on monday i did a 60 mile loop on mostly dirt roads on my suzuki drz-400. it's a pretty un-inspiring bike that does nothing great, but it does most everything ok. it's a big heavy pig though. picking it up ain't fun and i can't imagine picking up a ktm 690 or honda 650 or doing anything more technical than dirt roads with them. i'm 5-7 and ALL these bikes are way too tall. when riding it's no prob. when stopped is when the prob's occur...
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Dirt/dual-sport/enduro motorcycle question
- Thread starter Skunk
- Start date
I’d agree with a cheap woods bike. Around here you can buy yz125s that need a top end and some air in the tires for around 1500.
Play with it, wreck it, keep it around for friends to ride. It’s cheap enough.
Play with it, wreck it, keep it around for friends to ride. It’s cheap enough.
Ahhhh, the old DR-Z. The tractor of dual sports. Versatile, reliable (if maintained), heavy, and a true do all bike.
They don't do anything great, like you said. Get off a real dirt bike and you'll feel like you're riding a moped. Get off a street bike and you feel like you're on a WW2 scout bike. I never understood the guys who rode them, until I had to ride my TE510 about 3 hours to get to the trail system we were riding for the weekend... I got there, stiff as a board, ass sore as hell, couldn't feel my feet or hands (vibration through the bars/pegs from the knobbies), beat already... buddy got off the DR-Z, stretched, and was ready to ride. That soft seat and relaxed riding position sure looked nice, so I traded bikes with him for about 3 hours. He was loving that TE510 so much I told him he could ride it all the way home when we left... sucker!!!
Well I owned a xr650r for years and it is a great bike but heavy and there are better choices out there now.
Riding dirt is a lot different than track riding so your skill level should be a deciding factor for how big/heavy a bike you get.
Bigger bikes mean a easier ride on the highway via more horsepower/less red lining it to get place to place.
Smaller more nimble bike handle the technical stuff much better but are a pain on commuting.
Which bike you get should be a based on a weighted scale on your skill level, how hard of trails you want to ride and if you are doing highway speeds on the road or just back streets.
I have a 2016 Husky 501 that is street legal and does pretty damn good on the trail. Good highway speed but heavy and I won’t take it on some of the medium hard to hard trails.
I also have a 2019 Husky 300i which is the freaking bomb. One of the best bikes I have ever had. It’s light and has a lot of horsepower.
If I were to buy another bike that I wanted to just cruise on and ride the farm, back roads or easier trails I would get the KTM 690.
The Suzuki DR400 is a solid choice for a smaller street legal bike. Had one for the back of my rv for years and it rocked.
Riding dirt is a lot different than track riding so your skill level should be a deciding factor for how big/heavy a bike you get.
Bigger bikes mean a easier ride on the highway via more horsepower/less red lining it to get place to place.
Smaller more nimble bike handle the technical stuff much better but are a pain on commuting.
Which bike you get should be a based on a weighted scale on your skill level, how hard of trails you want to ride and if you are doing highway speeds on the road or just back streets.
I have a 2016 Husky 501 that is street legal and does pretty damn good on the trail. Good highway speed but heavy and I won’t take it on some of the medium hard to hard trails.
I also have a 2019 Husky 300i which is the freaking bomb. One of the best bikes I have ever had. It’s light and has a lot of horsepower.
If I were to buy another bike that I wanted to just cruise on and ride the farm, back roads or easier trails I would get the KTM 690.
The Suzuki DR400 is a solid choice for a smaller street legal bike. Had one for the back of my rv for years and it rocked.
I was surprised as anyone how far I could get on these tires. This has been a great 'explorer' and handles both dirt and asphalt well.
You don't go to many scrambles/enduros do you? It's a sea of Orange and now White/Blue (Husky). I agree that all bikes can be equal, just from my experience you'll spend a lot more time and money getting the Japanese brands to the level that a stock KTM sits at on the showroom floor. You could build a bench gun from a Savage Axis, but it's probably not the best place to start.
I do and I know.
My perspective is from 10 years in the industry, racing, running a race team, owning KTM, Beta and as well as Japanese bikes. I do agree at one point KTM's did come set up with better components, disagree strongly that they still do.
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While what you're saying is true, how many guys are hare scramble riders, or GNCC riders? Not many...
The Japanese bikes are 90% as good, easier to maintain, and upgrade-able as are any others.
If you're capable enough to squeeze the extra performance out of a top-tier bike, grab one. Most guys are going to have a tougher time learning, and enjoying, a big bore, high performance, expensive machine to start. Its like giving a 16 year old a Viper as a first car... it's gonna bite him in short order...
Suggesting KTM or Husky are the only bikes worth buying is like saying everyone should start out with an AI in 338LM. Sure, its a great performer, but for a guy who's new, and on a budget, there's options that are much more fitting, and less painful... though I wouldn't stoop to a Savage! Haha.
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Good points. I was looking at things from a performance standpoint. After I started racing I was never able to "turn it off."
There are many great options. One the XR650 note that there's an XR650L, which is based on an early 1980s air cooled XR platform. It's street legal from the factory in the US, and a good, but heavy all-around dual sport. There's also an XR650R which is liquid cooled, aluminum frame, and is overall much more capable off road. It is not street legal from the factory in the US, but is easily made street legal in most states. It's basically indestructible and highly capable, but still heavy, old-school machinery that takes a certain type of rider to appreciate. I once bought a used one off craigslist, threw in the bed of my truck, unloaded it at the start of Vegas to Reno, and rode it with no pit support in the iron man class to 5th overall. I then bummed around mexico on it for a few weeks, wondered around UT and CO, and it never missed a beat. The thing is highly versatile and possibly the most reliable bike ever made. It's big, heavy, kick-start-only, and a bit of a beast to ride though. Not what I'd suggest for your first machine.
All that said a 300lbs XR650 is not the easiest way to learn how to ride in the dirt. I'd honestly skip the dual sport idea at first and go straight for a dirt bike. They'll be lighter, much less fragile, and you can run full knobbies which have more grip and are more predictable than any tire you'd run on the street. IMO the best all-around off road bikes right now are the 2017 and newer FX350 and TX300 husqvarnas and their orange counterparts. They do everything well and are so easy to ride it's like cheating. The price is not all that different from Japanese bikes if you are looking at newer machines.
The Japanese largely gave up making competitive off road bikes in the early 2000s. They are semi-competitive in the 450 off road class recently (Honda and Yamaha anyway). I rode and raced Japanese bikes for a couple decades, but they've abandoned the off road world. The Austrian machines are where it's at now. They made a huge leap forward in 2017 and left everyone in the dust from that point forward.
For a totally unconventional, but super effective and fun approach consider riding trials for a year or two to build technical skills. This won't make you fast off road, but it'll make it so you can ride anything and everything. It's also nearly impossible to really hurt yourself in trials (at least until you get to the really advanced stuff which you needn't worry about for years).
Anyhow, I've been riding and racing off road for almost 30 years and have done everything from trials to desert to supercross. Feel free to shoot me a pm if you'd like more specific info or want to hop on the phone.
All that said a 300lbs XR650 is not the easiest way to learn how to ride in the dirt. I'd honestly skip the dual sport idea at first and go straight for a dirt bike. They'll be lighter, much less fragile, and you can run full knobbies which have more grip and are more predictable than any tire you'd run on the street. IMO the best all-around off road bikes right now are the 2017 and newer FX350 and TX300 husqvarnas and their orange counterparts. They do everything well and are so easy to ride it's like cheating. The price is not all that different from Japanese bikes if you are looking at newer machines.
The Japanese largely gave up making competitive off road bikes in the early 2000s. They are semi-competitive in the 450 off road class recently (Honda and Yamaha anyway). I rode and raced Japanese bikes for a couple decades, but they've abandoned the off road world. The Austrian machines are where it's at now. They made a huge leap forward in 2017 and left everyone in the dust from that point forward.
For a totally unconventional, but super effective and fun approach consider riding trials for a year or two to build technical skills. This won't make you fast off road, but it'll make it so you can ride anything and everything. It's also nearly impossible to really hurt yourself in trials (at least until you get to the really advanced stuff which you needn't worry about for years).
Anyhow, I've been riding and racing off road for almost 30 years and have done everything from trials to desert to supercross. Feel free to shoot me a pm if you'd like more specific info or want to hop on the phone.
One more note on dirt bike lingo that I probably should have clarified, "off road" means natural terrain racing (hare scrambled, gncc, desert, Enduro), MX means motocross, SX means supercross, trials means observed trials (not trails misspelled
).
As I'm sure you've gathered, dirt bikes are massive fun and you are in for a great time! I also do street bikes and they are fun but dirt is imo even more fun!
). As I'm sure you've gathered, dirt bikes are massive fun and you are in for a great time! I also do street bikes and they are fun but dirt is imo even more fun!
A few gratuitous moto pics for inspiration. For reference the blue and white bike is a '19 TX300, the red bike in the air is an '01 Honda CR250R and the red bike on the ground is an XR650R. The trials bike is a '01 Montessa 315R.
