http://www.fxbikes.com/ I'm hoping this is posted in the proper area... My apologies if this topic has already been covered. I tried a Search, but no results were returned. Mods, if this is a duplicate post please file accordingly in the recycle bin. A buddy of mine posted this site on his FB the other day and I can't stop looking at these. I'm relatively new to riding having purchased my first bike 3 seasons ago from a fellow inmate. A lot of my friends ride and recommended that I NOT get 990 Adventure as my first/learner bike, but I'm stubborn that way and took the plunge. While I'm certainly having a blast on the KTM, I am unable to learn tight/technical stuff on smaller trails with such a large machine. My line of thought was that if I learn to ride a big bike well, the rest would fall into place. That's before I learned of the perpetual compromise that is motorcycling. I'm sure many of the more seasoned riders find this amusing and I've seen quite a few of you throwing your 950's and 990's around like mountain bikes...which I envy. To me, this type of machine would make a huge difference in improvement of off-road/single-track type riding. Thoughts? btw...I'm not affiliated with the manufacturer in any way. This post is purely information and opinion gathering.
I think someone posted a video over in the Thread of Awesome. They are indeed awesome, but quite expensive. Personally, I would buy a used off road bike instead, but I can see their appeal. Many people spend that kind of money on mountain bikes.
These are certainly cool. However, if you want to learn how to ride tight singletrack and not waste a bunch of money on an unproven design, just go buy a husky TE250. It's plated, is a race ready enduro (I used to race one myself), and you can put racks on it to carry camping gear and do long offroad/DS tours. Or get a WR250, or a KTM 350EXC-F, etc. Plenty of options out there that you can get cheap (used). Learning to ride offroad on a 950/990 is, yes, kind of stupid. Sorry to say it but you just will not learn how to ride that big of a bike on tight technical trails compared to learning on a 150 or 250. Expecting to do so is kind of a waste of time, effort, expense, and injury. I owned a 950 super enduro and rode it on a lot of the single track that I took my 250 and 450 on -- nowhere near as fun as the smaller bike and it's a constant effort to ride safe compared to the smaller more capable bike. Yes, moto is a compromise, and that's why most serious riders own multiple bikes to fit different types of rides. Now this isn't to say that the FX bikes aren't really awesome or wouldn't be great for tight offroad trails - but my uninformed guess says they aren't to be had for under $4k like a used 250 four stroke.
They'd make awesome camp bikes (esp in dual sport models), you could likely get 2 on a front/rear bumper rack. ____
