Shake, rattle & roll

I collected my sw-t 600 10 days ago, good weather since a week here now in Belgium, so things couldn't be better...
But... our national and secondary roads here are in very bad condition (not the motorways, they're ok). I was aware of that, we all are here. But on a motorbike, I get to know how bad they really are!
In fact, on half the roads I used these past 10 days, it's no fun at all to ride the bike. The bike shakes and rattles over all these potholes and poorly repaired patches of tarmac. 
The OEM Bridgestone Hoop tyres are new enough (3000 miles), 2 bar front tyre, 2,4 back tyre.
My question is, is there something I could do or change to digest these bad roads a bit better? 
I'd love to get some advice on this one here.

The only thing I could suggest would be to find different roads.

I went on a ride with friends the other day and we got on a stretch of road that just beat us all to death. I had the only SWing and the others had "Real" motorcycles. It didn't matter what was being ridden either. The road didn't look bad with potholes or anything like that but it was like running over a series of 2X4 lumber spaced at about 25 feet or so. It went on like that for about 10 miles then we turned off on another road and it got smooth again.

A couple of things to help with the ride would be to reduce the tension on the suspension spring as far as you can go without causing it to bottom out. Carrying the air pressure in the tires toward the low end of recommendations will help also. Rough roads are literally a pain in the but.
Sometimes you can get a better ride by going a bit faster. On washboard roads higher speeds will ten to cause the tires ride on the tops of the bumps rather than traveling all the way up and down over them. I've ridden on some roads in Baja California that were very badly wash boarded. We could ride at less than 5mph or go around 40mph but anything in between was very rough.

If the roads are bad it would not matter whether you were on two wheels or four. There is no solution, other than get a hovercraft.

I grew up in Europe, have been back there may times and remember the roads being awfully narrow. But I cannot remember even the local roads being in such a terrible state. We do complain about our roads here in Oz, but maybe we are just spoiled.

gremlin wrote:

I grew up in Europe, have been back there may times and remember the roads being awfully narrow. But I cannot remember even the local roads being in such a terrible state.  We do complain about our roads here in Oz, but maybe we are just spoiled.

Nah mate - we've got some pretty crap roads here. Problem being the size of the country vs the size of the population to pay for the build and maintenance. Chuck in the occasional flood and lots of semis and road trains hammering the hell out of them and that's what happens.

PeterC wrote:

Nah mate - we've got some pretty crap roads here.  Problem being the size of the country vs the size of the population to pay for the build and maintenance.  Chuck in the occasional flood and lots of semis and road trains hammering the hell out of them and that's what happens.

Surely not as bad as what Eduardo writes about:

In fact, on half the roads I used these past 10 days, it's no fun at all to ride the bike. The bike shakes and rattles over all these potholes and poorly repaired patches of tarmac.

And if they are that bad in Victoria, it is about time you moved up to the Sunshine State. If they won't let you in, I promise I will put in a good word for you

Heading your way in July & August with van in tow behind my 4WD...joining the flood of winter refugees from the south. Our first extended road trip using up some Long Service Leave. And for what it's worth we lived on the Gold Coast for 3.5 years back in the early 90's and got sick of the constantly beautiful weather. Needed to experience autumn and spring again [but not winter].

I've ridden the same roads on my S wing as I did on my other bikes, including one rough / patchy street that's nice and winding with some elevation change
The XS1100 (standard) handled them best, the Ninja 500 (sport / standard) was next in line, the S40 (small cruiser) was pretty bad as far as transmitting big wangs to your spine, and the S wing bottoms the forks and rear end pretty easily
I think if I had to ride that road a lot I'd look into a dual sport, I've ridden those on some nasty roads in the past, and they beat all others for rough road riding
the Swing is better for motorways though

Recently I have a heck of a rattle on rough roads. I traced it to a loose front fender, one side. Ill tighten it and cross fingers it isn't cracked.