Anybody have any ideas for a decent street biased DS tire for the KLX? I've promised Mrs. Stain no more off road till next year and I rode mine for the first time tonight. What a fun little bike - but the big assed knobby tires on it are LOUD and it seems a shame to ruin good knobbies on tarmac...
Why not just use T-63 tires. They're pretty good on the street, and cheap enough. I run K60s for my street oriented tires, but they're pricey unless you're going to do it a lot.
IRC GP-1. I've used them on anything from DR200 to KLR650 and really love them as a "street oriented DS tire". Economical too, not a bargain basement cheap but ecomomical. They last and grip. Mikko
I think maybe you received something other than an XR650L shifter. XR600R or XR650R maybe? Anyway, I recently installed an MSR XR650L shift lever on mine, and it sticks significantly further away from the case than the stock KLX250S lever. In fact I tried a little bit to bend mine closer to the stator cover to close up the gap. And from any pictures I've seen of the MSR XR650L lever installed on the KLX, the situation has been the same...it sticks farther from the stator cover than stock. Whatever the case, I found that it is much easier to shift now than with the OEM lever.
My shifter lever did fit too close or too far out (don't remember which). Put her in the vice and gave a good tug and bent her into submission. She sure is not the soft metal stocker and I do worry a little about breaking the shaft on a crash. The MSR is stiff. Should install a shifter snake. Maybe take TNC advice and check Moose?
Ah, right. It's been a while since I tried that. You're right, the XR650L shift lever stuck out way too far and needed to be bent in. In any case it was unusable as stock, and I couldn't get it to work. If the OEM XR650L shifter is as soft as the one on my XR250R, then it should be a piece of cake to bend.
I use shinko 244s and pretty happy with on/off road performance. They exceed my riding capability on the street. If I were to go more street biased, I would check out the 705s.
Im becoming comfortable enough with my bike now to begin considering taking my camera. (As this is my part time gig.) But I'd rather not have to deal with a backpack, unless I absolutely have to. I was thinking about going with a pelican on a luggage rack. This leaving room on the side to maybe add a gas tank or saddle bags in the future. My question about the Pelican case and luggage rack is two parts really. 1. What rack and Pelican? 2. Can the padding inside a Pelican case absorb enough of the bouncing and vibrations associated with riding offroad and protect my gear? I know the suspension on these bikes make this smoother for the rider, but how much does the rack and case bounce around? I'd be looking to haul around a full body DSLR, 1 maybe 2 lenses, and some other small stuff.
Pelican 1500 case should be adequate and I believe comes with foam. Look at http://www.pmracks.com. Their stuff is nice and I ordered a set for myself. I can't comment on the bouncing, but a pelican with the foam should provide enough protection for camera gear. Good luck.
C-Stain Anybody have any ideas for a decent street biased DS tire for the KLX? I've promised Mrs. Stain no more off road till next year and I rode mine for the first time tonight. What a fun little bike - but the big assed knobby tires on it are LOUD and it seems a shame to ruin good knobbies on tarmac... Another vote for the Shinko244's. Only have about 400 miles on them but got caught in the rain twice. Not as squirly as full knobbies on the street in rain.
Thanks! . Those might just do the trick - I'll check the books at the shop when I'm back on Tuesday - and probably order myself a set.
Just ordered the Bill Blue 351 kit for my 06 that I picked up a few months ago. I recently added the fmf q4 muffler and power bomb header. Also I mounted up the pegs I made. Stock vs new pegs. New ones are 2 3/8" x 3 7/8" made from 3/16 x 1 steel with teeth cut every 3/8 of an inch. I also picked up a kick start kit that I will be installing when I do the 351 big bore kit. I'm going to turn this bike into a short to medium range adventure bike. More to follow in the coming months.
I put Pirelli Scorpion MT/90's on my bike and love them. Here's some more info on them. http://m.kawasakiforums.com/forum/showthread.php?t=38762
I used to have good things to say about the Kenda Trakmaster II's. But the rear tire I put on not too long ago, that has about 300 miles on it, is chunking. Most of the center knobs are starting to tear off. Gonna replace it with a Pirelli MT43. Rob
Thanks for the compliment. I'll be posting up more pictures soon. I'm going to add the kick start kit when I do the 351 big bore kit. It's already a fun bike but the 100 extra cc's should really be a blast.
Well, the whole family has dirt bikes, except ol' Sweetwater...figured this would do well on the trails and be fun in the mountains: I see there's a lot to read here, but the new-to-me bike already got an oil change and a tank flush and fresh 93 octane today. It ran very well when I viewed it this morning, but it had been sitting over a year. Really didn't think it would crank on that old gas, but it did, and you could smell it :eek1 My first lesson in KLXness was laying the bike gently on its left side to get the filter spring back into place during oil change. Worked like a charm and the bike is pleasantly light. My second lesson was that the bar plugs are D E E P! No way to mount my Cycra guards without getting new bars, unless I'm missing something. Any comments on that? I already drilled 2" deep trying to bust plugs out and I even employed the hammer to no avail. New bars wouldn't hurt my feelings since the OEMs are just slightly tweaked by PO.