The 650 got its first real taste of mud this weekend and it did great. Also had the first flat out run since the break in. I hit 62MPH in 4x2 on blacktop in very short order.

For those of you familar with Tower City, we were running about 10 miles from there on old railroad beds in Clarks Valley. The mud is thick and sticky and the trails are tight. There were two spots the 650 barely fit through. I had to lock the front diff in the last mud hole, but it pulled through without a pause.

My cousin was driving his Suzuki 250 Quad and he passed on some of the mud holes. I wish I had a picture of the two of us after the run. I was almost mud free, and he was coated front and back. The 650 body certainly helps you stay clean, even in some serious goo. I have to give the Suzuki credit, it is a quick, fast and tough quad. He didn't have the quickness or top end of the 650, but he wasn't falling way behind either. I clocked him at 55mph.

The 650 ride is excellent - smooth as can be. We hit some big downed trees and other objects, and it danced right over them. I'm definately going to put on skid plates and front end protection though. I scraped over a few things. The toughest part of the ride was some of the stream crossings. They have very step sides and drop down from the trail about 3' with old ties along the bank. You have to pop over the first tie and land the front on the tie on the other side. If you don't, it's a good chance you'll stick the front end hard into the stream and it gets worse from there [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-disgusted.gif[/img] . My cousin broke his steering shaft that way in the past. The power of the 650 is nice help on these as you can pop the front end even though you're pointed steeply downhill.

Bottom line - it was a freakin' blast and I'm happy with my purchase! [img]i/expressions/face-icon-small-happy.gif[/img]

 

Glad you like it. We 650 owners post a lot of stuff around here, sometimes the people that own other kawasaki products get sick of it.

These forums are really neat, help from other people can sometimes save you a lot of time and grief. They have good ideas too.

Hottest topics are tires and perf mods, since so many of us get bigger tires and they take power away, we want to put it back so we had as much power as we did with the stock tires.