original post https://www.kawasakiversys.com/foru...sions-v-650/214586-first-ten-discoveries.html
Sixty years in the saddle. Too many bikes to remember. Live in Newark DullAware. Just bought a 2016 V65LT from a fine fellow in High Point NC. Nave not named her yet. Took the train down and rode her back. Intend to take her across country in July, so this was a shakedown cruise.
Started back doing fifty miles of freeway that led to twenty miles of country highway, to Mount Airy. Then pulled a good 150 mile stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway, sweepers and twisties, up to Otter Lake. Cut cross country to Glascow. Followed that with somewheres on the order of 300 miles of I-81 freeway. Ending with my fave sixty mile detour around Charm City Beltway via Westminster, Mexico, Jarretsville and Conowingo. So maybe 600 miles all told.
Here's the first ten items I discovered:
1) This engine is not happy turning under 4k. You don't get to jerking & hammering con rods, cause the engine is so seriously oversquared; but you can feel it thumping, and it's gutless under 4k rpm. Can't be good for it. At 5k epm it's happy. At 6k, you twist that grip and fly round that dawdler in front of you. It's amazing how much power you get out of a measly 650 cc mill.
2) After ten years aboard my KLR, I find it hard to get used to Kawasaki brakes that actually do brake. I'm sitting there behind the same little dinkydoo black handlebars look like Kawi stole them off a toddler's trike, just like my KLR. So I squeeze accordingly hard... and just about launch my azz over the front fender.
3) Smooth as stone-washed silk at freeway speed. Loves that seventy-five to eighty-five bracket. Tight, smooth, and quiet. Remarkable.
4) This seat is killing me. No time for aftermarket. Gonna try my AirHawk.
5) Anyone with legs long enough to hop up on this seat has got legs too long to fold up on these pegs. The hell were they thinking? Highway pegs are gonna be absolooly necessary. Cannot fold up this way for hours on end. Dreadful.
6) I did not expect an MPG readout on the gauges. Once I saw I had one, I did not expect it to be so accurate. Two excellent surprises. 52mpg freeway, 61mpg on country roads. The previous owner never so much as reset either trip meter in the whole 5600 miles he had it. So I do not expect he reset the mpg gauge. His 5600 miles netted him a 58.3 average mpg. That's about right. My KLR gets 57mpg on a trip like that, 50 in the city, and it's an old fashioned carby thumper. Digital injection should do better. The gas gauge, OTOH, drops steady square by square until it hits the fourth square, where it drops two squares quick as a wink. Not linear.
7) The panniers are plenty roomy and appear to have a chance to be watertight enough for gummint work. I could easily get cross country just with what would fit in those two bags. But I do intend to pack my SealLine duffel behind me, just to have a backrest lean on. Prolly put a bunch of camping gear there, JIC. I will want a small tank bag with a map pouch where I can slide my GPZ (Global Positioning Ziplock) to refer to written directions. The available tank top space is prolly too small for my present tank bag. A rear rack awaits me in the garage & gets bolted on soon as it cools down enough to do some chores. Sweltering out there. Anyways, plenty of room to tote more than enough, is my point.
8) Only one guy remarked "neat bike", the whole trip. Any time I take my cute as a button Indian Scout so much as the post office, some guy just has to stroll over and tell me how his grandpa rode an Indian in The War. If I were to take my ultra-farkled KLR that far, there would be half a dozen guys tell me with a laugh how they love it, and is that a KLR underneath all that farkelation. Take my Moto Guzzi half that far, three people would ask me what model of Harley is that. This V650, tho, with a face only a transformer could love, it goes basically unnoticed. So that will be a great time saver. Don't have to pause to listen to strangers admire.
9) Couldn't go fifteen miles before I had to pull over and yank that effin windshield off. Could not take the buffets. Once you remove it, tho, you get reasinably clean smooth air. Not so smooth as the Scout, but almost as smooth as the KLR. Once I dig in and unbolt the windshield brackets, prolly get even better.
10) Headlight bulb burnt out. So I already have a repair project. Good opportunity to dig around & locate a place down there to connect a USB charger doodad, to charge my phone and tablet under weigh. Jesus I love farkling. That's prolly why I buy bike after bike, more than any reason, is to farkle them.
Sixty years in the saddle. Too many bikes to remember. Live in Newark DullAware. Just bought a 2016 V65LT from a fine fellow in High Point NC. Nave not named her yet. Took the train down and rode her back. Intend to take her across country in July, so this was a shakedown cruise.
Started back doing fifty miles of freeway that led to twenty miles of country highway, to Mount Airy. Then pulled a good 150 mile stretch of the Blue Ridge Parkway, sweepers and twisties, up to Otter Lake. Cut cross country to Glascow. Followed that with somewheres on the order of 300 miles of I-81 freeway. Ending with my fave sixty mile detour around Charm City Beltway via Westminster, Mexico, Jarretsville and Conowingo. So maybe 600 miles all told.
Here's the first ten items I discovered:
1) This engine is not happy turning under 4k. You don't get to jerking & hammering con rods, cause the engine is so seriously oversquared; but you can feel it thumping, and it's gutless under 4k rpm. Can't be good for it. At 5k epm it's happy. At 6k, you twist that grip and fly round that dawdler in front of you. It's amazing how much power you get out of a measly 650 cc mill.
2) After ten years aboard my KLR, I find it hard to get used to Kawasaki brakes that actually do brake. I'm sitting there behind the same little dinkydoo black handlebars look like Kawi stole them off a toddler's trike, just like my KLR. So I squeeze accordingly hard... and just about launch my azz over the front fender.
3) Smooth as stone-washed silk at freeway speed. Loves that seventy-five to eighty-five bracket. Tight, smooth, and quiet. Remarkable.
4) This seat is killing me. No time for aftermarket. Gonna try my AirHawk.
5) Anyone with legs long enough to hop up on this seat has got legs too long to fold up on these pegs. The hell were they thinking? Highway pegs are gonna be absolooly necessary. Cannot fold up this way for hours on end. Dreadful.
6) I did not expect an MPG readout on the gauges. Once I saw I had one, I did not expect it to be so accurate. Two excellent surprises. 52mpg freeway, 61mpg on country roads. The previous owner never so much as reset either trip meter in the whole 5600 miles he had it. So I do not expect he reset the mpg gauge. His 5600 miles netted him a 58.3 average mpg. That's about right. My KLR gets 57mpg on a trip like that, 50 in the city, and it's an old fashioned carby thumper. Digital injection should do better. The gas gauge, OTOH, drops steady square by square until it hits the fourth square, where it drops two squares quick as a wink. Not linear.
7) The panniers are plenty roomy and appear to have a chance to be watertight enough for gummint work. I could easily get cross country just with what would fit in those two bags. But I do intend to pack my SealLine duffel behind me, just to have a backrest lean on. Prolly put a bunch of camping gear there, JIC. I will want a small tank bag with a map pouch where I can slide my GPZ (Global Positioning Ziplock) to refer to written directions. The available tank top space is prolly too small for my present tank bag. A rear rack awaits me in the garage & gets bolted on soon as it cools down enough to do some chores. Sweltering out there. Anyways, plenty of room to tote more than enough, is my point.
8) Only one guy remarked "neat bike", the whole trip. Any time I take my cute as a button Indian Scout so much as the post office, some guy just has to stroll over and tell me how his grandpa rode an Indian in The War. If I were to take my ultra-farkled KLR that far, there would be half a dozen guys tell me with a laugh how they love it, and is that a KLR underneath all that farkelation. Take my Moto Guzzi half that far, three people would ask me what model of Harley is that. This V650, tho, with a face only a transformer could love, it goes basically unnoticed. So that will be a great time saver. Don't have to pause to listen to strangers admire.
9) Couldn't go fifteen miles before I had to pull over and yank that effin windshield off. Could not take the buffets. Once you remove it, tho, you get reasinably clean smooth air. Not so smooth as the Scout, but almost as smooth as the KLR. Once I dig in and unbolt the windshield brackets, prolly get even better.
10) Headlight bulb burnt out. So I already have a repair project. Good opportunity to dig around & locate a place down there to connect a USB charger doodad, to charge my phone and tablet under weigh. Jesus I love farkling. That's prolly why I buy bike after bike, more than any reason, is to farkle them.