In the world of heavyweight cruiser motorcycles, there’s not a ton of competition. Harley owns the Touring market, with a loyal fan base and a slowly-evolving product line. Yes, Honda has the Goldwing, BMW has their K1600 and GTL, Yamaha makes… something. Indian is making inroads with their new Challenger. And then there’s Kawasaki. Faithfully copying recreating a mashup of Harley’s Road Glide and Street Glide motorcycles (seriously, look at the fairing), they cribbed The Motor Co.’s notes on making a roughly 850lb touring motorcycle, but they made it liquid-cooled, in true Kawasaki fashion.
I owned a Vaquero for 3+ years, and put over 13,000 miles on it. Then, I traded it in on my Street Glide Special. Since then, I’ve been asked numerous times WHY oh WHY did you make the switch? It also comes up on the Kawasaki forums I belong to, but not the Harley ones – go figure.
In this video, I’ll explain the differences and answer that very question.
-John