Oh, the heck with them big rocket bikes I was talking about last week.

[teleforumnoob]

Versys is a cool bike for sure!

I had the VersysX300 for a while. My first bike after a 20 year lay off. The Versys 650 seemed a bit too tall for my 30" inseam and a bit heavy for an old man out on trails by himself. I liked the 300X but I decided pretty quick I was too old for fire roads and gravel and that I needed to stay on pavement. It was fun and practical around towner tho. It also toured pretty well.... except for the hard seat and it being so light & tall with all that fairing and stuff it was kinda tough in a big crosswind wind, and semi backwash was annoying.
So I got rid of it pretty quick and bought a Harley Softail. I still missed having something for around town and shorter sportier rides so I eventually got the RE 650 for that and ride the Harley when comfort is the main thing.

 

[3fngrs]

Years ago, back in St. Paul, Trixie was limping about for at least a week after she had her Yamaha SRX600 kick back at her after attempting a clumsy cold start on the thing.

Her first mistake was to only have her toes on the kick lever, and not solidly centered in the arch of her boot, then she gave it a fairly feeble effort at a kick, and about halfway through her downstroke, the engine fired and jammed the kick lever up, with all of the impressive 'gusto' that a 600 cc single can muster. It banged the front of her foot up in an unnatural angle, and tore up some things in there that shouldn't be torn up. After that, I pretty much bump-started her at the race track.

Man, my old XLCH sportster was a double threat crippler. The gear on the kicker was badly worn and had teeth missing. If it didn't try to throw you over handlebars from kickback it would just kick through with no resistance and hyperextend your knee. I limped the whole time I owned it but I loved the bike.

I'm a big fan of electric starters these days.