Fitting handguards on Kawasaki Versys 650 is not only essentially insurance for your bike, but also a valid safety feature. When you find yourself adventure riding somewhere like Thailand, riding offroad and onroad is fraught with perils.
When you find yourself in the crazy rat race that is traffic in Bangkok, you will find yourself trying to squeeze through cars, trucks, sign posts, really absolutely anything. Now thinking about this, your handle bars are your widest part.
What happens when you misjudge your squeezing or if the car moves and you knock your front brake lever hard. What’s going to happen? Your going to come to a grinding halt and it’s probably going to be unsuspected.
Now to talk about off roading your Versys. Obviously the thought of dropping your bike is not high on the list of things you wish to experience, but as I can attest, there are places you may ride in Thailand where no matter how good a rider you are, your bikes more than likely going to hit the dirt.
Protecting your gear and brake levers from damage should be high on the list, because lets face it you want to be able to ride home.
Choosing what hand guards to fit will leave you scratching your head, there are so many available, with pricing all over the place. Well I’m here to make it a little easier.
Don’t buy the cheap Chinese plastic ones. All they are going to do is look pretty and maybe protect you from a small hit. What you want to be looking for are ones that have a steel or aluminum bar molded into the inside of them such as shown in the photo here.
Now if your living in Thailand, my other suggestion with the pricing being what it is, is to buy local. If you go jumping onto Amazon and importing them yourself, you will be paying Western prices, and also inviting an import duty on them.
By buying locally, your purchasing in a market where the markup’s are lower. The set you see in the photos are Acerbis Hand Guards, here in Thailand they set me back 980THB delivered, which is under $40AUD.
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