Lukejt
07-03-2008, 07:26 PM
I would sure like to improve the feel of these brakes. At first the gear box bothered me the most on the Versys, but now I've gotten used to all of it's quirks and have the shifting down (mostly, I still miss the occasional shift). However, the brakes really lack any feel and I find that I have to really squeeze on the front to get it to stop quickly. Tonight I grabbed too much rear brake (an old lady began coming out of her driveway, I treat everybody like they want to kill me) and the bike began to fish tail on me. :( I've never had such issues with any of my other bikes. To be fair, I might need to increase the preload on the forks to help with braking.
This is such a SWEET bike, Kawasaki should definitely upgrade the brakes a bit to give the rider some feedback. A couple days ago I came up on The Man and locked the front for just a fraction of a second. It's like, you've got to pull hard to stop fast, but it's hard to feel what's going on up there.
Has anybody found any cures fixes or tips to help make the brakes feel better? Do the Galfer Stainless lines help any (one poster here said his stainless lines didn't really help)? Any after market pads out yet? I wonder how much trouble it would be to fit some Brembos or higher end Japanese calipers on the Versys. I've got Brembos on my Husky and it seems like I can always feel exactly whats going on and modulate the braking perfectly to get maximum stopping power just short of locking up the wheels when needed. The brakes on the Versys don't even come close, all you feel is mush.
Other than that... I love the bike. Some better brakes would be icing on the cake (and should have come with the bike IMHO!).
Luke
This is such a SWEET bike, Kawasaki should definitely upgrade the brakes a bit to give the rider some feedback. A couple days ago I came up on The Man and locked the front for just a fraction of a second. It's like, you've got to pull hard to stop fast, but it's hard to feel what's going on up there.
Has anybody found any cures fixes or tips to help make the brakes feel better? Do the Galfer Stainless lines help any (one poster here said his stainless lines didn't really help)? Any after market pads out yet? I wonder how much trouble it would be to fit some Brembos or higher end Japanese calipers on the Versys. I've got Brembos on my Husky and it seems like I can always feel exactly whats going on and modulate the braking perfectly to get maximum stopping power just short of locking up the wheels when needed. The brakes on the Versys don't even come close, all you feel is mush.
Other than that... I love the bike. Some better brakes would be icing on the cake (and should have come with the bike IMHO!).
Luke