stevie t
Well-known member
How do you like the thermo bob? I have one and I'm not liking it in the heat of summer....thinking of swapping it in and out seasonally....
Looking for info on a klr 650
- Thread starter ToSlow
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How do you like the thermo bob? I have one and I'm not liking it in the heat of summer....thinking of swapping it in and out seasonally....
Kijiji is the place for me, I've an email alert set up that sends me a notice of KLRs and parts in Ontario. You can get them for around $2000 certifiable, cheaper if you're okay with a well loved older bike.
What kind of riding do you intend to do with it? I'm going to tell you that I agree with jsv650, that it sucks on the highway and sucks in the dirt, but few bikes can take you across the country on pavement and still let you have fun on the beach or trails.
It's brilliant on 80kph roads, and if you're good, you can almost hold your own with sport bikes in really twisty stuff, but give them a straight and you'll be trying to catch up.
Maintenance is awesome, I do most of my own less engine work like top end, valves etc, but I may take a stab at that in the future. Tires are dirt cheap as I run Kenda 270s as my "street tires" and at $55 and $45 they'll get me about 8,000km per set on the street (about 4,000 before I can't use the front in the dirt anymore). I mount and balance them myself as well, so it's another plus for having a KLR.
If you plan to ride more offroad than highway, then look at the DR650, XR650, or any of the KTM, Husaberg lineup.
It's a budget bike with budget suspension and brakes, but a bulletproof design.
I know, it really dried up this winter. I expect to see new listings this spring, tons in summer and fall.
A KLR with the right tires will definitely let you get off the beaten path, but the kids on their 250's will own you, and I suggest not riding this thing truly offroad unless you do it with a buddy.
Have a look at this. A lighter bike like a 450 or 250 would have done much better and been easier to recover...
http://rottenxxxronnie.blogspot.com/2010/10/klrs-are-big-and-heavier-than-they-look.html
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RichinOville
Well-known member
You could always look at a Suzuki DR650SE instead of the KLR. It is supposed to be more dirt oriented than the KLR but will still do 140kmph on the highway.
That is what I did.
That is what I did.
$3500 for a 2008
http://ontario.kijiji.ca/c-cars-veh...0-3500-00-or-104-per-month-W0QQAdIdZ342009472
you could consider a lighter machine as well
http://www.canadianmotorcyclerider.ca/articles.php?id=2550445187574244988
http://ontario.kijiji.ca/c-cars-veh...0-3500-00-or-104-per-month-W0QQAdIdZ342009472
you could consider a lighter machine as well
http://www.canadianmotorcyclerider.ca/articles.php?id=2550445187574244988
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I put about 12,000km on a demo unit when I worked at one of the bike shops in T.O. It was a 2008 model. The new fairing gave excellent protection from the elements. I was able to get it started with minimal fuss in even the coldest of temperatures. People aren't kidding when they say these bikes are bomb-proof......you really have to do a lot to screw them up.....and let's not even talk about the crazy mileage you get out of a tank 
Cranky Pete
Well-known member
I loved my KLR, but it did have some fairly serious flaws. The brakes bordered on unsafe (not sure if the newer model is any better). I put braided lines on it and that seemed to help. The seat, as mentioned was pretty bad. And the stock suspension was crap. The good news is there's massive aftermarket support, so the bike you buy will just be the starting point.
Dual Sport Plus specializes in KLR stuff. http://dualsportplus.com/klr650/klr650.html.
Dual Sport Plus specializes in KLR stuff. http://dualsportplus.com/klr650/klr650.html.
At the risk of being shot by it's creator; I didn't find a huge difference with it. Warm-up time did not change (didn't think it would) it still fluctuates a lot, but overall I found it just ran a little hotter (which is what I wanted anyway). I wouldn't switch it out; you can put the 180 degree thermo in instead. I bought both, but left the 195 in with no troubles
how does the klr650 compare to a dl650 (vstrom)?
This I'd like to know as well. When I was originally thinking of upgrading from the 250R at the end of the '10 season, I was strongly debating between a KLR650, and the Wee DL650 I now own.
From what I gather, the KLR is lighter and more nimble when offroading, but the V-Strom seems to be more preferable for touring. That said, just looking at the number of motovloggers and whatnot on YouTube, the KLR seems to be a lot more fun and easier to maintain on the road as Ron mentioned. AtlasRider on YouTube toured Latin America on a KLR650, and there are a lot of places he took that bike that I highly doubt a V-Strom could have handled...
This is spot on - I rode both and I'd gladly take the DL for a road bike, touring, etc. But the KLR simply does it all well enough.
I've owned both and the above is a very good summary. Different beasts V vs. single. I really enjoyed the vstrom and toured a lot on it, but I'm looking to get more off the beaten path than I would've felt comfortable with the vstrom. KLR's are cheap - if/when I drop it, I won't shed a tear.
Some day I'll have to get a KLR, maybe even as a secondary bike, so that I can share the experience. I attempted offroading the V-Strom on an uneven, rocky dirt & grass trail a very short while after I got it, and my experience was... less than successful, hehe. That said, I've got zero offroading experience, I'm sure I'll try it again this season and have more fun with it. But a KLR or a smaller dirt/dualsport bike would definitely have worked better for the area I was in. It also might have helped if I'd had my new front tire and my rear hadn't been mounted backwards at the time.
And yes, I would have been more willing to risk dumping the bike if it were a KLR, those things seem to take a beating and ride away laughing. I've got a skid plate, crash bars, and hand protectors on the Wee, but between the bike's weight and design, I imagine it would take a lot more damage in a fall than a KLR would. Though more than the bike itself, I just worry that it'd land on my leg or something and I'd wind up with broken bones.
They are very different bikes, even though both bikes are quite versatile.
I had a KLR for 3years/50,000km and now a V-Strom for 3years/75,000km. I really liked my KLR, but I wasn't taking it off road enough and on road it was gutless. I also like to do a lot of distance riding 2up and the KLR is rather gutless in this regard too. The KLR has amazing fuel range of more than 400km/tank, but the V-Strom will easily take my 350 which is just fine. The KLR vibrates. The V-Strom does not. The KLR is not suited to 2up riding without significant modification, whereas the V-Strom is much better in this respect.
The KLR has a nice and high seating position which is good for seeing the road/trail in front or for use as an urban commuter. I found the KLR to be an excellent city bike with just the right amount of low end torque. I also really liked having the spoked rims to be able to disregard speed bumps which are all over the city. I liked being on the high way and stuck in traffic, and just pulling a u-turn across the grassy, ditched centre median and carrying on my my way.
Being a single, the KLR engine is generally slated for around 70,000km before needing some sort of a rebuild. I hope I can take my V-Strom well in excess of 200,000km before even thinking about it and there's a few riders that are well over 200k on the Strom with nothing major yet.
Simply put, both bikes have an amazing aftermarket support and online community. Both bikes are cheap to maintain. A good KLR can be had for much less than V-Strom, but the KLR's depreciate pretty quickly while the Stroms retain value quite well. The KLR is better for less road use and increased solo riding with more dirt thrown in, while the V-Strom is better at eating up the tarmac and better for 2up or fully loaded riding with a bit of soft stuff thrown in.
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2 questions for you here;
1. How do the spoked rims help with disregarding speed bumps? Are they more resistant to denting from the impact, or is it something else? (I've sped over speed bumps with the V-Strom a number of times, usually standing on the pegs, doesn't seem to have hurt anything but maybe I should re-think that?)
2. I've always wondered about pulling off onto the grassy medians to make a U-turn or even to pass traffic.. I'm fairly sure both are illegal (though look FUN, lol), but what about the U-turn? Watching motovlogs online, I frequently see the dual-sport/dirtbike riders abruptly hopping off the road and onto dirt/grass to take an alternative route, but most of the ones I've seen are in Hawaii, or the UK, etc where traffic laws may be significantly different or where offroading is generally accepted.
1) The spoked wheels have flex to them, whereas the solid cast wheels of the Strom don't. The spoked wheels also are lighter than the mag wheels. As a result of these two things, I can ride over a speed bump without even slowing down at all and feel almost nothing from it. If I do that with the Strom and it's mag wheels, I had better be standing on the pegs and the bike will not go over the bump with nearly the same softness.
The spokes themselves can/should be tightened if necessary as they are vital to ensuring the structural integrity or strength of the rim. The mag wheels have no such need and are evenly strong all the way around without needing maintenance. Usually deflating the tires is very beneficial to making either type of tire/rim combo navigate softer/looser terrain. A downside to deflating the rim of either type is denting the rim itself while taking large/solid/sharp obstacles at speed which creates all sorts of problems.
I would also hazard a guess that the spoked rims on a KLR are cheaper to fix/replace than the mag wheels off a Strom.
2) I would agree that pulling a u turn over a grassy median is probably illegal. Especially in a place like Ontario or closer to urban areas. Sometimes with totally stopped traffic on the highway (like the frequent construction stuff on HWY 11 between North Bay/Huntsville area), it's either sit in traffic or make that u turn. If it's a nice day out, I can sit and wait, but if it's really cold out and my heated gear is going to start draining my battery, or if it's really hot out and I'm melting inside my gear because of the lack of airflow, then I'll make the u-turn and suffer the consequences if there's a cop around.
The spokes themselves can/should be tightened if necessary as they are vital to ensuring the structural integrity or strength of the rim. The mag wheels have no such need and are evenly strong all the way around without needing maintenance. Usually deflating the tires is very beneficial to making either type of tire/rim combo navigate softer/looser terrain. A downside to deflating the rim of either type is denting the rim itself while taking large/solid/sharp obstacles at speed which creates all sorts of problems.
I would also hazard a guess that the spoked rims on a KLR are cheaper to fix/replace than the mag wheels off a Strom.
2) I would agree that pulling a u turn over a grassy median is probably illegal. Especially in a place like Ontario or closer to urban areas. Sometimes with totally stopped traffic on the highway (like the frequent construction stuff on HWY 11 between North Bay/Huntsville area), it's either sit in traffic or make that u turn. If it's a nice day out, I can sit and wait, but if it's really cold out and my heated gear is going to start draining my battery, or if it's really hot out and I'm melting inside my gear because of the lack of airflow, then I'll make the u-turn and suffer the consequences if there's a cop around.
Excellent question. This is what I found concerning U-Turns in the HTA.
U-turns prohibited143. No driver or operator of a vehicle upon a highway shall turn the vehicle so as to proceed in the opposite direction when,
(a) upon a curve where traffic approaching the vehicle from either direction cannot be seen by the driver of the vehicle within a distance of 150 metres;
(b) on a railway crossing or within 30 metres of a railway crossing;
(c) upon an approach to or near the crest of a grade where the vehicle cannot be seen by the driver of another vehicle approaching from either direction within 150 metres;
or
(d) within 150 metres of a bridge, viaduct or tunnel where the driver’s view is obstructed within such distance. R.S.O. 1990, c. H.8, s. 143.
So I would read that as you are allowed to.
(a) upon a curve where traffic approaching the vehicle from either direction cannot be seen by the driver of the vehicle within a distance of 150 metres;
(b) on a railway crossing or within 30 metres of a railway crossing;
(c) upon an approach to or near the crest of a grade where the vehicle cannot be seen by the driver of another vehicle approaching from either direction within 150 metres;
or
(d) within 150 metres of a bridge, viaduct or tunnel where the driver’s view is obstructed within such distance. R.S.O. 1990, c. H.8, s. 143.
So I would read that as you are allowed to.
