Best 250 'tard.

[Ghost Lemur]

Still doing research as to what my next bike will be. If I go road it'll definitely be a zxr or cbr, but the other option which intrigues me is the Super Motard option.

Not having the best of luck with my research on this topic. Most websites I've been reading are all about the 400-600 size bikes KTM, VOX, etc.

So here's my hundred and fifty questions....

Firstly one of the reasons I like the idea of getting a motard is the go anywhere well ability. Is it really as easy as having two sets of wheels one with road tires (for open roading and commuting) and a second set with off road/legal tires (for when I want to go back road hunting and off road). How's the suspension side of things play with this?

What are my options for bikes? Both premade and what trail bikes are suitable for conversion? What's involved in the conversion?

A side question. Gear. I'm superficial enough to care about the gear suiting the look of the bike. Therefore what style of gear do people wear? If it's motorcross style helmets, are they safe as full face helmets? Leathers? Boots, onroad style or off?

[Motoracer]

Still doing research as to what my next bike will be. If I go road it'll definitely be a zxr or cbr, but the other option which intrigues me is the Super Motard option.

Not having the best of luck with my research on this topic. Most websites I've been reading are all about the 400-600 size bikes KTM, VOX, etc.

So here's my hundred and fifty questions....

Firstly one of the reasons I like the idea of getting a motard is the go anywhere well ability. Is it really as easy as having two sets of wheels one with road tires (for open roading and commuting) and a second set with off road/legal tires (for when I want to go back road hunting and off road). How's the suspension side of things play with this?

What are my options for bikes? Both premade and what trail bikes are suitable for conversion? What's involved in the conversion?

A side question. Gear. I'm superficial enough to care about the gear suiting the look of the bike. Therefore what style of gear do people wear? If it's motorcross style helmets, are they safe as full face helmets? Leathers? Boots, onroad style or off?

The million dollar question (ironically) is how much have ya got to spend? If not a lot then there is no need to get a proper supermoto. Frankly I haven't tried a Supermoto as of yet and from what I can imagine, it should be pretty insane (can't wait!).

However, the fact of the matter is, you don't need to get a motard to do all the things a motard does for recreational or commuting purposes UNLESS you want looks and style.

What crazy thing am I on about then? Well, I ride my brother's XR 600 right? It is a stock standard trail bike with the stock standard brakes and yes that is correct, stock standard dirt tires or known as knobblies. Yet, the bike still performs like a supermotard if you ride it like one. The only people who can go faster than it around corners have been my mates with very tricked out sports bikes with all the performance mods. (Note: I am trying to prove a point here about how good trail bikes are on their own with out the supermotard conversion if you don't have the money to do that. I am NOT trying to show off my own ability). The Michlens knobblies hold through terential rain while going around corners, full throtle in top gear with out many hassales. If you aren't going on the track, the engine braking of the big thumper aided with the half arsed front disk brake will be more than enough slowing down power for the road. On most dirt bikes you can mod and or adjust your stock standard suspension to better suit the road. How do you get away with the knobblies with high speed riding you say? Well, they are just little bits of rubber compaired to one big piece of rubber in comparison to a standard tire. The little pieces move around a lot more and generate a lot more heat thus giving you surprising levels of grip if you pin it. However the let down is obvioulsy the lack of footing with the lesser contact pach, however you can get away with it purely because dirt bikes weigh just about nothing! Obviously you can go a lot faster on the road with road tires or faster yet with road-racing tires but if you also want to ride on the dirt, I don't think it's worth the hassle of having to change them over from one to another, if you are only having fun and just commuting etc on it.

What am I saying then? Buy the most tricked out motard and be the envy of your mates if you can! You will then also get the added bit of performance but keep in mind that to get the same level of excitment (going sideways, slides etc) as you would with a stock bike, you are just going faster than before to get there. Hence why I refer to racing cause that's when competitiveness really matters and everyone is out there to go faster and not just have fun. If you just want to go hard and have fun on the road and dirt, get a trail/dirt bike and it will be good enough for recreational purposes. Actually if your game enough like that dude in Paeroa 2 years ago, you can run a standard trail bike in racing as well (He didn't have knobblies but he just hand standard road tires and he was keeping up with the pack for FFS!!)

One more thing. When I ride the XR600 it already runs out of juice at 160kmph, which is F all really. So if you are getting a 250, it better be a 2 stroke otherwise you won't see anything past 120 (that's if you are really lucky while going down hill!).

Hope that helps.

[Badcat]

A side question. Gear. I'm superficial enough to care about the gear suiting the look of the bike. Therefore what style of gear do people wear? If it's motorcross style helmets, are they safe as full face helmets? Leathers? Boots, onroad style or off?

as to gear - most wear leathers and MX boots.
i had a KTM 640 supermoto and the gearbox was very MX like - so it seemed more positive wearing mx boots. i have some namby-pamby sidi road boots as well now - as mx boots look silly on the 1200 and the gearbox is more precise and needs the better "feel" of a road boot.
as far as helmets go - the SM racers generally wear MX helmets (for the peak i'd say)- very noisy at motorway speeds due to no visor though.

but there are some "crossover" helmets now with a peak and a visor...

am i making sense?

k

[Mr Skid]

'Offroad' tires come in lots of different flavors, from a full agressive knob through to patterns that look like rain tires.

I'm still learning about the differences, but at a given price point I understand offroad tires will be sitting somewhere along a continuum between onroad grip and wet performance at one end, and grip in loose and/or slushy stuff at the other end. You can pay more for something like a TKC80, which will give you respectable performance in both conditions, but do wear quickly.

So back to the 'two sets of wheels' question. Yes, you can run two sets of wheels, with dedicated sets of tires. If you want to swap them over you'll also need to swap over brake discs and rear sprocket, unless you can afford to have a spare pair of discs and a sprocket attached to your 2nd set of wheels. If you don't want the hassle you could run a road oriented tire and one set of wheels. It would also save you having to worry about the speedo reading incorrectly if you are running different sized wheels.

Suspension wise, run a bit more dampening on road, a bit less off road.

The only 250cc factory Mo'Tard I've seen is the Kawasaki, which I think I posted in the other thread. There have been 50cc 'tards, but they look more like pit bikes to me.

A full conversion from a trail bike would look like this to me - hubs laced to 17" rims, resprung/revalved suspension, upgraded front disc, upgraded front caliper, upgraded master cylinder, maybe different sprockets, and different can.

To me the idea is that you upgrade stuff you need to. If suspension is ok, but you need better brakes, then think of upgrading the caliper and disc.

As for gear I think you'd find a full face more practical than a mx style lid with goggles. If you want to do foot down riding on the road, you might need to consider a boot with a replaceable sole.

[Mr Skid]

The Michlens knobblies hold through terential rain while going around corners

They do? Are you sure about that Mr Giri?

[Motoracer]

They do? Are you sure about that Mr Giri?

Well they do on most part, unless you get surprised by a slippery patch of shiny tar in a corner and suddenly you bash your face on the road.

[Motu]

It really depends on where you are coming from,as a road rider you may not like the 21 in front wheel,the tyres or soft suspn,but none of these things worry me at all - I like pushing the tyres to their limit,it all happens at lower speeds.I have two sets of wheels and 3 sprockets for my DT230,so it can change roles in less than an hour,I prefer to keep my road tyres aggressive as I ride a lot of gravel,but for mainly street you can get some excelent ADV rubber.

See if you can find a DT230 to ride down there,I reckon they have to be the best lightweight street legal dirt bike out there.With 40 HP there is no way any 250 4 stroke is going to get near it,with street gearing it will pull 165kph,and yet it is sophisticated with electric start and electronic powervalve,I have seen motarded ones on the net.

I have lots of different gear,but don't wear leather on my dirt bikes because it hinders movement,I like to get around on the bike.So textile pants in winter,in summer MX pants with hinged knee guards,Spidi jacket in winter,in summer an armour jacket with a cordura enduro jacket over top.I have a Nolan N70 helmet,this has a peak and visor,a good dual purpose helmet,on summer short rides I use a MX helmet with goggles,this is lighter with better visability but is no good at speed or in rain.The only boots I have are Gaerne Trials boots.

[Coldkiwi]

So here's my hundred and fifty questions....

Firstly one of the reasons I like the idea of getting a motard is the go anywhere well ability. Is it really as easy as having two sets of wheels one with road tires (for open roading and commuting) and a second set with off road/legal tires (for when I want to go back road hunting and off road). How's the suspension side of things play with this?

What are my options for bikes? Both premade and what trail bikes are suitable for conversion? What's involved in the conversion?

A side question. Gear. I'm superficial enough to care about the gear suiting the look of the bike. Therefore what style of gear do people wear? If it's motorcross style helmets, are they safe as full face helmets? Leathers? Boots, onroad style or off?

I asked the motox vs road helmet question a while ago as well so you may find some useful info in this thread . My impression is that unless you're planning to do significant amounts of dirt riding where you'll get quite hot, a road lid is going to be quieter and more comfortable most of the time.

I have been strongly warned about conversion of moto cross or enduro bikes. Enduro's are much easier to modify because they already have the lights/indicators and don't need to get certified. Certifying all the new gear on a motox bike is pretty hard and expensive work apparently.
The other thing is whether you want to upgrade the brakes on a dirt bike. I hear what MR is saying about the front brake being ok on road, but theres a fair bit of popular opinion out there that thinks it needs an upgrade.. .and that again requries you to bolt on new bits and get the disc, caliper and lines certified.

In a nutshell, converting a motox bike will costs LOTS and unless you're getting parts and the bike cheap and have a friendly certifer handy, its probably more money and hassle than its worth
Converting an enduro is definitely doable but again, to bring it up to a decent standard will cost time and money

[Ghost Lemur]

Thanks for all the reply's so far guys

The million dollar question (ironically) is how much have ya got to spend?

Not a lot. Saving goal is currently $5k. But I'll have to get gear with that too, unless I can con rellies into giving me gear as xmas/bday presents.

The only 250cc factory Mo'Tard I've seen is the Kawasaki, which I think I posted in the other thread.

There are others, Gas Gas has a SM250, so do a few other Euro manufacturers. But going by BikePoint they're not even available here and probably rediculously (considering my budget) expensive. Sexy, But expensive.

See if you can find a DT230 to ride down there,I reckon they have to be the best lightweight street legal dirt bike out there.With 40 HP there is no way any 250 4 stroke is going to get near it,with street gearing it will pull 165kph,and yet it is sophisticated with electric start and electronic powervalve,I have seen motarded ones on the net.

I'll start doing some reading on them. The only thing that concerns me about going with a 2 stroke is the maintenance costs. Even when I manage to find a job chances are it's not going to be well paying for a while. Add to that a young family which takes higher priority, equals not having a great deal to spend on maintenance. How does the DT weigh for maintenance? 2 stroke trailies in general? Are they technical/hard to work on?

Looks like there's a nice one on Trade Me.

Any other similar models I should be considering?

[Motu]

The DT230 is probably the pinacle of dirt 2 stroke development,with the basis of the motor (YZ125,WR200) being around for yonks,maintenence costs are far lower than a modern DOHC watercooled 4 stroke,mine is a 1997 and absolutly nothing has been done to it mechanicly,and should be ok for a while yet,a dribble out of the powervalve is all I can see and that's a non issue.Spark plug,gearbox oil,coolant maybe yearly,keep the oil tank topped up and the rest is the same as any other bike.

I watched TradeMe for 6 mths and never saw a DT230,the week after I got mine that one turned up,typical.But the blue ones are painted over white and look like shit when scratched through to the white.I see the road gear is off,so it's had dirt only use,but all the road gear is there.

[Ghost Lemur]

The DT230 is probably the pinacle of dirt 2 stroke development,with the basis of the motor (YZ125,WR200) being around for yonks,maintenence costs are far lower than a modern DOHC watercooled 4 stroke,mine is a 1997 and absolutly nothing has been done to it mechanicly,and should be ok for a while yet,a dribble out of the powervalve is all I can see and that's a non issue.Spark plug,gearbox oil,coolant maybe yearly,keep the oil tank topped up and the rest is the same as any other bike.

I watched TradeMe for 6 mths and never saw a DT230,the week after I got mine that one turned up,typical.But the blue ones are painted over white and look like shit when scratched through to the white.I see the road gear is off,so it's had dirt only use,but all the road gear is there.

So I take it parts are easy to come by too then. Always a bonus.

Ever heard of a TM? Seems to be an Italian manufacturer, there's a couple of them also on Trade Me.

If I was going to go for factory made I'd probably go for this



Yummy.

Pity it doesn't appear to be available in NZ.

[James Deuce]

Do you have a full license?

The factory motards are starting to turn up in the marketplace. Honda have the FMX650, Kawasaki have got that 250 already mentioned, and Yamaha have the XT660X/Z pairing.

[slob]

Pity it doesn't appear to be available in NZ.

Mt Eden Motorcycles used to stock them, probably still do.

My 2 cents: Models like the Honda XR250 and Yammie TTR250 may not be sexy, but are tough as nails for daily commuting work... but then there's the conversion hassles to deal with...

[gav]

Buy a Yamaha TDR250, best fun you'll ever have, prob pick one up for $3500-$4500? The original supermotard!!

[Ghost Lemur]

Found a downside at least on all the Euro I've been reading up on. Super small fuel tanks. We're talking 8-9.5 Lt. Don't know if I'd like to be constantly worried about where the next gas station is.

What's the economy on these types of bikes? Is it possible to get larger tanks?