Kawasaki Forums - Rider Height And Weight

Being we're all a bunch of men here and not ladies I can't imagine we're ashamed to say what we weigh and how tall we are.

I'm just curious because our smaller Asian friends set this bike up from the factory supposedly for a 150 lb. rider. I don't know many riders over the age of 15 that still weigh 150 lbs. Granted usually bikers, espeically off road riders are smaller in stature compared to others but 150 lbs is really small.

It's better to target a middle audience and hit some people right on the nose and have even more people close than to target a small minority (150 lbs) and have only some people on the nose and even less close. For instance if they set the bike up for a 170 lb rider. Anyone who weighs 170 lbs (which would be more people) would be fine and anyone within 10 -15 lbs or so both up and down would be close.

Seems to me if they are sending gawd knows how many bikes to America they would readjust these things. Or at least provide a couple a general setting suggestions in the manual. I say this because some people have no clue how to set their bikes up. An MX bike is easy, and to be honest I don't think you should set this bike up like an MX bike unless your going to be doing 95% off road riding and you have the bike heavily modified because the design of this machine just doesnt sit right at race sag settings. It feels like your being thrown forward.

I am about 6' I think and I weigh.....well, its been a long time since I weighed myself but I'll guess lower 190's lbs. in just my skivvy's without riding gear of course. And for me I have the spring sag set at I think around 11 cm I think. Somewhere around there. Maybe a shave more. And I am 2 clicks softer on compression I believe. And on the forks I THINK I am at 7 clicks out or so. I am going to have to check on all of this to make sure. I plan on turning in the front forks some more. Everytime I hit the front brakes the whole bike kicks forward hard and its dangerous. It takes too much weight off the rear wheel and I can hear the knobs on the rear tire (Kenda trakmaster) scraping on the road. It actually has small tiny chunks taken out of it on a few places. And if I leave off the gas reall quick the engine braking wants to throw the bike forward.

I actually liked the bike the way it was when I got it from the previous owner, which was even softer than stock. He wanted it so it was really low. It was nice having it so soft, and it helped make the bike more stable on the road and helped it hook up off road as well. Combined that with the 12t front sprocket and how some jackass put the exhaust flange on wrong and had a small exhaust leak making the over sized pilot jet (#38) the burn correctly this thing had great bottom end. Zero top end, but great bottom. Anyway, if it weren't for the bike sinking so low it would have been nice to keep it that way but you have to split the difference for being an all purpose and conditions riding machine that this is.

I'm just curious as to what the rest of you guys are running.
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Weed