Martin- All wise words. And like most wise words, they invite further questions! 2. Gearing: Been running a 14 front sprocket since I bought it. Seem a 13 would make for some pretty buzzy freeway riding. With the 14/43 I'm already at 5000 going an actual 65 in fifth. I may have to settle for the 14, since I'm on the slab a fair amount. Suspension: Your advice to use the money on a smaller bike is too late: There's a Progressive shorty on the back, and progressive springs in front, with whatever the standard weight oil is. I bought some Intimators two years ago then forgot I had 'em. Should I install them, with the recommended 5w oil? Should I learn to adjust the shock for dirt? I will air down next time out, and bring my mini foot pump. Thanks! -JW
On Aug 2, 2014, at 7:18 PM, Martin Earl wrote:
JW- I just finished riding nearly 1200 miles of Black Hills canyons, trails, fire roads, and mental 'trials' and offer a few suggestions and insights from 11 years of heavy duty KLR riding and most importantly, comparing the KLR to a couple of more suitable platforms. I will tell you, I love my KLR Pig; but it is not suitable for every task I have set before me.
I am going to suggest some things that work for me...what works for you might be slightly different, but I will suggest, they will work for you if we are riding similar circumstances. also, I have the good fortune to select between 3, very different bikes, and the better fortune to be able to share these machines with others to improve their skills. (I buy used, and watch for exceptional values.) I will say, almost without exception-- The KLR650 is not a good bike to learn dirt riding techniques.
There are however, a couple of things you can do to improve your off-road riding skills 1. I would invite you to do your learning on a smaller, lighter weight machine. I have sponsored numerous KLR650 visitors at my house; some were invited to start on a Honda 100 in an ORV park. You would be amazed what you could learn on a Honda 100 in 3 hours of dirt riding. Presently, some are (usually) invited to ride the DRZ400 or KLX250 and chase me on the KLR 650 while I introduce to them trails that are familiar to me...I find that very soon, they are riding a 2x the speed I am able to ride my well equipped KLR650. Such was the case of Phillip and Criz last week. I could not keep up with them! My own younger brothers have come to the Black Hills the past three summers and rode my dirt bikes; m2 and m3 now both own very nice KLR's. Both these 'little bikes', by the way, have fully tune-able suspensions, and set 'way-soft' for the purpose of riding over rocks, ruts, etc. Note: the KLR does NOT have tune-able suspension and if you drink enough KLR Kool-Aid, (Yes, Virginia, I also bought without regret, by the truck load) your bike is also probably not properly tuned to ride where you have been lately. Sadly, you have to pick and choose what you want to ride, and tune accordingly. The bike I 'built' to ride prairie trails of gumbo and gravel is not the proper bike to ride intermediate level jeep trails. = my new favorite pastime.
One favorite trail is called Bull Dog Canyon; it takes 1+20m in the jeep; last week, AJ riding a KTM690 and I riding a KLX250 rode it in 27 minutes; probably would take closer to 40 minutes on the KLR650 the way it is presently tuned. Both Phillip and Criz rode it on the 400 and the 250, and both would admit they were glad they were NOT on a 650. shrug.
2. Std OEM gearing (15/43) on the KLR makes it more difficult than necessary to ride trails, for all but those who are super talented. (yeah, slip the clutch is overrated after you have stalled/dirt-napped numerous times. yawn, yawn, yawn to those that happen to disagree. shrug)
Which brings me to a different subject...my two KLR650's are presently 'overtuned' to ride trails. = progressive F/R springs; perfect for canyon carving but not enough flex in the suspension to ride trails at 3-20mph. They are however, perfectly tuned to ride gravel roads at the speed of heat, flow smoothly over washboards, and are pure joy while canyon carving; wonderfully so, but suck, when going down a trail with softball to volley ball sized rocks to ride over and around. Doable, of course, but man, it is a workout. However, both bikes are geared/sprocketed at 14/46 (108 link chain) and gives the KLR tractor like characteristics; 16/46 when I want to go some where at a faster rate. Note: you will experience an increase of ~800rpms when moving from a 15 to 13T sprocket to achieve the lower gear ratio. These numbers have been posted/discussed a number of times over the past 11 years.
I suspect your bike has some of the trick stuff that many believe are 'must-have' but what I have come to experience and believe, are not particularly useful in all situations. ie Killing the 'brake-dive' by adding stiffer springs and heavier oil is NOT useful if riding the bike on trails What you can do to your bike: If your rear is a 43T, add a 13T to the front for the same tractor like performance as I am experiencing with 14/46. (Fred has 13 T sprockets; I know, I bought 3, two weeks ago.)
The number one, cheapest thing you can do is be at the right tire pressure! I ride the KLR bike at 14F/15R air pressures (Kenda 270) on rocky trails, but try very hard NOT to hit a rock/small rock shelf faster than 20mph, much slower if the shelf is more than 2". Many suggest that ultra heavy duty tubes help alleviate pinch flats with the lower tire pressures.
At (nearly) age 60, the 650 is more of a challenge than I would like to admit...so I won't. wink. When I am going to ride anything 'hard', I ride a KLX250; which riding little bike, will teach you a lot.
3. Find a riding partner that is experienced, I say again, experience, not just stupid-fast and follow them around. Darwinism will weed those stupid-fast guys out; make sure you are NOT following 'that guy' on the day his name is called up yonder.
I recently read a guy believed he had 27 years of riding experience; after some remedial training (perhaps a track day) admitted he did not have '27' years of experience, rather, 1 year of experience 27 times. Gain another year of experience following someone that is better than you, rather than repeating your own one year of experience 27 times. Now, I didn't say it, or write the preceding phrase, but I did start riding with two dual-sport geezers age 69 and 72 who had years of competitive enduro riding experience. (Both these guys want me to air down to 11/12psi but I dare not! I do ride the smaller/lighter bikes at lowere tire pressures; the KLX rimlocks, the DRZ does not!) I will say, Following them around jumped my 'skill' set higher than I would have ever imagined...and it was because they 'first' allowed me to borrow a DR350 and follow them around for a day. (This is after I sold a perfectly good KLR250 and a like new KLX300, because I could not find anyone to ride with!)
Parting thoughts: Riding with my geezer friends, it let me know very quickly (again), the KLR650 has some very strict limitations that cannot be overcome (very often) with money or determination, at least at this time in my life. There are those superstars that can ride this wonder PIG under almost any circumstances, of which, I am not. shrug. I have concluded, It must be why God made the (sic) KLX250 and the DRZ400.
For myself, After my Aug/Sept trip, I will detune one KLR bike back to std F/R springs for better trail characteristics, knowing it will have some serious limitation when it is time to take it canyon carving. But, For one hour of maintenance, the springs can be moved in and out of the front forks and the oil changed. As a side bar comment, I also have a spare set of wheels skinned w/Dunlop 607 90/10 tires which I dearly love for paved only days of canyon carving...of which have been off and on the bike twice this year and will go back on by next weekend!
For the rear suspension, one of those trick rear shocks will allow you to make other subtle adjustments to the KLR suspension; unfortunately, that will cost N of 5 Ben Franklins, which I personally believe you should spend on buying a KLX250; at least that is the choice I have made.
revmaaatin.
On Sat, Aug 2, 2014 at 1:52 PM, jwflower53@... [DSN_KLR650] DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com> wrote:
A few weeks ago I low-sided the A13 on a dirt road. I have very little dirt time, and the combination of steepish downhill, sharpish curve, and reverse camber was a bit too much. The armor did its job for me, but the bike went down pretty hard. I m hoping for some advice on repairs and improvements. 1. Front end got tweaked. Getting home I had to steer right to go straight, but the forks seemed to be sliding ok. My general plan is to loosen the triple clamps and fork brace a little, then tweak it back straight. I have no detailed plan. F instance, I m not sure whether the wheel should be on the floor or in the air, or how to make sure the forks didn t bend other than checking how easily they slide. 2. On pavement I use 24 and 32 psi in my Avon M24 Gripsters. I d lowered that to 20/28 before I crashed. Would making them even softer help? I have a tiny foot pump I could bring to air up for the trip home. 3. I m considering switching tires. I ve only ever used the Avons, which I guess are an 80:20 street:dirt ratio. I m wondering what tires would still be ok on pavement but grip a bit better on the dirt roads. 3. Anyone have ideas about a good headlight bulb? 4. There s a plastic piece damaged that I can t find in the Kawa or Clymer manuals, or even in the parts blowups (
bikebandit.com is where I look at those). They re the wings that join to the front edge of the gas tank. The left one covers the radiator and the right one covers the holding tank and the electrical parts behind it. The plastic mounting tab on the right wing is bent, not broken at all, but I can see by the lighter color of the plastic that it was stressed. Anyone tried bending the plastic tabs back? Using heat, maybe? I could actually just leave it that way; it stayed attached in the crash, though it was pushed about 1/8 out of flush with the surface of the gas tank. 5. Last but not least, can anyone recommend a good beginner s video about to ride dirt?
Any tips appreciated- James
I used to do a headlight relay and ground circuit modification because it improves the headlight to the point where the headlight is about the same for a not running bike as for an unmodified bike with engine running. I'm now doing mainly HID conversions because this reduces headlight current draw from about 4-1/2 amps for the stock bulb to about 2.4 amps. The light output from a 35 Watt HID resembles that of a 100 Watt quartz bulb, IME. The extra 2+ amps comes in handy on a KLR. An HID can be obtained off EBay or similar sources for less than $30.00 Happy to provide details for the relay and ground upgrade but in a nutshell: As for the relays: I use two Bosch type relays and prefer separate power leads from the starter relay, each through its own fuse. This separates the headlight supply as much as is possible to increase safety. I use a male type headlight plug into the original headlight plug to trigger the relays, ignoring the ground because the relays do not require grounding in this manner. A tie wrap holds the plugs together to insure no separation. A female headlight plug connects the output from the two relays and provides for a 14 gauge ground wire to a 6 mm frame bolt near the steering head. This ground removes about 3/4 volt of drop from the ground side of the headlight wiring. The magnetic coil windings from both relays share a ground wire which runs back to the starter cable side of the starter relay. This connection causes the relays to open when the starter is operating which removes the headlight load from the starting drain on the battery. HIH NOrm