I'm wondering how many people dualsport on a 2stroke? I have a 08 KTM 300 exc, I'v been been thinking about licenscing and using as a dualsport. Instead of buying a new bike. Any ideas would be appreciated.
300exc is grate off road, but after a wile on road life starts to suck. To duel sport an 300exc all depends on how much tar you are planing to ride. So the million dollar question is what amount of tar are you going to ride?
More fun than you can shake a stick at, riding in "Plate Only" areas in the open desert .. No fun on the road, as all it does is try to get your license taken away and you thrown in jail.. (especially here in California) ever try to ride a 550CC Ported 2 stroke at 30mph city speeds?! I have always said people need more than one dualsport. You need your 990 / GS size for 98% pave, and the occasional jaunt down nice dirt need your 640 KTM adventure need your Plated Kx500 and a Plated XR200 (In my case a XR100) if the KTM is going to be your only dualsport and you use it for more than jsut connecting dirt... you will hate life. go buy a 570 Berg
Good looking KX ! A buddy of mine has a KX500 he's rebuilt and using it to ride enduros,hopefully he has enough power to climb the hills here,LOL
Back to the OP. Nice KX BTW. Back in the day the companies built just such bikes with autolube, long gearing and all street gear. The big problem of MIXING gas/oil did not exist. For EPA reasons these ceased to exist due to emissions. Hopefully they will come back someday (Husky 300???). The other problem that you have with 2 strokes is the really poor fuel mileage that even pretty large gas tanks don't fix very well. You can ride a properly jetted 2 stk on the street just fine and if geared correctly and running in midrange they are smooth enough. As long as you are only riding short distances like 20 miles there is no problem. Just don't do this at full throttle! Of course you would not run a 4 stroke like that either. Watch for that Husky 300. Supposedly lo-emissions ,autolube and good fuel mileage may be back on a 2t.
I have been running a 2T DS bike as my sole means of transportation for 1.5 years now. The only issue I had was a mechanical failure of the power valve. As stated above, as long as your jetting is on and your gearing is right for the style of riding you are doing, it is fine. Here is the 1991 Suzuki TS 200 that I have been riding. It was a factory 2T that was brought into Canada for three years: And here it is on a trip that we did last year. This was the trip where it ate the power valve. Nothing I could do to prepare it for that: Oh ya, and before the TS 200 I was running a 1979 TS 250 dual sport: But since the power valve went in the TS 200, it was going to be very expensive to repar, so a friend and myself modified it and I put in a KTM 250 EXC engine: Now it has more power and is way simpler in it's design. And if you are interested to see how the build of the TS 200 went to make it in to a TS 250 KSM, here is a video I made up of the build: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UxFqySg0L6A Oh ya, and that KX is very nice. In Supermoto form it looks very fun. I would love to get some extra rims and run some street tires here and there just for fun. Thanks,
Go for it..... As all things in life it is all about compromise. Gearing and Jetting are your main considerations. Street gearing for the 300 would be 14/42..... dirt 14/50, so find the happy spot in there that works for you. Myself I am going to try 15/50 today. I have put on about 80 000km of Dualsport mileage using 2T bikes ('89 DT200's and KTM300's) and have never had a issue other than missing the ideal jetting mark on occasion. These motors perform flawlessly and if it does go wrong are super cheap and easy to fix. Never will I own a 4T...just despise there complicatedness and weight. Beside I want to ride ....not work on them. Plate that 300 and join the 2T DS crowd...
An 300 ktm would be okay as long as you go light and don't plan on doing a lot of road riding. Gearing won't be a problem for him because the 300 exc or xc-w has a very wide ratio gearbox.
"don't plan on doing a lot of road riding":huh Why????? The bike will travel forever on the roads....put 14/42 gearing on and off you go...oh and pull the rim locks and/or balance the wheels....now go slay some twisties....wait lets add some supermoto rims and rubber....now we just killed the street with a insane ride Do some urban assault...oh yah... let the fun begin....watch out for them coppers though It's not the bike that is of issue, it is the rider and whether he/she wants to do it. Again all about compromise......... And gearing is a problem....even though the 300 is wide ratio the stock sprockets 14/50 do not perform well at 60mph...bike is not in the happy spot. So sprocket changes are in order depending on what compromises you want to make for the day.
I know the bike will be fine, I ride my ktm 250sx about 15 km on tar every time i go to the track or to the local enduro loop. Its just that bike will murder the rider if he uses it on the road constantly. If he wants to use it on tar for long rides he should get one of those comfort soft seats. Ktm seats are very hard even the enduro bike seats and like you said he should get tires that match the terrain, its either those dual sport tires or full slicks and an set of 17" rims. This i like very much.
I had a 94 Husqvarna WXE (essentially the WR) 360 which I dual sported for a little over a year. The motor in it was silky smooth (it had been balanced/blue printed from the factory, then had some extra work down by the PO before I acquired it), but I had to make sure it was pointed in the right direction when pulling away from a stop light or in the woods. Biggest issue I had was the atrocious fuel consumption. I learned to deal with the buzzy pegs and bars, but squeezing more than 80 miles from a ride was damn near impossible. Had I regeared it, that probably would have taken care of several of said issues.
Had another wonderful 130 km dual sport ride on the KSM. 80 km's of that was pavement at around 90-100 km/hr. The fun never ends :)
Thank you I have different size ones of these, this is my small 5 litre one that I carry all the time. On this trip I did 135 km's on 7.9 litres of fuel, which is 16.6 kilometers per litre, which is 6.25 litre to 100 kilometers, which is 45 mpg. And who says two strokes get bad milage? That milage kicks the crap out of a Harley. And I was NOT going light on the throttle .......
:eek1:eek1:eek1:eek1:eek1:eek1:eek1:eek1:eek1:eek1:eek1:eek1:eek1:eek1:eek1:eek1:eek1:eek1:eek1:eek1:eek1:eek1 Dam I must say its nice to talk to another metric system user.
They are STILL carefree twist n go days It is just that the go is way faster now. Those corners come up a heck of a lot quicker !!!! And I find that the twist does make the cares go away .......
