Why does the KLR engine suck in HP

And I said was I was into less. Never FAR LESS...wow, people are awesome.

You have obviously never worked on Suzuki motorcycles or aircraft.

I love working on euro bikes, you can tell they were engineered to make the job easy and painless.

Yup.




Re: Suzuki, Pulling the shock on my wifes DR200 does suck by comparison to just about any other bike.

Well said. If I wanted a KTM, I'd bloody well have me one, mate. I neither want or need enough hp to chuck rocks at the guy 200 yards behind me. I ride on trails that are used by a variety of people, including horseback riders and hikers. Neither of these groups particularly appreciate a rider blazing by them at Warp 9, nor do they appreciate the rototiller effect on the trails from the "roostifarians."

It doesn't matter if you have the best performing bike on the planet if they close the trails down and you have nowhere to ride.

You should visit CSM. You think this is twisted up?

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I didn't know BMW made a DR 200.
I'm confused.

"Scooter!?" How dare you!!!

I set out to prove you're a troll, and I did just that to anyone with eyebrows. You are walking talking demonstration for why some people don't attend ADVRider events heavy in BMW and KTM sentiment...and it's not because they like old technology bikes, it's because you're a legitimate asshole with your nose turned up too high to smell your own taint and you definitely have a lot of friends on this forum in that sense (which is only saying that there's a lot of people like you out there and here on ADVRider, no doubt). The vast majority of ADVRiders are on Japanese bikes, period. I don't disagree with your premise that Euro bikes are generally more advanced...I don't think anyone would ever seriously argue against that yet you pretend as if that's a tragedy that plagues this website daily.

I know two ex-KTM owners...no explaination needed there, right!? :eek1
We all know somebody. And that means about jack-shit.

And you have almost 8000 posts on this website? Based on the "content" you filled this thread with, I imagine that wasn't difficult at all to achieve. Try that same number with respectable and realistic content that isn't rallying against ill-conceived fantasies about poor persecuted KTM owners.

While you may be half-right about Euro bikes improving their reliability, for the vast majority of owners the Euro bikes don't touch the hands-off maintenance and long-term reliability of Jap old school design. Sure you're right about why we all started on Jap bikes, but there are real and legitimate reasons many of us are staying Japanese. How many threads have we seen on this website about "bought my first KTM, never again"? TONS considering how few KTMs are out in the market place. And what do most of those ex-owners say? "Bike wasn't build user-friendly at all". The main exception I see is the KTM 300 2-strokes which get consistently good reviews. Everything else Euro receives generally mixed reviews at best on this site especially when it comes to reliability, there's just no denying that. How many Euro bike owners have posted threads like "is my KTM good for a TAT/RTW trip?" followed by mixed responses at best. Jap bike owners don't waste the space because we already know the answer to that same question about our bikes because people have been riding Jap bikes RTW for decades already.

It's obvious you have very little idea of your own subjectivity...you keep saying Euro bikes "absolutely dominate the dual sport market." At least in the USA, this simply is not true no matter how much you tout their performance. The characteristics of product offerings and how the market responds to those characteristics are two completely different things. Can you wrap your head around that? The KLR is still the best selling dual sport out there...and it's not Euro. The Euro bikes and KTM definitely do NOT dominate the dual sport market based on the existence of the KLR alone not to mention all the other well-established and going-nowhere Japenese dual sports. Stateside, I'd being willing to bet the DRZ400 and KLR650 combined annual sales (remember: market) of any year exceed the sales of all Euro dual sports in the USA of that same year. Hell even just the DRZ or KLR sales alone might trump all Euro dual sport sales. The picture is probably the same outside of the US with the Euro dual sports making up a little ground in their own backyard. The international lifetime sales of KLRs or DRZs alone might also exceed the international lifetime sales of Euro dual sports...I don't think that'd surprise anyone but you. Do sales numbers have any direct correlation to performances of certains bikes if any? NOPE! I think it's hilarious how your KTM-love has made you confuse two completely different things.

When I was a kid Volkswagen had a license plate frame that said, "You have just been Volkswagenized, passed by 36HP". My feeling here is that the KLR 650 might have just a little too much HP at 37. It's like a lot of things, it's not what you got, it's how you use it.

John

By the way, Kawasaki is still laughing all the way to the bank.

I will give you this, the KLR does have a poor power to weight ratio. It could use an upgrade, the design is 25 years old. That being said, I have neither the time or money to travel half way across the country for a good deal on a bike. The military does not afford me that luxury. My bike was built a bit at time, as I had the funding to do it. I cannot justify a garage full of bikes no matter how much I would like to. I also have an older Goldwing that is over 100K miles that was passed down from my father. I ride it as much as I can too, but the KLR is my workhorse.

Again, not comparing it to anything, as I the only experience I have is looking and not being able to afford other bikes. I know the bike has evolved with me as my riding skills have improved, and it still has not let me down. And yes, it is a heavily modded tractor, it pulls like one too. I have never put it on a dyno nor do I have the time or money to do so. The 705cc kit was just done for the fact that I wanted too. The motor had zero issues when I did it, just seemed like a fun idea.

I also have no illusions that my bike is meant for jumping 30 feet in the air, or that I could be competitive racing it in the sand. It does not mean I am not going to ride in sand, or be afraid to take it anywhere. I know comparing mine to a stock KLR is not really even fair either, because it is far from it. A great thing about them is the after market is huge, and parts are cheap. That is getting away from the engine talk though. Like I said, not comparing, but after almost a year of hunting, the KLR was the best option for my budget to be able to ride and build it with having a large upfront cost.

What do we see about European bikes over and over on this website..."Who the $%&# designed this thing?" practically a dozen times a day for years on end!

BMW, "Bikes Made Weird", "let's mount that footpeg on the engine case"...Husqvarna, "let's put the chain on the right side", KTM, "how do we make an oil change three times as difficult as normal?". I'm not saying the designs are necessary flawed in their functionality, but saying Japanese bikes are not user-friendly and Euro bikes are user-friendly is basically the opposite of the vast majority of opinions we see here on ADVRider.

Not my fault those guys cant effeciently spin a wrench.

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There are snobs of all varieties . . . . music snobs, movie snobs, motorcycle snobs . . .

The ones who loudly claim to be all about educating those poor unfortunates who don't agree with em, I've found they are mostly all about ego gratification . . .

I am particualrly amused by the ones that claim that, notwithstanding their pot-stirring and trash talking, they are well liked and valued by many . . . . "many folks love me, in spite of my boorish behavior!"

chucklin'

It makes little difference -- these folks are, at best, minor annoyances whose good points get lost behind the cloud of smug that preceeds em . . . . .

YAY for buying what you want, and enjoying the daylights out of it.

Most owners of Japanese bikes get their fair share of wrenching in like anyone else. You managed to completely miss the point I was making...what a surprise. As bomber said before this post, your cloud of smug proceeds you.

You said Kawasaki's (and thereby Japanese) bikes are the least user-friendly bikes to work on and have implied that Euro bikes are easy to work on in comparison. But now by saying "not my fault those guys can't effeciently spin a wrench" you're implicitly admitting that Euro bikes are generally more complicated to work on which just also so happens to be the usual definition of not user friendly. That's a complete contradiction on your part.

Dont put words in my mouth. When I say Kawasaki, i mean Kawasaki. Suzuki (as previously stated) is right in there. I have been elbows deep in many Japanese products, they are typically complex and require the removal of assemblies to access specific components. Once one understands this and applies it, the process of r&r becomes far less frustrating.
Kawasaki tends to take this a step further. For instance: accessing the carburetor on the KLX 450 requires removal of the rear subframe for jetting changes, and removal of the rear shock to fully service the carb. They also enjoy changing spec on wear items like wheel bearings, spokes, brake pads, and fork seals every 2-3years. Making parts procurement a PITA at times.

Team Orange however has only 3 pn# for rear wheel bearings for 1992-2013 85cc-950cc. Three Fork seals for 125-950. 2 different calipers for dirt/enduro/ds bikes since 1993. All bolts are sized 6-8-10-13-17, and the 08+ have torx and hex on ALL bolted hardware. Plus, even on an RFS or LC4 motor, jetting can be performed by rotating the carb.

Ive owned (and raced) about 6 Japanese dirt/ds bikes, and owned (and raced) 200-250-250f-300-300-360-400-525-640adv-950adv KTMs. I can honestly say that they are the most modular, least failure prone, and easiest access motorcycles ive ever worked on. And with certianty I will never go back to Japanese offroad bikes.

Ymmv, imho, gfys, fyyff, etc.

some electrons were mildly inconvenienced in the sending of this message

That's my exact point!

I paid 3600 for my 05 EXC and put about 1k into it....springs, guards, bags, tank, etc. It was pretty well kitted when I got it.

And my experience exactly resembles yours...perfect history, easier to put together than an erector set, and blistering power, torque with couch-like suspension. Couple that with bulletproof reliability, and you can see where I'm coming from.

People dump thousands of dollars into bikes trying to make them into somethng that they simply cannot be when those bikes are being produced already by other companies.

I just wish folks would get over their fear of change and give it a try, like I did.
Yup, as much as it pains me to admit, 3 years ago, I was JUST like you guys. Laughing at KTMs when I purchased my XRR......a bike that ADV told me was the "biggest, baddest bike made, and the best bike made for a big guy".

Yup, I was just as anti-KTM as the rest of the fearful, ignorant masses. But a year into XRR ownership I was ready to give up riding. The bike had some serious flaws and made riding un-fun.

After some searching, I wanted a bike that had E-start and Kickstart, under 300lbs, and between 4-650cc, a history of reliability and didn't need a lot of upgrades. The only bike that met my criteria was made by KTM.

So I bought it and the rest is history. As I said, if anyone in the Japanese big 4 made a big that fit my criteria, I would have considered it, but they don't.

So yes, I'm a convert, like Hookaguy and many others.

Like I always say, there's a very valid reason why so many people ride these bikes now. Take a chance. They are nowhere near as expensive, as exotic, as unreliable as the fearful crows like to caw. And parts are no more hard to get than Japanese bikes.

Give it a shot.

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showpost.php?p=20184440&postcount=129
^Still waiting for Off the grid to find me one post of anyone ever complaining about how their KLR650 can't handle the local MX track

Maybe because he made that mistake he thinks the rest of the world is so unfortunate? What planet is he living on? One with a lot of bridges for him to live under.

Yep,

he has anger issues out the asspipe. as I stated before, he called me everything under the sun for using my avatar...what a classy ass hat he is!

Im guessing his next door neighbour anal raped him with a wood chisel when he was a kid...

Thats great! I am glad your bike works well for you and sounds like a great deal. I couldn't find anything like that when I bought my KLR. I put money into it to make it what I wanted. Mine works great for me. I know what it is and I know what it isn't. What I have learned is it is a heck of a lot more about the rider than the bike. The better I get, the better my KLR becomes.

I have 3000 into my 99 ktm 640e (including tax and liscensing) and I wouldnt trade it for 10 brand new klr's. I am not a ktm fanatic. I like all bikes for different chit. I've ridden klr's, xr"s, dr:s, xl's, tt's, xt's. All 500's or bigger. Then I rode my 640e. It's on a whole new level. and CHEAP. Hardly any maintenance so far in 1800 miles. Oil change and clutch lever and carb cleaning. You can't appreciate my bike till ya try it. Vibes are no issue. You ever ride a huffy and think it was the bomb till ya rode a trek?

When you grow up and can have a discussion without popping a blood vessel or writing a half a page trying to flame me, perhaps you can join in again.

Many of the riders on this forum are older guys that have no use for the flat-brim hat, low-pants wearing crowd.

Hence, when I made my comment, most of the people here understood my meaning. Because you are young, immature and quick to anger, you missed the deeper meaning.

Since you just joined ADV, you might want to stop posting and just lurk for a while.

Seriously think before you respond. Take a breath.