Wesley Reyneke’s 1999 Kawasaki W650 is a stunning example of what can be done with a lot of sweat, a fair bit of money and a little parental discipline! After owning three dual-sport motorcycles Wes felt like something a little different, and when the beautifully designed and engineered retro-styled Kawasaki parallel twin came along he snapped it up. The bike had already been partly customised, with a different seat and bobbed mudguards so he installed a set of Husqvarna dirt-bike bars and set forth to explore some of the Western Cape’s delicious dirt roads once again. He found the bike to be remarkably easy-going on good gravel roads, but after a few dirt rides the exhaust headers both cracked and the big twin started looking tatty. It stood around for a year or so then Wes decided to sell it, but his mother, a motorcyclist herself, gave him a stern lecture and offered to help fund a rebuild. Thank you, Wes’s mom! The splendid machine you see here is the result. Wesley sourced most of the parts he needed – or wanted – and handed over much of the work to Stoos Customs in the Cape. For the full story click HERE.
Don’t forget to forward us pics of your custom Kawasaki. Appropriate bikes will be featured in an album on the Kawasaki SA website, and the exceptional ones could earn a feature on their own. Pictures must be JPEGs of reasonably high resolution (about 350kb upwards) and details of the motorcycle and the work that went into it should be included.
Photography by Ewald Sabie
by Gavin Foster.