I’ve been looking into dual sports lately and I came across the Kawasaki KLX250S. It has a high seat which is good for someone tall like me, but is 250cc enough? I’m nearly 290 lbs. I don’t intend on getting on the highway with this thing or going above 50mph. Any advice? I’d really like a lightweight bike.
I just have to find a used one…
PS. I know it’s on the site, but I was just wondering if anybody has experience with it.
There were a couple episodes (season 3, I think — yeah, I was checking out the DVDs from the local library) where they all got on 50cc scooters and terrorized the town. And they said it was the most fun they’d had in a long time.
And Mikey isn’t a small guy by any stretch of the imagination.
If 50cc’s will haul him around to “the most fun in a long time”, the 250cc’s, or even 400, will be fine.
I love to ride them for demos. It seems that they allow me to emphasize the points of the exercise that I need to. The front dips under hard front brake and you can hear the engine noise better than the street bikes. That way the students can tell when I am rolling on and when I am engine braking. I LOVE riding these dual purpose motorcycles. I am just under 290# and I would have one for round town and off road. I really like the KLR 250.
Kudos. I can see how that could really make a difference to some students. I really felt like my instructor was very good at exaggerating his actions during demo, but his demos were using eliminators. They ran so quiet that you really couldn’t make that kind of learning connection.
I have a Versys–a Kawisaki dual-sport built off the Ninja 600’s engine–and love the bike. That said, the tendency of dual-sports to be tall can be an issue with beginner riders. At 5’8″ tall, the Versys (and other dual-sports I’ve tried) means I can’t flat-foot the bike at stops. I didn’t have a hard time transitioning to a tall bike after I had a few thousand miles under my belt, but I wouldn’t have wanted to start on the bike.
I am looking at Craigslist this week. I am going to purchase a 250 Ninja or a dual sport. The big thing for me is price $2k is my break. I did find an older KLR 650 for around 2500 and a real cool 1984 Honda XL 350 with less than 3k miles for just over $2k. I am really leaning toward the dual purpose BUT, 2008 Ninja less than 1k miles (down once) $2800 (Casper Wy. Craigslist). or the 2004 Ninja 736 miles (you heard me right) $2500 (Denver Craigslist). I am just anxious to see what comes up next.
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