Yes. She was promoted a month ago. The vote was unanimous.
Here's a review, which may be the first......its stunning, but I would need to be 15-20 years younger ....ahhhhhh halcyon days
https://youtu.be/iLajTDUEjEA?t=59
She didn't want a salary.. She did want a new car and we told her you would buy it.
Interesting/thanks, but 11 min video with very little info. Mostly just someone riding it, saying it is fast and he likes it. I guess we can't expect much this early.
This quote is telling: "For sport touring, I think the only thing you are going to care about is the extra lighting, the heated grips, and color display..." showing, he really doesn't know much about what many of us DO care about with sport touring, or he just didn't want to talk about what was missing.... C14- storage of full helmets in the panniers, rear rack (and ability for top box), shaft drive, large and electric windscreen, better range, larger fairings, longer wheelbase, passenger room, peg placement, warranty, grip height, tpms, glovebox. For me, the only think I like on the H2SX over the C14, other than the power, are the cornering lights and cruise.
Would love to see a video review of the H2SX done by someone who rides and understands the C14. Perhaps one will come.
You're really banging away on this bike, man.
IF I wanted another C14 and was going to write a letter, I would just ask for the H2 SX rider interface be added to the C14: gauge cluster, electronics package, controls, and KQS. Have no idea what this would make the new bike cost, but hopefully less than 22 grand.
I *love* the C14 analog gauges and wouldn't be happy losing even the analog speedometer. But that color screen on the H2SX SE (note, it is ONLY on the even MORE expensive SE) is nice, indeed.... so that would be a fine swap for our small mono. Screen cost- minimal. Cruise is almost no cost, just a $20 stepper motor and some linkage. I clutchless upshift all the time, so not sure I would even care about KQS. LED lights- no brainer, and doesn't cost anything more. Add a few extra buttons, and some reprogramming, a few tweaks here and there..... I can't imagine any of it would really cost more than $1K additional (even with cornering lights added).
So you would prefer mechanically actuated cruise rather than RBW with rider modes?
I'm sure you've at least tried a bike with up/down quickshifter; it is really nice and I would want that.
As great of a bike as I think the C14 is, Kawasaki can take some of the blame for slumping sales. If the business case to invest in the bike and add features to make it more directly competitive has not been compelling, then I highly doubt eroding sales will help. The C14 has lost sales to bike with CC and other features. Lack of content has been a compelling case for an arguable number of buyers to go to an FJR, or BMW, etc. Sure you can add cruise, as I am about to, but that's a hassle many would rather avoid. It's a shame, because the C14 has better bones than the FJR in my opinion. Nicer engine/trans, slightly better wind protection.
I fully expect Kawasaki to drop the C14 in the near future.
That might explain it now but even back in the early days, it did not sell well and was easily current or even advanced with the other direct competitors at that time.
I too think it is the best chassis for this use and have spent some time wondering on what is (or what things are) standing in the way of better sales. One problem I think may well be the relatively small fuel tank and if so, that is a double- edged sword: it is the tank already in use for the ZX 14 and so cut down on tooling and production costs, allowing a lower retail price on the bike but of course banged up against the FJR's larger tank and longer range.
I also think those considering a Concours got used to it being a somewhat obsolescent bike but a tremendous value as it was amazingly inexpensive (the C-10 in the 2000's); that too was lost with the huge update to the C-14 and perhaps people were not quite willing to pay the larger price for a bike that had the same name of the far less expensive bike only two model years before. ?? As an example, Chevrolet introduced its first V-8 in (I think) 1919, and it was quite advanced for an auto of that time. But it cost what such a large, powerful and well- appointed car had to cost and it just did not sell well because people would not spend the same money as a Pierce Arrow, or Packard, etc. on a Chevrolet. The very brand defeated it. That too <may> be part of the C-14's legacy.
It does appear that the C-14 is at a crossroads and really has to be updated significantly or dropped because sales will continue to fall off if it is basically kept as it is now. But a bigger engine, C.C., and a few other attributes such as a bigger fuel tank could again bring it directly into competition with the Feejer, and that is what Kawasaki has to (or perhaps has already) decide.
Brian
Agreed, the smaller fuel tank did not help. Nor did the characteristics of the earlier linked brakes, and perhaps KiPass. All to arguable degrees of significance. I owned a 2015 FJR1300A briefly. It was a steal at $9500 brand new, so I bought it to keep as a second bike. I loved having the CC, but I like the C14 better in most regards excluding the smaller tank and KiPass. The linked brakes on my 17 C14 are much improved from my 2013 C14.
Having such a fondness for a bike that does not receive the attention to further development and refinement from the mother ship s a bit disappointing. Still a great bike, but Kawasaki could have easily done more to steal sales away from the FJR IMO.
Yeah, after a lot of thought, I think (hold onto your jockstraps folks, this is going to be a surprise.....) Kawasaki should either just eliminate KiPass or make it optional. There, I said it. While I am a big fan, there is some kind of resistance to the system in the US; Yamaha realized this because they have a similar system on the FJR but NOT those sold in the US. For whatever reason, we seem a bit backward and sort of superstitious regarding 'new' technologies. I am old enough to very well remember all the hate aimed at electronic ignition as well as fuel injection, and I firmly believe that a large percentage of the driving public still would rather have a distributor and carburation regardless of the fact that both of those systems have been very well proven to be inferior in every way that I know of. KiPass seems to make a lot of people act like cavemen seeing lightening and thereafter fearing they may anger the gods and get more lightening. Look at the frankly amazing superstition surrounding just removing the stove knob key- honestly, it makes me think of native Pacific Islanders afraid of angering the god of the volcano. :-) But in the end, this is the very public that Kawasaki needs to sell to so given a choice between trying to force them to be rational or simply giving them the 'good juju' that they want, it is just going to be better to give them the 'juju'. Hell, might as well offer a special invocation of the 'longevity ceremony' once a week for the same price as the extended warranty and I betcha' they sell a bunch of slots to that.
Seriously, a larger fuel tank, a good ole' fashioned key (or just bare wires we can twist together- either way), and update to the larger ZX engine and the bike would probably gain a lot of traction in the sport- tourer market. That still leaves the huge question as to whether or not that market, all of it, is large enough to support any significant amount of design and production effort. If Kawasaki claims they are selling 1,000 units a year now, what is the entire sport tourer sales number, which is all they could possibly get? If it is only 5,000 or 10,000 units a year, and no single manufacturer will ever get all of any market, then it may not be worthwhile at all. Look at BMW: they dropped the direct competitor to the C-14 and the FJR, the K1300GT, which I thought was a great bike and while it did have a few problem areas, proper support and a little re- design could have fixed them. But BMW choose to simply drop the line, which kind of indicates to me that maybe the entire sport touring market is not that large and so not worth a big (read: expensive) effort to capture a larger slide of it. ??
Brian