• Welcome to the Two Wheeled Texans community! Feel free to hang out and lurk as long as you like. However, we would like to encourage you to register so that you can join the community and use the numerous features on the site. After registering, don't forget to post up an introduction!

Small bore adventure bikes

Forums New posts
GRU said:
Vibration is no problem, the engine has two counter balances, one on the crank, and one on the cam. The rpm and the speed seem to follow each other, at 75 mph it’s doing 7500 rpm. But it is smother than any other single I have owned.
Click to expand...
Does it get to 75 easily and can you pass something say from 50 ish up to 75 easily? Also what the heck is redline?
 
Yes it gets to 75 very quickly, no problem passing up about 80 mph. You can ride it some time.
 
I so want to get a Zero, that will probably be my next bike. There was a bike dealer at the Redneck Ramble and he had a Zero and let me test ride it and it was awesome! Tons of low end torque , easily as powerful or more powerful than my Ninja 300, and the bike was the small off road FX model, looked like a 250 cc dirt bike. Also the wife could drive it as she cannot figure out standard shifting on any vehicles and lord knows I have tried and electric is an automatic. No shifter, no gears. no noise, gas, oil, chain, none of that. I would buy one in a heartbeat except for the price. I think the price will come down if someone else jumps into the game. Range is not necessarily a problem as 100 miles is good enough for much of what I do, but yeh, not any of the long 200 mile rides we make on these Adventure Rides we organize. I got to thinking that if it has an interchangeable battery pack then you could just carry an extra battery or leave the battery somewhere half way into the ride, no different than when we make mid ride gas stops.

Coming up with universal battery packs is really holding back electric everything I think. I saw a video of a electric car "gas" station they were testing in Japan, and you drive the car over a pit similar to any oil change pit you see at the 15 min quick lube places. You drive over it, and an electric arm raises up and robotically removes a large flat battery pack from the undercarriage of the car, and then installs a new one. It takes about 5 minutes. That company just solved the "filling up" part of electric cars.
 
stephensatt said:
I so want to get a Zero, that will probably be my next bike. There was a bike dealer at the Redneck Ramble and he had a Zero and let me test ride it and it was awesome! Tons of low end torque , easily as powerful or more powerful than my Ninja 300, and the bike was the small off road FX model, looked like a 250 cc dirt bike. Also the wife could drive it as she cannot figure out standard shifting on any vehicles and lord knows I have tried and electric is an automatic. No shifter, no gears. no noise, gas, oil, chain, none of that. I would buy one in a heartbeat except for the price. I think the price will come down if someone else jumps into the game. Range is not necessarily a problem as 100 miles is good enough for much of what I do, but yeh, not any of the long 200 mile rides we make on these Adventure Rides we organize. I got to thinking that if it has an interchangeable battery pack then you could just carry an extra battery or leave the battery somewhere half way into the ride, no different than when we make mid ride gas stops.

Coming up with universal battery packs is really holding back electric everything I think. I saw a video of a electric car "gas" station they were testing in Japan, and you drive the car over a pit similar to any oil change pit you see at the 15 min quick lube places. You drive over it, and an electric arm raises up and robotically removes a large flat battery pack from the undercarriage of the car, and then installs a new one. It takes about 5 minutes. That company just solved the "filling up" part of electric cars.
Click to expand...
I posted an article a while back about a Consortium of Japanese manufacturers that are in the beginnings of working out the standards for replaceable battery packs. Just google it. May be on Jarrett's duel sport experiment thread but theres lots of poststhere.
 
Small bore adventure bikes mean different things to different people. I just bought a bike of of Wayne here on TWT and it does everything I need it to do. I have a Versys 650 for the highway and use thee Sherpa for my Offroad excursions. I still have some coins in my pocket instead of payments to make.

I have had up to 60 mph on the highway but I use it for County toads and general playing. So I think you can make any bike do what you want it to.
 

Attachments

  • 6A3F99FC-B1AF-442E-A72F-A8DE0C1B9AAD.jpeg
    6A3F99FC-B1AF-442E-A72F-A8DE0C1B9AAD.jpeg
    492.8 KB · Views: 209
I was excited about the Tenere 700 and Adventure 790 being slightly lighter and manageable adventure bikes.....now this one has got me excited, especially for the Sam Houston type rides. I can keep the Strom in case I ever wanna do street riding and go back to milder tires.
 
I have owned a variety of big adventure bikes - ktm 950s, ktm 1190, bmw 1150gsa, 1200gs all were great road bikes but for me on singletrack they are all too big, too heavy, too much plastic to damage, too valuable, but they were all fine for gravel roads and they did look super cool parked outside Starbucks.
Medium size bikes I’ve owned Honda xr650r, xr400, couple of ktms 450exc’s all have been good on singletrack but not good for long road rides.

I think Adventure bike style has paid off well for the manufacturers, to me bikes in that category are great road bikes, with comfortable ergonomics. Now that the trend for choppers and supersports bikes has largely passed I think the manufacturers are doing a great job of promoting the adventure bike and lifestyle.

I bought a wr250r earlier this year to run sections of the TAT, while I had doubts about riding a small bike on long road sections the huge amount of positive long distance ride reports and reviews on www.advrider.com convinced me it was worth trying. With a small screen, soft panniers and a few mods it is a fantastic ‘adventure’ bike that is if you want to ride singletrack after riding hundreds of miles on road. More power would be nice on the road, but the saying that it is more fun to ride a slow bike fast, than a fast bike slow is so true.

Luckily there are lots of great bikes out there, it all depends on what you want to do with it.
 
spdtrpl said:
I have owned a variety of big adventure bikes - ktm 950s, ktm 1190, bmw 1150gsa, 1200gs all were great road bikes but for me on singletrack they are all too big, too heavy, too much plastic to damage, too valuable, but they were all fine for gravel roads and they did look super cool parked outside Starbucks.
Medium size bikes I’ve owned Honda xr650r, xr400, couple of ktms 450exc’s all have been good on singletrack but not good for long road rides.

I think Adventure bike style has paid off well for the manufacturers, to me bikes in that category are great road bikes, with comfortable ergonomics. Now that the trend for choppers and supersports bikes has largely passed I think the manufacturers are doing a great job of promoting the adventure bike and lifestyle.

I bought a wr250r earlier this year to run sections of the TAT, while I had doubts about riding a small bike on long road sections the huge amount of positive long distance ride reports and reviews on www.advrider.com convinced me it was worth trying. With a small screen, soft panniers and a few mods it is a fantastic ‘adventure’ bike that is if you want to ride singletrack after riding hundreds of miles on road. More power would be nice on the road, but the saying that it is more fun to ride a slow bike fast, than a fast bike slow is so true.

Luckily there are lots of great bikes out there, it all depends on what you want to do with it.
Click to expand...
Well said👍
 
stephensatt said:
I like the bike so far, but I have never owned any other dual sport, so if offroad was all I did, your probably better off with the more dirt bikish dual sports, as they seem to have better clearance and low end torque, and are not as bulky.
Click to expand...

This is what I would say about the Versys X300. Cool bike to start on, though.
 
For some of the options out there I'm confused as to why someone would pick a 390Adv type bike over a 690 Enduro type bike for 'adventure' riding? To me adventure riding is ~-50/50 road/dirt thing so whatever you get needs to be somewhat competent in both environments. The weight difference can't be that great as the 690 only weighs 315 dry and how much are you going to shave off for the 390, maybe 20-25lbs? Is that enough to give up having the ability to cruise at 80 all day and then ride trails when you get there?
 
copb8 said:
For some of the options out there I'm confused as to why someone would pick a 390Adv type bike over a 690 Enduro type bike for 'adventure' riding? To me adventure riding is ~-50/50 road/dirt thing so whatever you get needs to be somewhat competent in both environments. The weight difference can't be that great as the 690 only weighs 315 dry and how much are you going to shave off for the 390, maybe 20-25lbs? Is that enough to give up having the ability to cruise at 80 all day and then ride trails when you get there?
Click to expand...

For me it would be. Or might be. It needs to have the whole package. Light weight, decent range, decent electricals, good rear sub frame etc. I would like to see something to replace my DRZ which is rigged kinda like an adventure bike. The SWM is vaporware, the Honda 450L is petty close, but I don't think it scratches my itch. I think the 690-790's that are out there or coming are a bit more than I need or want. That leaves me hoping for a nice 390 Adventure. We'll see.
 
Crew Chief said:
For me it would be. Or might be. It needs to have the whole package. Light weight, decent range, decent electricals, good rear sub frame etc. I would like to see something to replace my DRZ which is rigged kinda like an adventure bike. The SWM is vaporware, the Honda 450L is petty close, but I don't think it scratches my itch. I think the 690-790's that are out there or coming are a bit more than I need or want. That leaves me hoping for a nice 390 Adventure. We'll see.
Click to expand...

Wouldn't a 500 EXC be a pretty close replacement for the DRZ?
 
synthlegend said:
Also after watching about 50 videos of this guy riding an Africa Twin on singletrack and just about anything else, I realize I just suck as a rider, so the bike probably doesn't even matter. 🤣🤣🤣
Click to expand...
Wow, 22:15 is the place to watch if you can't watch the whole thing.
 
I had to look up the meaning of afford for myself...just checking

1.
have enough money to pay for.

I guess this excludes those "easy payment plans" :argh:

If the devil danced ...Joe Diffe
Diablo motors had a **** of a sale, downtown yesterday,
Word got around, no money down, take years and years to pay.
When I got there the lot was bare, but the salesman said hold on.
For a little cash, I gotta two-tone Nash out behind the barn.
If the Devil danced in empty pockets, he'd have a ball in mine.
With a nine foot grand, a ten piece band and a twelve girl chorus line.
I'd raise some loot in a three piece suit, give 'em one dance for a dime,
If the Devil Danced in empty pockets, he'd have a ball in mine.
Well he said friend it ain't the end let's see what I can do.
If you own a home, I've got a loan, tailor made for you.
Then above the racket a voice in my jacket said, "I'll tote the note."
The devil…
 
Last edited:
synthlegend said:
So it's cool cruising that close to redline all the time? Any obsessive maintenance required?
Click to expand...
I seem to cruise mostly at around 7k . I have watched allot of videos on the Ninja 300 and everyone says to run it all the way up to the red line and thats how its supposed to be ran. In otherwords, don't worry about red lining because of the rev limiter and just hammer on it all the time, I guess for the power, because it being a high horsepower, low torque engine, thats what you do. Its about 40hp which makes it probably the most powerful 4 stroke engine on the market for a 300cc. So I hammer it all the way to red, and then shift when I am keeping up with the big bikes on the highway and so far, I have no problems at all keeping up with the big bikes.

Someone here is talking about weight difference and between the 650 and 300cc. The Versys 650 is 460 lbs vs the Versys 300 at 380 lbs. Yes, thats not allot between those 2 models, however, even 380lbs is heavy. For me, I am not a big guy, its really heavy. If it falls over I still have to put my back to the seat and two hand it up. I cannot get it up by merely picking up the handlebars like a dirt bike. I will be looking to get a lithium battery soon. Thats shaves about 6lbs. There isn't allot out there to lighten up the bike yet. I would like longer travel suspension, so if someone comes out with something that shaves a ton of weight and gives me better travel I would buy it.
 
That is why I like my XR60L 360#. Kinda between KLR and 250 cc bikes. It does good enough for me on highway, and great off road. My Super Sherpa just was too small for my 200#'s. It had a squirrely front suspension and rear was weak and I didn't want to start the suspension game $$
 
Speaking of rear end. I have an adjustable mono shock that uses a spanner wrench to set on my Versys-x 300. It seems pretty soft on the rear. Should it be stiff or soft. I am on road, and off road 50/50. I do allot of highways also.
 
stephensatt said:
Speaking of rear end. I have an adjustable mono shock that uses a spanner wrench to set on my Versys-x 300. It seems pretty soft on the rear. Should it be stiff or soft. I am on road, and off road 50/50. I do allot of highways also.
Click to expand...
Is it preload adjustment only or is rebound possible as well? Initially adjust for sag. I've found that sometimes if you just Jack the preload up to max, the rear end can become too stiff and squirrelly over sharp bumps....my Scrambler is determined to throw me off, where as the Strom is well behaved with Max preload.
 
copb8 said:
Wouldn't a 500 EXC be a pretty close replacement for the DRZ?
Click to expand...

Yeah. It and the 450L are the two current contenders and I'm not really sure which I'd pick if I had to pick today. We'll see if the 390 Adventure can get me excited. I probably should try to spend some more time on a 690 and get a hold of a 500. Maybe with some seat time I'd get more enthused. As it is, I'm not getting much seat time on the DRZ. Getting some on the others seems an impossibility for now.
 
Not sure. Next time we meet up I will be sure and have the wrench. It has a steel ring with valleys and notches on it. Looks like you can click it a few turns in either direction.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top