After a couple of hundred miles on the 690, there are a few things that need to be addressed in order to fully enjoy this awesome dual-sport bike.
First on the list of things to do was to add a RAM mount to the handlebars to hold my phone. I also went ahead and added battery tender lead that, along with the proper adapter, will allow me to plug in my heated jacket liner or 12V power socket.
The next area for improvement was to address comfort. The stock seat is hard and narrow. I don’t expect the seat on a dual-sport bike to be all day comfortable, but I found that the stock seat is only good for about 20 minutes of street riding so there’s certainly room for improvement. I decided to order a seat from Seat Concepts hoping that it would be better than the seat that came on the bike.
The 690 doesn’t come with any kind of windscreen which results in quite a lot of wind pressure on my torso at highway speeds. To address this, I ordered the KTM Powerparts windscreen. The KTM screen is short but I’m hoping it deflects enough air to ease the constant wind blast when riding on the street.
For storage, I ordered a Wolfman Enduro tank bag. The tank bag along with the Wolfman Wolf tail bag should be enough daily use and short day trips. I like to carry a few necessary items such as a small toolkit, a clear windscreen, a sweatshirt, some electronic gadgets and related cords as well as a bottle of water. These two bags should give me enough storage without taking up too much space or adding too much weight.
I’ll post the results of these upgrades once everything arrives and gets installed.
I’ve taken it on some un-maintained dirt roads in a local state park and there’s no doubt that the KTM is better on dirt roads than the Versys. I’m not an experienced off-road rider so I really can’t pinpoint what makes it better. I suspect that the combination of better suspension, traction control, and wheel sizes just add up to a better off road experience. I guess that’s to be expected, after all, the KTM cost more than twice as much as the Versys. 
After leaving the fire tower and getting down the paved road, I headed up another forest service road that indicated that there was a trail that was only open to motorcycles. I got to the trailhead and there were two guys hanging out on the tailgate of their pickup. I asked them if they knew anything about the motorcycle trail and one of the guys jokingly said that if I were to go down that trail, I’d have “the adventure of a lifetime”. He went on to explain that it was a narrow trail with steep drop offs and nowhere to turn around. Even walking the trail was a bit challenging.
The building was a bit difficult to find as it sits atop a hill and the GPS didn’t exactly bring me right to the front door. Once I found it, I was surprised to see one of the coolest buildings I’ve ever seen as I rode into the parking lot. The building has a futuristic military look to it that seems to be something from a sci-fi movie set.
e reasons I chose the Kawasaki Versys was because I wanted a bike that I could take out on some of the less traveled dirt roads found all over the southwest. Over the years, I’ve passed countless dirt roads while riding my full sized touring bikes always wondering where they went. My Harley Ultra Classic and BMW K1600 are definitely not made for travelling on gravel roads or forest service fire roads.
The tires on the Versys are Pirelli Scorpion Trails which are heavily biased toward street riding rather than off-road riding so I’ll be trying to avoid mud and sand for the time being. The bike is also a bit heavy for real off-road or trail riding. While I haven’t tipped it over yet, it’s bound to happen sooner or later and I really don’t want to have to lift it up by myself more than once or twice a day.