those Who Understand Motorcycles!

If, like me, you also grew up riding motorcycles in the late '80s and early '90s, and are still riding, chances are that you are in better shape than most half your age.

- SYED SHIRAZ SHAH

If, like me, you also grew up riding motorcycles in the late '80s and early '90s, and are still riding, chances are that you are in better shape than most half your age. See, we don't need a health expert to tell us that kickstarting motorcycles for decades have made our legs stronger than the thumb-start generation's, and since manually pushing motorcycles wasn't a rare affair either, we find the "Farmer's Walk" a walk in the park comparatively. However, our optimism about our strength notwithstanding, our bodies are certainly not as flexible as the younger-gen riders' because, unlike them, we didn't grow up practicing origami on motorcycles.

As such, even today, we prefer simple motorcycles that don't come with a prerequisite of contorting our bodies into funny shapes, just to get eggs from the grocery store. We want to sit straight with our head held high so that we can see the instrument cluster, the traffic around us, and a meteor falling from the sky—all at once. We, irrespective of our gender, want to sit with our chest proudly out for the wind to ruffle our greying hair, shining out of unbuttoned collars as the last unbridled streak of unpretentiousness. Stuff like aerodynamics and waxing is for sissies.

Sadly, kick levers have almost completely vanished from motorcycles above 150 cc, but, thankfully, good ergonomics haven't, which you'll learn in the next couple of paragraphs.

DESIGN AND ERGONOMICS

Though the W series of motorcycles from Kawasaki have a somewhat storied history, I won't delve into it as 1) it's not relevant in the Indian context, and 2) why would I give you redundant information which you can Google yourself? As always, I would tell you things that you can't ascertain by yourself, at least until you see the bike in person.