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New Bike Day


Rinspeed
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My youngest and I picked this up Saturday and it absolutely rips. It's a 14 but only has 2200 miles on it. It started out life as an off road KTM 500 XC-W but has a full light kit so we can put it on the road. KTM is pretty smart as they give a title and wiring with all their bikes so it's fairly easy to make any of them road legal even in NY. New ones are running $12K so I was happy to find this one at a good price. The fenders are a bit scratched up so we will probably get new ones. Other than that this thing is ready to hit some hard trails and fire roads.

 

 

 

 

pn6JU65Pj

 

 

 

 

 

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Back around 2006 my nephew visited with something like that.  I had a KLR at the time.  We took a wicked good ride around downeast Maine.  He was surprised an old man could keep up on the dirt.

 

The KLR was best bike I ever had..not fastest by far, but did everything good and made its own gas.. or got a zillion  MPG.

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10 minutes ago, FullClip said:

Back around 2006 my nephew visited with something like that.  I had a KLR at the time.  We took a wicked good ride around downeast Maine.  He was surprised an old man could keep up on the dirt.

 

The KLR was best bike I ever had..not fastest by far, but did everything good and made its own gas.. or got a zillion  MPG.

The KLR-650 is my favorite dirt/street bike. It is a hell of a ride.

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11 minutes ago, Eric said:

The KLR-650 is my favorite dirt/street bike. It is a hell of a ride.

Yup.  Heck of a change going from the CBR1000DF to the one-Lunger.   But great bike.  Looking back, I should have tried some more street suited tires.  It seemed squirrely on high speed paved roads.

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3 hours ago, Rinspeed said:

My youngest and I picked this up Saturday and it absolutely rips. It's a 14 but only has 2200 miles on it. It started out life as an off road KTM 500 XC-W but has a full light kit so we can put it on the road. KTM is pretty smart as they give a title and wiring with all their bikes so it's fairly easy to make any of them road legal even in NY. New ones are running $12K so I was happy to find this one at a good price. The fenders are a bit scratched up so we will probably get new ones. Other than that this thing is ready to hit some hard trails and fire roads.

 

 

 

 

pn6JU65Pj

 

 

 

 

 

I know these new ones are 4 stokers, but when I see pictures like this, my old memories kick in,

I smell Klotz two stroke racing oil, and my memories shift to Suzki RM 250s and the glorious pains that came from them.........Ah yes! the good old days when the one displaying the most mud and blood at the end of the day was declared the winner, regardless of who got back to the truck at the unloadng site first!

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21 hours ago, Eric said:

The KLR-650 is my favorite dirt/street bike. It is a hell of a ride.

 

 


Funny you guys mentioning the KLR-650 because I'm in the process of selling mine to my SIL.  Hell of a bike just not for me.  I just mentioned on one of the other forums that I only paid $2,400 for my brand new 86 Yamaha XT-600.  I think the new Yamaha 700 Tenere is almost $11K.     

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31 minutes ago, Rinspeed said:

 

 


Funny you guys mentioning the KLR-650 because I'm in the process of selling mine to my SIL.  Hell of a bike just not for me.  I just mentioned on one of the other forums that I only paid $2,400 for my brand new 86 Yamaha XT-600.  I think the new Yamaha 700 Tenere is almost $11K.     

I'm a Kawasaki fan. I've owned a KZ-1000, a ZX-11 and 3 ZX-14s. I never bought a KLR-650, but I put a lot of miles on one and loved it. I'm also a big fan of the zrx1200r, which is kind of an evolution of the KZ-1000.

The KZ-1000 was/is a phenomenal bike. It is still a popular drag bike and the Police Special model's production run lasted from like 1978 to 2005. If that isn't the longest production run of a motorcycle model with a basically unchanged design, it is on the short list. 

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5 hours ago, Eric said:

KZ1000p.jpg

I wanted a Concourse for a long time but it wasn't FI and I can't work on carbs.  I wish the big 3 would do some retro bikes but with FI but I suspect there isn't enough money to be made.  Not a lot of folks ride 2 wheels in the US anymore.  Europe gets all the cool stuff.

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2 minutes ago, railfancwb said:

Of those who do, most big machines are probably Harley

I heard that 95% of the Harleys ever built are still on the road.

 

 

 

 

 

 

The other 5% made it home. :supergrin:

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On 3/21/2024 at 5:13 PM, Eric said:

I'm a Kawasaki fan. I've owned a KZ-1000, a ZX-11 and 3 ZX-14s. I never bought a KLR-650, but I put a lot of miles on one and loved it. I'm also a big fan of the zrx1200r, which is kind of an evolution of the KZ-1000.

The KZ-1000 was/is a phenomenal bike. It is still a popular drag bike and the Police Special model's production run lasted from like 1978 to 2005. If that isn't the longest production run of a motorcycle model with a basically unchanged design, it is on the short list. 

 

 

 

For road bikes I've always been a big Kawasaki fan as well.  2 Ninja 1000Rs, a ZX-10 and I still have my ZX-11.  For off road though I've always stuck to Honda or Yamaha until a couple years ago we started buying Husky/KTM.  You pay a couple grand more for Husky/KTM but the quality of components such as brakes, suspension and controls more than make up for it.  

 

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