Nice bike...having looked at both and the 300 Rally I'm still in the 450RL club myself...the power for cruising road sections plus the suspension upgrades make it worth the extra $$....but man...those things are HIGH right now...I'm just going to keep riding the Burro and see what happens... below is a recent trip to the Tail of the Dragon with my sons....both riding Vstrom 650 and riding my GS up front.
Same here...My GS is an 08 Hex-head....I do almost ALL My own maintenance...it's fairly easy to work on and the library for mechanic work on YouTube is extensive. I keep eyeballing some new bikes (mostly newer GS) ....but this one just works so I'll ride it for now... the ONLY bike I'd consider substituting for the GS is the Honda Africa Twin...
Did someone say Africa Twin? I love mine. I’ve owned it for two years now and it still puts a huge smile on my face every time I twist the throttle. I moved up from a f650gs thumper. I had been eyeing the AT since it hit the market in 2016.
Man that AT is a very nice bike....if I went with a newer bike I'd have to REALLY consider the AT for sure!! Everyone I've talked to loves theirs!
Yeah, the 450RL is much nicer for sure, but 600 mile maintenance intervals for a "street" bike kind of kills it for me. From everything I've read, it seems more like a dirt bike that happens to be street legal. The 300l is more like a street bike that you can happen to take off road. I'll check that video out when I get a chance later.
Just a few mods so far. AXP skid plate with linkage guard, AXP rear rack and a Nelson Rigg Adventure tail bag. Also have an XL comfort seat from Seat Concepts on order. Really enjoying this bike. Have about 800 miles on it now on mostly dirt roads and a little light off road use. 20220522_133500 by D H, on Flickr
Got the Seat Concepts seat a couple weeks ago. Well worth the money. I've barely ridden my XSR now that I have the CRF. The suspension is lacking and it's a lot slower that what I'm used to, but I have a ton of fun exploring on this thing. Country roads just cruising around, I've managed to get over 78 mpg a few times. 75 mpg is pretty easy, so that's been a definitely plus. 20220607_140037 by D H, on Flickr 20220531_113021 by D H, on Flickr
Oh yeah, saw a Honda Trail 125 at the dealer the other day and I think I might need to convince my wife I need one of those. That thing was really cool!
Picked this up this morning. I have put about 125 miles on it today and I'm loving it. After buying and riding a Sportster last year, it's good to be back on a real bike instead of a tractor.
Cool bike...my youngest son has built one of the coolest T100's I've seen.. GREAT bikes that make all the right noises and has the right feel!!..
All I wanted for Father's Day was some quality time in the saddle with my sons. We left out at 0700 and headed towards the Cherohala Skyway via Hiwassee and Tellico Plains. Then onto Robbinsville and then took the curviest road we could find to Maggie Valley and a visit to the Wheels Through Time Museum. If you've never been and call yourself a rider...you need to visit if you find yourself in the area...what an awesome place. After lunch we hopped on the Blue Ridge Parkway then down to NC 215 to Bernard, then 64 towards Franklin...then dropped down into GA...Total mileage for the day was 435 miles... Best Fathers Day ever... 1915 3sp Harley. we got to hear this one run. Old Airhead sitting outside the Museum. The parking lot was FULL of cool bikes old and new. We had to stop for a coffee break to charge our Cardos.... On top of the Blue Ridge Parkway...it was COOL up here and felt GREAT!..we had bluebird skies all day and perfect weather.
That's awesome. My Bonneville is a 2002 790 with 10,600 miles. It's been in the garage for the last 13 years. It has Staintune exhaust and it does sound sweet. My sportster is obnoxious cruising down the highway. I also got the factory saddle for 2up, but I always wanted a Corbin smuggler. It's not fast, but it's a lot of fun.
Great exhaust on that... Parker's is a full on British Customs build... Shoots flames out the back on a rev-matched down shift about a foot when riding at night. Any time we ride together and he's on that bike people always walk past mine and Jacksons bike and goes right to that Bonneville...he's currently go it up for sale and a guy coming to look at it tonight... It looks NEW but has a little over 15k miles on it...it gets ridden but we like to take care of them too!
We rode about 100 miles 2up yesterday. She said it rides way better than the Harley or the Honda. I went to do a sprocket change today but when I got the cover off I found that it's already been done. Now I'm trying to decide if I want to go bigger, I just don't want to make 1st too tall for 2up. I wish they would have given the transmission more of a spread. I know the 1200s were given a 6 speed at some point. I got stopped for 60 in a 45 last week, luckily I just got a warning. I really didn't think I was speeding, I was trying to figure out if the car behind me was a cop and ran up on one hiding in a driveway behind a wall. I got a phone mount this weekend so that I could check the speedometer. I actually ordered it earlier in the day before I got stopped. This is the first bike that I have owned that the speedometer says you are going slower than actual. It's reads about 10mph slow, all my other bikes have displayed faster than actual speed. That also explains why my rpm were so high and my gas mileage sucked last week. When I thought I was cruising about 75-80, I was really doing 85-90. There were too many deer out last night to check the speedometer at those speeds. On a lot of bikes the speedometer gets farther off the faster you go. I think we are going to ride back down to the lake for dinner and some music in a little while. I don't think we are going to stay for the fireworks though. We got eat up with bugs last night on the way home.
We recently got rid of the Triumph T100 and brought in a newer Triumph. 2018 Triumph Street Triple RS (765 inline triple)....awesome bike and so much technology, Ohlin suspension, and Brembo brakes. This thing pulls like a freight train.
I sold my 08 GS a while back to a buddy and was looking to upgrade to a newer model GS....then this followed me home... 2020 Ducati Multistrada Grand Tour. Full Termi exhaust and tune...and it makes for a fun "touring" bike. With Temps hitting 60+ degrees yesterday the boys and I lit out for the Cherohala Skyway and had an awesome ride. My oldest, Jackson rides a Vstrom 650 Parker, my youngest has a Vstrom and a Triumph Street Triple (shown in the photos)....it was an awesome day even though we ran into some ice up on the top of the Skyway.
MOTO thread update: in the last few months we have flipped our entire stable of bikes. I shared a few photos a while back of the Ducati Multistrada 1260 Grand Tour....this bike continues to impress and is a blast to ride. Parker, my youngest sold his Vstrom and Street Triple and got a 2020 Triumph Daytona Moto2 765. really nice bike and fairly rare. Jackson, my oldest, sold his Vstrom and after some deliberation ended up buying a 2018 Triumph Street Triple 765. We all really like that Triple that Triumph has and it's a great bike to ride with power all thru the midrange. Here are a few more recent photos of the stable.
Well I have come full circle I guess, about 12 years ago I started my adult motorcycle journey on a KLR650, rode it for about a year and jumped up to a Yamaha Super Tenere 1200. After a few years of picking that behemoth up off the ground I decided to downsize to a CRF 250L, really loved that bike had it for a few years but just not enough grunt on the highway with camping gear, sold it and went without for a season. Then last year I bought a DR 650 and modded that out, then sold it at the end of the season. Great for back roads and dirt but really not a fun bike on the highway. I realized this year I need more than one bike. For now I just wanted something to do a little of everything again. I picked up this barely broke in 2018 KLR with less than 3k miles. Previous owner pretty well set it up for back country travel and camping, I have added a Sargent seat and Wolfman tank bag so far.
