Bought one back at the end of December, 2010 for a trip to Alaska in the summer of 2011. The trip, June 8th to July 20th, took me from Key West, FL to all the major points up in the great north: Inuvik, NT, Dawson City, YT, Eagle, AK, Deadhorse, AK, Seward, AK, Valdez, AK; just a hair under 15K miles all told. The bike performed flawlessly and was a blast to ride. The ONLY issue that I had was that when I got done with the trip, I noticed that a small amount of oil was seaping around the front fork seals; to be expected though after the amount of abuse that I put on the bike. In retrospect, I should have put on some Seal Skinz or something else to protect those fork seals.

Don't know if it's kosher or not to do this, but if interested, you can read up the ride report I put together while on the road here:

www.tinyurl.com/kw2dh2011

If it's not kosher to do this, let me know and I'll edit this part of the post out.

After all this time and a few bikes i have bought a Versys.
2007 model with 5600 miles on the clock. It was still on the original tyres but totally shot. I imvested in a pair of totally road tyres today.
Pirelli Diablo Rosso 2's.
So far so good, a bit choppy on the rear, i will drop the preload to minimum.
Typical Kawsasaki oversprung and underdamped. Surprisingly nippy and torquey for the size.
A few farkles ready for my European trip
atb Floyd
P.s, needs a better screen

There's another thread in the Kawasaki forum that you might like to read:-
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...s-thread-65709

Even on minimum preload, the shock on my bike was always choppy.

You had one then Dave?
Did you modify it in any way?
Any good farkles to improve the bike?
How many miles did you do on it?
Any problems along the way?
Many thanks Floyd

Floyd
I probably did about 6000 miles before trading the bike.

The link has a post about my views on the Versys; have a read of that and see if you agree with my review - it is quite alright to hold different views and ideas. :innocent:

- for instance, concerning your other post about using sheepskin covers or similar add ons, I found the seat OK for riding 300+ miles per day. Others in that thread have posted about aspects of the bike, but I think we are all agreed that it is a road bike and there is nothing wrong with that.

As a road bike, it doesn't need much in the way of extras - I tended to resist the urge to go out and buy bits for the bike; I might have fitted the footpeg lowering kit that is mentioned in the link, if I had kept it longer.

No one seems to have problems with this bike and it's engine: I had none and it never needed topping up with oil, for instance.

Enjoy!