myth of the light weight adventure bike for dirt and adv riding?

My Kawasaki Mach 3 was not much of a long distance tourer. I don't think I ever did more than a 150 mile loop on that thing. So if that is your base, the 500 EXC is fantastic for some freeway, but I sure would plan on seeing the back roads as often as possible.

Or at least set up some kind of deal with someone like Airotech to have one fitted with mounts for the accessories book.

That's interesting. My 16' Husky 701 isn't perfect in the suspension department, but it's not too bad. I'm still trying to get it dialed in, but I might have to send it into a suspension shop.

Can you expand on "flawed design"? Are you talking about the shock/fork, or the linkage, or the geometry etc?

My 701 can do a lot more than dirt roads without big rocks... but like you said, it can get a bit bouncy and bucky vs my 500 or 300 in the really rough stuff. I have a feeling the 4CS forks need some more low speed compression damping, but I'm no expert.

How do you clean the screens during a trip? Just buy a small can of contact cleaner at the local auto parts store and do the oil change in the parking lot?

Man, the seat concepts XL comfort seat is great on my 701. Not sure if they make something equivalent for the 690. I can't imagine doing long back to back days on my 500's seat concepts seat. It's way better than stock, but not something to park your butt on for a week IMO.

A little gasoline.

I'm not well enough versed in suspension and geometry design to have an opinion on what's wrong. I suspect part of it is a relatively heavy bike (compared to a 500 or 501) and lack of suspension travel. It's been a while now but when I was seeing if I was interested in getting a 690 there was a lot of posts in thumpers on the suspension issue. People were able to improve on it by spending a couple of thousand $ but I never read where anyone was totally happy with the results even after pitching $ at it. That's why I have concluded it's more than a simple issue and inherently flawed in some manner. It was not designed to be a race bike. I mean who sells a serious dirt bike with paper air filters? I get the impression that KTM has never given it's big thumper the same kind of attention that it does to it's race or bigger adventure bikes. If KTM would hire Quinn Cody to develop the 690/701 as they did for the 790 Adventure I would guess the result would be an improvement.

The 690/701s are great bikes. Fast, smooth, light (compared to other adventure bikes), and handles well except for rough terrain at speed. Fuel capacity can be difficult to increase though and the narrow gear ratios limit it's versatility for both difficult off road and interstate riding without a sprocket change.

My best guess is the reason no one can find the perfect ADV bike is that the "perfect" bike would violate the laws of Physics.

Don't try to tell anyone that... they'll call you a fool and a liar for the next few years. After all the facts aren't the facts, now there are alternate facts... Go figure.

The problem with remote oil changes is disposing of the oil. A lot of guys just dump it out but these days that could get a fellow drawn and quartered in some places.

I could have sworn that there was just a post on this thread that dealt w/ a simple method to deal with an oil change on the road. No futzing w/ screens or even the filter. If your trip is less than 4-5k miles you have to do this once. I can't see how this is high on the difficulty list of a trip of that length.

With the 701 Rade Garage has you covered with their 1.5 gal tank. Looks totally stock but fits in a cavity created when you ditch that silly paper air filter and install their intake. Gives you 4.9 gals and about 250 mile range. I agree with the gear ratios though. A taller 6th gear would be nice for cruising at 75+ mph.

I felt the stock suspension works well at speed on rougher terrain. It's the 15-20mph rock gardens that upset the suspension. In the end though, the wheels and tires are bigger and heavier on the 690/701 vs a dirt bike, so that's gotta have an impact. Not many people like the 4cs forks, so I think I'll spend some money next summer and see how much better it does with some decent internals.

But by the time I get the bike to where I like it, it's going to be a silly amount of money for what's basically a big, heavy dirt bike, with a really comfy (after market) seat and low maintenance intervals.