Off-road skills

They get crazy at The Isle of Man too on the open course. Always a few who don't go home except in a box. Some say that BB is Irish and German.. Plausible deniability!

 

Absolutely agree. Most of the dirt bike riding we did was in south Missouri and while there were some fire roads, there was also a lot of tight technical stuff. We rode on mostly 250's with rarely any need for more weight, a little more power would have been nice, but in reality wasn't actually "needed".

 

With all this agreement on which is the best dirt bike generically speaking, I'm thinking of getting me one of those Honda Trail 90s and a good set of knobbys.

 

LOL ... entire families in Columbia ... dad farts the kid goes flying off the back!

 

There is a guy on the DR forum who takes ridiculous trips on a DR 650. He rode from California to the east coast, put it on a boat, rode all over the UK then off to Paris then south all the way to the tip of Africa............... Then he rode it all the way back. Some crazy photos of his bike especially in Africa. Like crossing rivers on a raft with the bike lying on its side, getting pulled out of mud pits by 1/2 a tribe of locals and other crazy stuff. The motor on them is bullet proof too and parts are easy to find. Only the KLR 650 probably has more around the world miles. The DR is much better than it for off road excursions though.

 

They swim too. Hit a mother of all holes, the wave went over my head. My friend was ahead of me and took a track 12" to the right with no problem. Drained the oil, poured out the water from the header, filled her up and ran it for a few minutes then drained it again and ran it for about 10 minutes then changed the oil again. I was worried that I could have bent a rod from hydrolock but it is fine. Posted up the question on the DR forum if you had dunked you DR. I was astounded by how many guys have put their DR under water and all recovered fine. One guy had submerged his 4 times and he had over 100k miles and was still running fine.
I take it fishing to some hard to get to places.

 

The last pic could be an ad for buying a Honda Lawnmower.

 

I tell you Billy I thought I had really screwed the pooch on that one. But these old thumpers are hard to kill. And at just over 300lbs and not a 200lb pure bred dirt bike, they do really well off road. I saw a guy on one at a super MX coarse I go to. We were all on our dirt bikes on the novice coarse (fairly big jumps but no doubles and mostly tables) and this guy was flying his old DR through the air. He did have his suspension upgraded and the usual performance mods. Very cheap to do on the DR platform. Later that day after we had beat our bodies in paste, 2 guys showed up on adventure bikes. I was waiting for the KTM or BMW to try and hit the MX coarse but they did not. I saw one of the guys later and he had gone to do one of the hare scrambles but gave up. He said he could not pick up the big girl 1 more time. lol

 

I've had a bunch of thumpers of both types. Still have one.

Only about half kidding about that Trail 90. The dudes that ride the big Beemers in events like the Paris-Dakar and its variants are pros. BMWs are not all that heavy generally but if riding one in all kinds of conditions and terrains is being done, being is shape is a good idea.

I think sometimes that the obsession with speed is not well thought out when off roading. One "style" bike for that gets the short end sometimes. Lots of logging roads up in my hood. First order of biz there is to watch out for logging trucks whose drivers are IMO reborn Kamikaze pilots. Seen more than a few bikes that were older trials bikes. Bultacos, Montessas ect., and older enduro bikes with heavier flywheels added.

We could all get rich if we could just come up with the perfect bike for all occasions but I ain't that smart.

 

I had a KTM 640 LC4 LE, I wouldn't say it was horrible off-road....But it wasn't that much fun either. My opinion on the entire DR line is less than favorable (I made the mistake of owning one of those too), but hey, I'm not riding it. One thing about the DR, LC4, KLX bikes is they aren't really great street bikes and they aren't decent off road bikes either. 300 pounds is a lot of weight, especially when you get into any type of sand or rocky single track. You will feel like you did 10 rounds in the octagon at the end of the day. Sure you could build a Dakar replica, but they are 450's now and getting the right parts together is pricey.

 

The DR is not great at anything but a great all arounder. Not as lighht as a KTM 690 but at less than 1/2 the cost a great deal. And parts are available all over the planet, bullet proof and most of all, fun. A friend that lives in Colorado has run KTM's, Hondas, Suzuki's and Yamaha's all through the mountains off and on road. His latest is a Beta 300rr race 2 stroke. Very cool varriable oil injtion motor and fairly light weight.

http://www.motorcycle-usa.com/2016/01/article/2016-beta-300-rr-two-stroke-review/