Borrowed a mates ninja yesterday swap from off road?

[flyer]

Ive been off road bikes and riding my drz400 for almost a year now, after selling my z1000. I needed to do a 130 mile round trip yesteday so borrowed a mates 900 ninja, and guess what I want a road biek again now.

However I still enjoying off roading, even if its just light fire road. So what do people think of things liek the ktm 640 supermoto or a xt660 as a compromise, but better on road than off unlike my dual sport drz400? Any suggestions?
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[weasley]

This is news?!
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Yamaha XJ600 | Yamaha YZF600R Thundercat | KTM 990 SMT | BMW F900XR TE

[flyer]

Sorry, haha, bit of a oopsy there!
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[stevo as b4]

Just my opinion and everyone will probably disagree with me, but if you want very mild off road potential, you need to be looking at a 2cylinder off road/trail/adventure motorcycle, with an engine of 750cc or more IMO.

You won't generally get decent high speed road performance from a single cylinder traile. yes some can do 105-110mph, and cruise at say 80-90mph if you ride them hard into the vibratory numb zone at high revs. But their power and acceleration is all spent by mostly 80mph, and even some trick 690KTM thingy, is not going to make for a comfortable high speed cruiser and have performance thats worth exploiting at speeds much over the national speed limit.

I could again be wrong, but if you'd borrowed a BMW R1200GS or Triumph Tiger 955i, or even a Honda Africa twin, instead of the ZX9R, then i don't think you'd be raving and buzzing about the sportsbike so much? Certainely something like the GS is probably a far more usable all round road and touring bike than any ZX9R is.

And just for the record i love big capacity Kawasaki Ninja's, the 9R's are awesome bikes, and can be made to keep up with much newer bikes like K5 GSXR's etc, but they are on todays roads probably not the ideal all round vehicle, and as you said the off road ability could be a touch better!

[P.addy]

The XT660 wasn't great at all.

For a road bike.. KTM 690 or 990 Super Duke would take my cash

[G]

The XT660 doesn't have much more power than the DRZ, but does have a massive amount more weight.

If you're going for a bike with that sort of weight, ideally a KTM 950 or BMW F800GS.

You could consider an Africa twin; but then you can get similar power with a lot less weight from a KTM690, TE610 or G650X-Challenge. You'll get the weight of a DRZ, but similar power to an Africa Twin.

[Kradmelder]

You will not get any decent off road from a supermoto.

To get road performance, as someone else said, a twin. You can try the BMW 800, but i find it a poor road bike, very soft front end, and you are exposed to wind. I wouldnt buy the 800.

Im happy with my 1200 and ktm 990.

The new Tiger?
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2011 KTM 990 Dakar
2009 BMW 1200 GS

[neatbik]

My money would go on a KTM950/990 Adventure or a BMW F800gs.

[G]

[stevo as b4]

That bike needs to be built!

In fact it's a bit like the high power'd big trailes and supermoto's that people don't really accept as supermoto's because of thier high weight. I don't know what the commonly accepted maximum weight is for a supermoto and how many cylinder's you can have before you have to call it something else?

If your going to have a big adventure sized trail bike of 180kg+ then why the hell not can't you have a 1000cc 4cylinder engine in it if wanted? I think something like a modern day Africa twin with a de-tuned CBR1000RR engine would be a decent bike on or off road. And at least being a sportsbike engine, the lump would be designed to be light and compact for it's size, so packaging the rest of the bike around it would be easier and give you some chance of keeping the overall dry weight well under 200kg.

It also reminds me of the people you see with big road legal quads, where they have fitted litre bike IL4's into them. Quite possibly a bit mad, but you also can't argue with the logic that not everyone wants to ride round on a big thumpy 1 lunger quad. i Know of such a machine with a GSXR600 engine fitted, and i think that kind of sound from a quad bike is completely hilarious!

[Kradmelder]

[sidewinder]

You need a cbr125

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tHE_7dydASc
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"Nitrous is like a cheap hooker, you want to hit it but are scared of the consequences

[stevo as b4]

Ok lets take it a few steps further then.
1, lose the lower fairings.
2, Build an alloy rad guard and sump bash plate.
3, Longer travel re-worked rear shock and linkage.
4, go +6T on the rear sprocket
5, and the final hardest mod would be to fit a long travel set of USD's and a 19" front wheel with dual purpose tyres.

There could be a whole new class of 140bhp trail bikes in the making here!

[Kradmelder]

[Kradmelder]

[G]

Depends the off-road you're intending to do . Looks like it'd handle the pics you showed before as an example just fine .

This r1 did pretty well on the Erzberg prologue:
https://blog.crazymoto.net/wp-content/uploads/2009/03/capture-15.png
Doubt anyone would have gone near it with a GS - a HP2, maybe.

I've wondered in the past about sticking some long travel suspension on my 675 - this was before they made the heavy 800. Ok, in 'race' trim*, but as it is it weighed in at 175kg on the scales.
* Just race fairings and steel can, no expensive light weight stuff.

If we're talking supermoto, how about a pretty stock race SV650?

https://www.seppes.com/photos/635375253_FcKgf-XL.jpg

[Moxey]

[TamaJosh]

[flyer]

Cheers folks. So many options. Interesting that you all say to seem go bigger. Ive had lots of big road bikes, but I do enjoy a bit of off road. I live next to the dyfi forest, (of course its illegal to ride there now) but if I were to have permission its a great of road spot. I wouldnt fancy the chances of getting a over 600ish aroudn there, but I realise more road use will have limitations. Id love a gs or similar but its outa budget. My drz is worth about 2400, so I cant go much more if at all more than that.

Any one done big mile son a Dominator? Not my idea of a sexy bike, but could be practical.

Ooooo the choices! Any more options muchly appreciated!
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[P.addy]

[G]

I'd go for something like the KTM690, TE610 or G650X-Challenge if I was serious about my off road.

However, they still won't provide all of that 'road bike' bit.
Would you be able to do two bikes?

For £2.5k you could get a KTM (300 EXC, 98 for £900 say) for proper off-road and a ZX9R (say £1600 for an 00/01 model) for on road.

[stevo as b4]

I agree that it really does depend on how much off road ability you really want and need? If it's for competition enduro's trials, or to keep up with mates on really capable off road biased bikes, like CRF's KTM's and such likes, then you will need a single cylinder fairly light but powerful bike, like those that G suggests, which are probably at the upper limit of reliable decently high bhp, and retaining very good off road performance.

For a 75% of the time road bike, that you can do 130mile stints on and feel relaxed and not having you ride the thing on the stop all the time, then you need probably 60-70bhp minimum. I Know a 50bhp road bike would probably be more than possible, but with the extra weight and poor aerodynamics of a traile, you need more bhp IMO for keeping decent performance in the 70-100mph region.

Just as an example say the Africa twin, it's not the best example and i don't know how it compares to a competition 450cc bike power wise, (low-mid 50'sbhp at the wheel for the XRV), but thats still a fair bit more than the low-mid 30's you get from stuff like the DRZ400. The weight is only a drawback for acceleration and manouverability, and obviously for off road. But at high road speeds weight makes no difference at all, and top speed and how much performance is available at say 70-80mph, is soley down to how many bhp you have got to play with. To sit at 100mph fairly effortlessly on a big unaerodynamic trail bike, id say you need at least 70bhp.

Oh and i loved the Triumph 675 vid, it looked so capable in the dirt too!

I don't see any reason apart from it possibly being hard to keep it lightweight, not to have a 3 or 4cyl trail bike either. You often find that big single cyl 650cc engines weigh more than a 600cc sportsbike engine.
Suppose you were Honda with a fairly unrestricted budget for developing a new Africa twin for example. I'm sure the first thought and possibly the most logical one would be for a compact parallel twin engine of around 900cc? But supposing that you had a Blade engine sat around for analysis then im sure weight wise it could only be unfavourable to a purpose designed lightweight twin of similar capacity.

the blade engine could have a fairly compact frame wrapped around it or you could use a twin spar chassis like the sportsbike maybe? As for suitability for off road use, well with more flywheel weight and a totally different induction and exhaust system, possibly with smaller throttle bodies and longer inlet tracts, you'd have alot of scope for radically changing the characteristics of the engine, quite possibly without needing to do any work on the engine internals, cams or port shapes even.

You can get your 4 different engine maps in todays litre sportsbikes, and i think this kind of technology and electronics allows you the scope to make what would have been seen as a totally unsuitable engine for the purpose 10-15 years ago, quite doable now.

Oh and for the ZX9 i didn't suggest a 21" wheel as not all big trailies use such big wheels and it narrows the choice of front tyre down too much, as you still need a tubeless 160mph rated tyre! regarding the spoked wheels instead of cast, well would you put 140bhp through a set of spoked rims?

[TamaJosh]

[quote="##Paddy##"]

[G]

The 'big bang' nature of a big single may help.
I was getting noticeably better traction on my 690 enduro versus people on much lighter 300cc 2 strokes and 450cc 4 strokes in a very, very muddy hare and hounds (ie going over large roots in a foot+ of gloopy mud) - I suspect high gearing with big spacing between power pulses probably was the cause of this.

So while on the road having the smoother delivery I don't believe makes a significant difference to traction, off road it could make a good bit of difference.

The tyre would have a lot wider chance to 'recover' between each power pulse.

But then that was pretty 'serious' conditions with a trials tyre.
A proper enduro/bigger tyre in less nasty conditions and everything may be about the same.

Oh and the 675 has a very narrow frame that govers over the engine - which is of course narrower than a 4 for a start.
Does make sense to start with the street for quite a few reasons (which to be fair, didn't exist when I got my 675.)

I'd suggest all big trailies use 21" wheels - the ones that don't are more road orientated with a slight leaning towards dirty stuff .

[Kradmelder]