So, the wife and I spent the last week in SoCa riding a few scoots and thought I'd post some of my wife's comments regarding Frankie (that's what she calls her CRF250L). So, lets start with the name. After a day of riding, she decieded to name her new CRF250L Frankie. She names all her bikes for some reason. "Frankie" is the nick name for Franklin, the turtle. The bike is slow... quite slow. The first day or riding was on the 4x4 roads in Joshua Tree National Park. The first hour was spent riding on deep, sandy roads and the CRF was a pig. I'd stop to wait for her, and I could hear her coming with a plathora of verbage comming from her about Frankie and the damn sand (which also speaks to how quite this bike is). It was difficult to get the bike up to speed in the deep sandy roads, and even at speed, it's all over the place. I actually gave Frankie a quick ride and could not get off the bike soon enough. Ug!!! I think she went down twice in the sand. /shrug The good news is, when the sand turned to hard pack, and then rocky terrain, the bike began to shine. More than enough torque to climb, dip, and cut through the double track stuff and the bike was quite stable. Rebound and dampening was quite poor out back and I think she described the rear suspension as "similar to a pogo stick", but it was acceptable. Once back on the tarmac, the bike was adaquate again. Cornered well enough, accellerated well enough... "This bike is the little engine that could" was her overall comment regarding her day on Frankie. We then spent a few days at Ocotillo Wells and the wife road "Pumpkin". Pumpkin is a KTM 200 XC. Her only real comment was "No way I could have had fun on Frankie here". It's quite sandy, and lots of whoops. The weight, lack of power, and suspension would have made life miserable. However, she definitely feels that Frankie would perform well back home on our quad trails if it's not muddy and fears no reasonable hill. Again, Frankie is the "little engine that could". Frankie is basically stock, with the exception of hand guards and a 13 tooth CS. I believe the stock exhaust and battery are next on her plans to replace, mostly for the weight savings. She also removed the rear passenger pegs within about 2 hours of bringing Frankie home. Based on my little seat time and all her feedback, I'd say you can sum this bike up best by saying it's a novice bike that is a great intro to dirt and great city commuter bike. We even discussed using the bike as a dual sport bike and how it would perform from here (Calgary, AB) to Bolivia. We will give it a summer and if things continue to go well with Frankie, I may pick up a second one for myself and start riding south towards the southern most parts of South America next year. Cheers! Taurk
Do yourself a favor and go with a better helmet than the AFX-41 I started out last year with a AFX-39. Decent helmet for the price. Went with the AFX-41 next. What a piece of shit! Quality was way worse than the 39. The drop down tinted visor was neat for about an hour, but can't see it lasting to long. Decided my head/brain/life was worth more than a $130 helmet could provide. Enter the Arai XD-4. Wow! I'll never buy a cheap helmet again. Boots- Check out the Forma Adventure boots! Love them! Like wearing a pair of tennis shows. Super light! Warning: Not for extreme Motocross riding, great for Adventure/street/trails!
Do your wife a favor, get some better tires than the stock ones for anything off-road. Best mod ever for the LRP.
+ 1. Not really a lot of protection, but better than many adventure boots I've seen or owned. They are also water proof which is the main reason we wear them. Based on experience, I'd still recommend motocross boots for trails though.
I've a new set of Michelin S-12 front and backs that I was going to thrown on one of my bikes but told her on the way home they were hers.
Even the un-loved Kenda TM II are better than stock. Second best mod ever was a front 13T. Actually, best mod ever was skid plat the first time I hit rock That and hand guards.
Haha. Skid plate and hand guards are covered too. I came home from work and she was bolting on a Emperor skid plate. Within the first 30 minutes riding the bike, she commented that the plate had already likely saved her case and sure enough, BIG scrape on the bottom of the plate.
Key point here - been in the industry of motorcycles for more than 30 years, I knew then as was proven by Dr David Thom and Motorcyclist - any current name helmet (yes AFX and Fly are both name helmets) is offering great protection. The lower priced ones showed better in shock transfer than the Snell helmets. Really pissed off Arai and Shoei at the time and Snell finally pulled their heads out of their butts and realized motorcycle helmets do not have the same kind of impacts as auto helmets and that different head sizes require different levels of impact requirements due to different mass. Suffice it to say any AFX will protect as well as any Arai. From there it is purely up to the rider to decide if they get a better fit or finish or features from any specific brand. We knew that in the late 80s and it is still true today. Most of those lower cost DOT helmets will easily meet the current Snell standards, but it's not worth the extra cost since the market for them really isn't that heavily influenced by Snell certification. Once they started painting the polycarbonate helmets they easily could meet Snell standards, since the only one they ever had problems with was the solvent exposure test. In a rather humorous side note, in the 80s when Bell helmet came out with their "If you have a $10 head, buy a $10 dollar helmet" ad, they were currently making a private labeled polycarbonate helmet for Vetter, had the Bell name on the strap. It was the least expensive name helmet we could buy at the time and sold for $49! If Bell had any doubt about safety they never would have made or marketed the Vetter. It was a dead ringer for the Bell Star and could use the same face shields. The off roader was the same as the Moto 3 or 4, I forget which. They were superlight. I personally plan to eventually shell out for the Arai because it fits and I like the shape, but until then I have no qualms about wearing my Joe Rocket dual sport helmet or my polycarbonate HJC street helmet in spite of their sub-$150 prices. Don't confuse safety with cost. Fit is most important. I wear glasses too and use prescription glasses and sunglasses along with OTG Oakley L Frames, Scott makes OTGs too, when riding with my MX helmet. It only takes about a minute to change out of either pair of glasses and I do fine up until dark even with my extremely dark tinted 'scrip sunglasses. No problems with the dual sport helmet where I have 'script wrap around sunglasses with gasket around inside to ride with the visor up.
Can anyone recommend a place to buy an exhaust? Was looking for FMF Q4 with the megabomb and EJK EFI controller. I know how to google but was just looking for a reliable company. Gracias!!!
I got the emperor plate also and love it. One suggestion if I may, get the rad protector also, cheap insurance. Ask me why I say that
Can I do that?.......so why? Just curious First mod that I done on mine was the skid plate and zeta handguards. Really glad I done that after only 2 days I bought the CRF. I saved the levers and a lot of promising scratches on the frame and maybe a broken water pump.
Highway shoulder rumble strip + bike not sufficiently tied down (fear of blowing fork seals) = bike taking a dive of trailer. Also cost me a turn signal. I am in the market for a wheel chock ...
I use one of these and they work fantastic !!! Standard size fits larger motorcycles with 11 inches or more of travel. Mini size fits smaller bikes and minis. Check your clearance for proper fitment.
The old fork seal blown from tie down is a myth. We've hauled bikes to Daytona 23 hours tied down tight, no blown seals. Think about it... they are held in place by a lock ring, they can take coming down from a 20 ft jump HARD without blowing, why would they blow out when simply tied down less than full travel. Fact is they would literally have to blow inside out, which is nigh impossible. As there is more pressure, the air forces the seal against the fork leg tighter, sealing tighter and the seal is usually reinforced inside with a metal cup, so what's gonna blow? In my over 45 years of being around bikes I've never seen the seal blown by tying down. I have seen seals go bad due to small stone nicks in the tubing, had it happen on one of mine. That is why seals will leak, nicks or junk in them that cause them to leak. If they leaked after a trailering, my bet would be that the seal got cut by some hardened fly guts on the stanchion tube or a stone nick in the tube that finally got cut far enough to leak and it just happened to show after trailering the bike. Just killing off an old myth... I did a chock like the illustration above, but the wheel moved enough to move it out of position. I went back to just tying it down the usual way I have for the past 45 years. My reason for trying the chock was to try to take the spring suspension out of the formula, fix it tight. Didn't work for me in the back of the pickup. I'm going to the $29.95 rocker type chock on sale at Harbor Freight. I have one on the lift and it almost holds the bike upright without tie downs, so with tie downs I am absolutely not concerned with movement. I needed to do something for the enclosed trailer and that is it. I'll still cinch down tight, but not as tight since the wheel won't move.
A friend left here with good fork seal the arrived in moab a day and a half later with a leaky fork on a ktm. I still crank down on mine like it owes me money. Been doing it for 15 years now and haven't lost a bike or fork seal yet.
<iframe width="560" height="315" src="https://www.youtube.com/embed/o4CZ4iozmos" frameborder="0" allowfullscreen></iframe> This does the same thing and was free.
Holy crap is it summer yet? Stupid Ohio winters. On a side note, I'm thinking of doing the 283 big bore kit. Does anyone have any real world reading on it? I bought the 250L for its reliability and ease of maintenance so I'd like to keep it nice, reliable and simple. The 305 scares me a bit. I've already got the ejk fuel controller so I can get that reprogrammed for the 283. Just wondering if anyone's ran it for a period and had good luck with it. Thanks.
You want to keep your bike reliable and not want to have to rebuild it often, no want it to leave you stranded in the side of the road, leave it as it is... The big bore kit is problematic and unreliable. More suitable for racers that don't go anywhere except around the track, and don't mind having to do major engine work often. There are a lot of reports out there with severe problems with this mod, they always have an excuse as to why it failed - But the only thing that will matter to you is they do fail, quite often... I like power as much as anyone, but its not worth the risk for me. You might get lucky, but if reliability of the bike is important, and you don't want to have to trailer it home when it does size up, etc, the big bore would be a bad choice. I like seeing the bike inside the house, exactly where any dedicated biker would keep his motorcycle Mike
Yeah I figured big bore kits would make it less reliable. Just stinks cause it's kind of slow and the way I have it geared (13/40) I can't really take it on the highway if I need to. I guess that means I'll just have to get another bike for that type of riding. I've got my eye on the new FZ-07.