Wilsons Sandbox

Following the advice from another source, I put a brand spankin new Trailwing 42R tire on the back of my KLR before my trip to BAJA. " Good for Alaska to Baja" was what he said. Even when fairly new, that damned tire was totally useless in sand, no matter how I diddled with the air pressure. In the arayoos, the only flotation I had was my skid plate ... every time I hit flour sand I buried the rear. Maybe KLRs weren't meant to do sand with big boxes full of junk on the back??? On the hiways, I usually ran the rear at 35 PSI . Once I forgot to air back up, and hit the hiway at about 25 PSI. At about 90 MPH, the overloaded rear luggage and low tire pressure combined to send me into a really scary high speed ocillation. That was a valuable learning experience I could have gratefully missed out on. The TRAILWING 42 lasted 3,000 miles before it got so thin I was scared to ride it any more. As I was running home up hwy 101, I asked about a replacement tire at three Kawi shops, one in California, and two in Oregon. All three shops recommended the same tire ... and at $56 US dollars, it was the cheapest one they had too. The tire they recommended was one I'd never heard of before - a "KING" 5.10" X 17". Big, burly, Gnarly lookin thing, with about 3/4" deep tread. Not quite a knobby, but plenty macho. So I bought one and had it installed. First couple of hundred miles as the tire wore in were "interesting", with the rear end having a tendency to sort of go off in it's own direction whenever I hit a crack or some of that notorious "rain grooving". Then it settled in, and I was carving the S curves and racing at full throttle down the straights at 90 - 100 MPH, just like God intended for the KLR. Have about 1,000 miles on this "cheapo" tire so far, and to date I like it. Hasn't rained lately, so I can't say how it is in the mud yet, but it HAS to be better than that TW 42. And on another note, I agree with everything Kawi says about limiting the load on the rear rack to no more than 25 lbs. HOWEVER, I sold my aluminum luggage in California, so was forced to pile EVERYTHING into a couple of soft Kayak duffle bags tied to the rear rack. See the link below for what the bike looked like when I left. http://members.shaw.ca/PierTV/LRS/index.htm After I lost the hard cases, everything in them [ Probably 60 lbs of crap in there, including tools and spare parts] went in to ANOTHER soft bag stacked up below the red one you see in those pictures. And I burned up I5 at speeds of 90 - 100 MPH in my haste to get home, and out of the cold before the frigid freezing rain hit. NO, the rear rack is NOT meant for heavy objects. YES, putting lots of weight up high back there DOES change the handling of the bike. and NOT for the better. But in a pinch, it can be done. PS: I put a one-tooth-smaller sprocket on the front before leaving for BAJA, and ran a one-tooth-larger rear, for a bit more snort in the dirt. But on the run back home on the pavement, I put a 39 tooth sprocket on the rear. This turned out to be just about the perfect combination, as it still allowed me to hit 160 KPH on the flats, but dropped the RPM down to about 6200 instead of close to red line, like it used to be with the standard gearing. PLUS, with my big IMS plastic tank installed, I could go almost forever before needing gas [ cruised until my bladder signalled time out ].