Kawasaki KLX 230 First Ride Review - The Dual-Sport For Every Trail!

Proper off-road machines from Kawasaki are on the expensive side, and if you own one, you also need a pickup truck or trailer to transport them to your off-road riding destination. That is just too much of a hassle which is Kawasaki’s reason behind introducing the KLX 230 in India. We recently got to experience riding the bike off-road for a short duration and here are our first impressions.

The KLX 230 looks identical to the 230R S but gets additional parts to make it road-legal. They include a headlight, a license plate holder, grab rails, an LCD dash, dual-purpose tyres, and a kickstand. As expected from Kawasaki, the fit-and-finish of the bike is premium and it does look nice in the bright Lime Green colour scheme. Feature wise, the bike gets an LCD screen with basic information easily visibile to a rider. Additionally, there is a USB charging port which is available as part of the official accessories. 

The KLX is a slim and purpose-built motorcycle that has perfect ergonomics for off-road use. The seat height is tall, standing at 880mm and it has a ground clearance of 265mm. The wide handlebar and slim profile of the seat, make standing up on the pegs and riding through trails feel natural. The suspension is soft, so when a rider gets astride, it sags a bit and that makes it easier for shorter riders to get astride. There is also an accessory seat which brings down the seat height by 14mm. 

Sitting in the perimeter frame is a 233cc engine putting out 18.1PS and 18.3Nm of peak torque. I mostly spent my time in the first two gears while tackling the trails and felt that it is a very usable and fun engine. This engine is mated to a six-speed gearbox so it should also have the ability to tour on the highway as well. That is something we shall test when we get the motorcycle for a longer duration. The motor is refined, with a good punch in the low and mid-range rpms, and paired with the light kerb weight of 139kg, it delivers an engaging ride experience. The clutch action is also light and shifting through the gearbox feels slick. What needs to be seen now is how it performs out in the city. The KLX 230 has a fuel tank capacity of 7.6 litres, which is small, but this is a dedicated off-road machine so that is acceptable. Kawasaki claims the bike has a riding range of approximately 250km on a full tank.

The bike uses a 21-inch front wheel with 240mm of wheel travel and an 18-inch rear wheel with 250mm of wheel travel, giving it superb off-road capabilities. It can take on off-road sections with precision and glide over rough terrain with ease. The suspension has been tuned well and settles perfectly while pushing through unpredictable off-road sections and after landing from big jumps. It gets MRF dual-purpose tyres which might strike a good balance between on and off-road riding, but if a rider is only going to dedicatedly use this for off-road, they should swap out these tyres for grippier off-road rubber which will allow them to fully exploit the abilities of the chassis.

While this was surely a fun machine to experience, it all comes down to how much it is priced at. For now, bookings are open for a token amount of Rs 5,000 and prices will officially be revealed in December. The bike will go up mainly against the likes of the Xpulse 200, so if Kawasaki wants to make waves with the KLX 230, they are going to have to make sure it is priced competitively. The bike is coming in as a CKD unit, so we can expect a price tag between Rs 2.50 to 2.70 lakh (ex-showroom). Furthermore, Kawasaki might even localize the product depending on the demand for it. Anything above Rs 3 lakh and the KLX will be too expensive for the target audience, so we have our fingers crossed, hoping for a competitive price tag.