Tell me whats improved with adding a fork brace.
I ride on a lot of pothole-ridden streets, and found the fork brace helped stabilize the front end significantly. It's not a panacea, but the bike handles, and recovers from, potholes quicker and more stably, now — which especially helps on longer stretches of multiple potholes.
Others have noted they feel it improves handling at highway speeds in windy conditions, but I've never noticed a difference in that situation.
My 2015 DL650 was fine without it, but I appreciate the incremental improvement and found it well worth the $70-80. That said, I only got the fork brace* after a variety of other improvements more important to me: all my riding gear, luggage, windscreen, mirror extenders*, sidestand foot*, footpeg lowering kit*, over-the-dash GPS mount*, aux low* and high-beam lights, aux brake light, crash bars, heated grips, handlebar muffs, and more.
All * items above (and more) are available from
Adventuretech. If you have the budget, might was well save on shipping and also get a bunch of stuff at the same time if you think you'll eventually want it.
Try the mirror extenders before swapping the mirrors themselves. I grew quite fond ot the OEM mirrors, but didn't want to spend the cash since I seem to break the left-side ball joint regularly (i.e. twice) under normal use. Here's a
short mirror post on the shockingly cheapo Emgo Mark II (my preference, but fugly) and Tuono mirrors (a common swap, both OEM and knockoff — the latter with mixed results).
, lower cowl, hand guards, engine (crash) guards, centre stand. I love it, does everything you need imo. Enjoy yours!!
