Another New Big Bike?

[Sarris]

So, alanmcorcoran, another big bike in your future? I saw your other post and am interested in the details.

Is a Harley in your future? Or......a sportbike?

Give us the scoop-de-poop.

:rawk:

[alanmcorcoran]

Should have been clearer: Bigger than the Geezer. I think I'd like to try riding (slightly) off-road. (Unpaved but not too gnarly "fire roads") and I'm thinking about something along the lines of a KTM (adventure? Not up to speed on the model names - saw a couple on the first day of my "big ride" a month ago.)

Haven't got too far into the details yet. Been too busy in Chicago and traveling/riding to do any shopping. I'm thinking about riding Death Valley next weekend but I will probably take the Strat for that. I think there is a KTM dealer in Fullerton which is 20 minutes from my house.

The adventure bikes remind me a little of "hybrid" bicycles - they aren't they great on the road and they aren't that great on the dirt either. So the challenge is to get something you are not too unhappy with. I think.

I'm up for suggestions, encouragment and discouragement, as I know next to nothing about this sort of thing and there are so many bikes and options to consider.

[dhgeyer]

KTM makes such bikes, but they are not the biggest players, and I don't know much about them. Not popular around here, and I don't think I've ever seen one.

The big players in the "Dual Sport" or "Adventure" field are Kawasaki (KLR650) and BMW (G650GS, F650GS and F800GS). BMW also makes the R1200GS, but I think it's too big and heavy for real off road stuff. It makes a better sport touring bike. The lighter BMW models are made in China now. They had some trouble with the chain drives early on, but that seems to be straightened out now. The F650GS and F800GS are both 800cc vertical twins (despite the former's model name). The G650GS is a 650cc thumper with a counterbalancer, so it's not too bad. The KLR650 is also a 650 thumper, and has a reputation for really thumping, but it's a lot cheaper than a Bring More Wampum. The BMW's have available rugged luggage. Most KLR riders improvise with ammo cans and such.

Can't recommend BMW as a brand, as they don't treat customers, or dealers for that matter, very well. The dealers are some of the best around, but they can't always help if there's a "situation". Kawasaki is much better as a brand in that respect.

Any of these machines will get you out back of beyond and back, but not in anything like the comfort you are used to. Seats are high and fairly narrow, lots of ground clearance, skid plates standard or available, good range, semi aggressive tires, but everything needed to be street legal and safe.

The Suzuki DL650 "Weestrom", like WW has, can be modified to do what you want up to a point. It doesn't have as much ground clearance though, and isn't really made for the purpose. Probably more comfortable for long hauls than the KLR. The Beemers are not bad comfort wise, but none of these bikes are a Strat.

[frempath]

I think Yamaha and Triumph are importing a couple of new or new to north america adventure bikes to.

frempath

[alanmcorcoran]

I've done a little more Googling and the two KTM models that caught my interest are the Adventure 990 and the 990 R. The R seems to have a little more horsepower and perhaps an upgraded suspension, but I'm not 100% sure of the differences. They fall weight-wise in between the Geezer and the Strat - about 470 pounds IIRC. On the forums, I have heard a good phrase for trying to separate out some of these bikes: "Do you want a mostly dirt bike that is legal to take on the street for a while or do you want a bike where you are gonna ride 100-150 miles on the highway to get to 20 miles on the dirt." I definitely fall into the latter category. I also am not a seasoned dirt rider and will probably limit myself to literally dirt roads, rather than mud, sand, off road, etc. So, I want to get something that I can ride 150 miles without getting a giant blister on my ass, but I could pick up easily if I skidded out on a fire road that might lead to a more secluded campsite. Two of the competing bikes mentioned a lot are the BMW F800GS and the BMW1200 GS so I'm gonna Google up a bit on that. I get the sense that the BMW1200GS is probably best suited for me - heavier, more suited to longer distances, but can still handle fire roads. But I like the panniers and the design (and the idea) of the KTM better. But I think it's not really suitable for a 150 mile ride.

Your thoughts welcome...

[patrick_777]

Alan, I personally know four people who are diehard KLR650 owners and live by them. I also have ridden one several time and they aren't bad at all. Read over a lot of the forums at ADV and gather some more opinions...

Be warned though, if you start reading some of the ride report threads, you could still reading hours later without noticing.

http://www.advrider.com/forums/

[dhgeyer]

BMW R1200GS wet weight with fuel: 564 lb.

BMW F800GS wet weight with fuel: 455 lb.

Kawa KLR 650 curb weight (I assume they mean ready to ride): 432 lb.

KTM 990 dry weight (no fluids no battery no fue)l: 461 lb.

None of these weights include any luggage.

I've never tried, but from the look of them I doubt I could pick an R1200GS up from the ground, especially loaded for travel. I've never ridden the KLR, but the weight seems about right, and, typical of Kawasaki's business plan, they've made it virtually unchanged since Christ was a corporal. Bulletproof. It has a reputation for vibration, being a 650 single. I have ridden a BMW F800GS, and would not hesitate, comfort wise, to ride it on the highway for long distances or off road. It's an 800 CC twin, and quite smooth with a decent saddle and very good riding position. It has good electronics also - lots of display information. Having to deal with BMW is a disadvantage. I have ridden an R1200GS as a loaner for a hundred miles or so. It's a great touring bike, but I wouldn't take it off road on a bet unless I had someone with me to help pick it up if I dropped it. Don't know anything about the KTM except that you might want to check out how many dealerships there are and where they are if you plan to go far from home. Kawasaki has a good dealership network, and is a good company to deal with. BMW dealerships are not as common, but they're very aggressively opening more of them.

If it were me, I'd test ride a KLR, a KTM, and an F800GS and choose between those. You can read all you want, but you don't really know anything about how you're going to react to a bike until you get on it.

[alanmcorcoran]

Appreciate the feedback. Keep in mind I am currently touring solo on a (loaded) bike I can't pick up even when it's unloaded. So my current plan has been - never, ever, put the bike down, which is obviously a bad plan. Patrick, much of my info on the KTM vs BMW comes from advrider forum, (4 pages of thread on the 990 FI mapping from 2006-2008, f'rinstance). A also saw a home made video on Youtube with two guys from Scotland riding a R1200GS and a KTM 990 in the winter. It appeared they dumped both bikes at least once. The video was only 5 minutes long and kinda general - no clear winner - probably got the bikes from the manufacturers and didn't want to piss either one off. There's an Irv Seaver BMW dealer in Orange and a KTM dealer in Orange - both of which are about 30 mins from my house. Most of the places I'm touring have very long stretches with no dealers on any stripe - and not much of anything else either (like gas and water and toilets and stuff.) Not sure about the likelihood I'll get to test ride one of these bikes unless I go to some manufacturer event with a million other people - which I won't do - but I haven't actually checked this out yet. When I was shopping for the Geezer and the Strat you could sit on one, but that's it. There was a lightweight BMW I could rent at the rental place here in chicago, but it looked like a Geezer with an off-road suspension. I could probably rent a 1200cc Beemer in CA, but it'd cost upwards of $200 a day and for a 4 or 5 day ride, it'd be expensive research. But it might still be worth it. I agree with dh, you can read all you want, but it's not the same as actually riding.

[dhgeyer]

I'd call the local dealers and see if test rides are available. There are two BMW dealerships in NH. One will allow test rides on used bikes, the other will do that and also keeps a small fleet of demo bikes for that purpose. If you go there you can also get a feel for the general attitude of the place, what kind of support and service you can expect, and so on. My semi educated guess is that, if you rode the F800GS, you would be pretty well sold on it. But, since BMW is such a crappy company to deal with, the dealership becomes very important, as they can do a lot to take up the slack if there are any issues.

[mrlmd1]

Being such a high end motor company with an image and reputation to uphold and all that, why is BMW as a company so hard to deal with? Is it just for their motorcycles? I've had 3 different BMW cars years ago and always had great support from the dealer, and I assumed that was for the company as a whole. Has the company support for it's customers and warranties changed, or has the economy changed their attitude?

[dhgeyer]

BMW is pretty much coasting on the reputation they built up years ago. I've never owned one of their cars, but from what I have been told, the problem is company wide, not just the bikes.

There are two primary issues:

1. They make design mistakes, and, rather than admit it and change the design, they go into a state of public denial, trying to place the blame on misuse, poor maintenance, or some other factor. Two examples of this are the Paralever final drives, which have had an abysmal failure rate. This is not a trivial repair. If the bike is still in warranty, they'll cover it. However, there are an awful lot of cases of fairly low mileage bikes that are out of warranty needing $1500.00 to $2000.00 repairs to the rear ends. In some cases the dealers go to bat and get the company to cover it. In a lot more cases people have to pay. This has been going on for about a decade and a half. They did come out with a completely new final drive a few years ago, and they were failing as often or more often than the previous ones. In the case of both drives, BMW just refused to admit that there was a problem. At this point the final drive issue is kind of an open question. They made some changes in the maintenance schedule for the new drive, and the situation is definitely improved. Failures are still occurring, but nobody knows for sure if it's down to a reasonable (very low) failure rate or not, and BMW isn't releasing any information.

Another example of this was the "surging" issue with the first generation of fuel injected boxer engines (the R1100 series). At steady throttle, at certain RPMs many if not most of them would surge and hesitate. BMW claimed that they would run properly if they were tuned precisely enough, but nobody seemed to be able to tune them well enough to run well. In the dual spark R1150 series the condition was much improved, but not gone. In the R1200 series they seem to have finally licked it. What makes people angry is that they never admitted that there was a problem, and kept making the same bikes with the same problems for years.

2. The other big area of concern is lack of communication. Calling customer service never seems to yield useful information. The dealers' only link to any information is the regional rep. Dealers can't get anything out of BMW NA any more than a customer can. When I bought my R1200R there was a promotion going that gave me the hard bags and mounts free (about $1000.00 value). But the dealer didn't have them in stock. There was a special procedure the dealer had to go through to get them. It took over a month. What was really infuriating was that it was not possible for me, or for the dealership, to get any information on whether there was a problem with the order, whether it was going through normally, whether it got lost, or what was going on. They absolutely circle the wagons and don't let anyone get to anyone that knows anything. This has been my experience, and the experience of many others, on other issues as well.

Part of the reason that there are design flaws is that BMW is so far out in front with innovative design features. When you're on the cutting edge like that, a lot of what you are doing has not been tested for decades on the road, and miscalculations are inevitable I would suspect. However, I do think that, if they had any concern about preserving the reputation they earned in the 50's, 60's and 70's, they could be a lot more honest, and a lot more willing to communicate, rather than trying to sweep any problems under the rug and pretend they don't exist.

All in all, the bikes are, feature for feature, well ahead of whatever direct competition they have in any given model. There just isn't anything on the market to compare to the R1200R, for example. They really are great bikes. But, in the case of certain models, they are a bit of a gamble as well. Nobody that's talking knows whether or not the final drive issue has really been laid to rest on the R1200GS. A high percentage of the failures were on GS and RT bikes.

The current "F" series are made in China. They had some problems with the chains early on, but they seem to have gotten that straightened out. I am not aware of any current chronic difficulties with the F800GS, which is a joy to ride. But, I emphasize again, you want a good dealer on your side if you buy a BMW bike, and some dealers will advocate harder than others, and some (the larger ones) have more clout.

[mrlmd1]

Thank you, very informative. And buyer beware, as always. Get as much info as you can before you go out and purchase something, especially for big bucks.

[alanmcorcoran]

Was raining here today so I took advantage and went to the KTM dealer to look at his sole remaining Adventure 990. Bike looks cool, but I'm not sure I'd want to ride it very far to get to dirt. And I'm not sure I want to ride too much dirt either. Couldn't ride it, but the guy did let me sit on it. Very high. Very, very high. Went across the street to look at the Beemers but they are closed on Monday (?) Starting to think that the Strat is maybe not such a bad touring bike after all. If only I could pick it up...

[Water Warrior 2]

Was raining here today so I took advantage and went to the KTM dealer to look at his sole remaining Adventure 990. Bike looks cool, but I'm not sure I'd want to ride it very far to get to dirt. And I'm not sure I want to ride too much dirt either. Couldn't ride it, but the guy did let me sit on it. Very high. Very, very high. Went across the street to look at the Beemers but they are closed on Monday (?) Starting to think that the Strat is maybe not such a bad touring bike after all. If only I could pick it up...
You don't have to pick up a Ural with a side car attached.

[music man]

You don't have to pick up a Ural with a side car attached.


Man there was a whole group of guys riding those things in town a couple of days ago. I have got to start carrying my camera with me more often.

And I am glad you posted the name of the company, because I have been trying to remember it.

[edit]. I just found out there is a dealer for these just a couple of towns over from where I live, can anyone say ROAD TRIP. I have got to go check these out up close, they are awesome looking.

Here I was thinking they were riding some old antique pristine motorcycles around, and they probably just bought em' :retard: :drool:

[Water Warrior 2]

That is Don's Ural which he just recently swapped for a new but identical looking bike. He found such a deal he couldn't resist. He loves the 2 wheel drive with the side car and a handy dandy reverse gear too.

[mariejustice54]

Agree with Patrick.