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Originally Posted by Water Warrior
Good looking bike Alan. Looking forward to your first ride impressions and of course your first off road adventure.
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Rode it home from the dealer in the dark and in the rain. Found out after I got home they never put any air in the tires - so I was riding 70 mph on wet roads with 5psi
. But it still handled pretty good. I had dropped the Strat off for it's 12K service and I wanted to go out to a coffeehouse/music night, so, I put on my rain gear, bought some gas, filled up the tires and headed out on the KLR. I hadn't used my rain jacket until today (it's been riding around in the saddlebag on the Strat unused for about a year and a half.) It was raining moderately on and off all day and continued into the evening. Still, within minutes of mounting up, I felt pretty confortable. The controls (and lack thereof) and mechanics are similar to the Geezer (no gas gauge, has a carb/choke, chain, etc.) but the 650 is way quicker and has a much higher top end. It is very fun to ride. It has a little dinky windshield built-in - you can get a bigger one - but, with a full face helmet, the wind didn't bother me at all. In fact, I think I had less buffeting than I do on the Strat (which has a ginormous windshield.) Even though I haven't ridden much in the rain, and I have slighty knobby tires, I felt pretty comfortable at highway speeds on wet pavement. Didn't ride long enough to judge the seat or riding position (got about 80 miles or so in altogether.) The biggest adjustment is getting on and off the damn thing. (Any suggestions here appreciated!) Also, got to stretch the legs a bit more at lights.
Bike seems very solid (very GZ like!) but it's not exactly high tech. Has coolant - so I guess it's water cooled and has to be topped off etc., has a carb, chain of course, a choke, side stand only. The only farkle on the thing is a helmet lock.
On the positive side - it's pretty inexpensive and has a 6.1 gallon tank (!) I think. Not knowing how much "adventure" riding I will actually end up doing, I felt that this was a good choice. The KTM is a lot more bike, but also a lot more money. If I scratch up the KLR on some rocks/trees/etc. I'll get over it quicker. I'd be sick if I dumped the KTM - but if I get to like the off roading (unlikely at my age) I can trade up. Thanks to all you guys, especially dhgeyer, that gave me advice - it really helped me feel better about making the leap to this particular bike.
I ordered the KAWA soft trunk and semi hard sidebags. They don't look very impressive or large in the photos, but they aren't super expensive either. Going to try and reduce my adventure outfitting to fit the three bags with maybe my tent bungeed to the rear rack.