At some point in the next couple of days I should be picking up this fine piece of machinery...

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Anyone want to buy an SV650? :D

nice! is that a DR-Z 400? is it street legal?

Yup one shiny DRZ-400 complete with knobblies and a number plate. Instead of having to endure the winter, this year I should just be able to enjoy it.

Took it for a quick test ride yesterday and it feels so alien after spending the last 2.5 years on sporty bikes of some description or other. I'll get used to it though. I was also pleasantly surprised at how the knobblies felt on the road. That said I didn't get a chance to do any 'proper' cornering, which is where I'm guessing it's all going to get a bit scary.

i guess its no secret by now, but i work at a bike dealership, and during a PDI (pre-delivery inspection), i was riding a ttr-125 on the pavement, and when i went to turn around the knobbies just let go. i was doing like 2-3 mph, to the point that i just stepped off the bike, and kind of held it up as it lowsided. only managed to scrape the fender slightly, and the right peg and brake lever. funny thing is the customer saw me do it, and asked me why i dropped it. (he thought i was just laying the bike on its side.?) to make a long story short, knobbies and the road dont mix.

True, however these are road legal ones which should make a bit of difference. I won't be going for knee down that's for sure. :eek:

Go for a road tyre Dom like the Pirelli MT series I have found them to be an great tyre used them for coming up to 3 years including 2 winters everyday as I commute to work done 13k in this time now on my third rear and second front.

The tyres in the photo look like Knobblies which may be classed as road legal but not the best for Full time road riding better to have a true road tyre which mabe described as Occasional off road :D

Go for a road tyre Dom like the Pirelli MT series I have found them to be an great tyre used them for coming up to 3 years including 2 winters everyday as I commute to work done 13k in this time now on my third rear and second front.

The tyres in the photo look like Knobblies which may be classed as road legal but not the best for Full time road riding better to have a true road tyre which mabe described as Occasional off road :D

+1. a street tyre will do much better than any knobby!

avon makes the "distanzia" line, which is decent for dual sport action.
pirelli makes the MT line, like celtic said, and our customers are very happy with them too. it looks like you have a set of "MT 21"s on there, which are described as 90% off raod performance/10% on road...

i can be of more help if you want...will you be doing more off road or on road riding?

Go for a road tyre Dom like the Pirelli MT series I have found them to be an great tyre used them for coming up to 3 years including 2 winters everyday as I commute to work done 13k in this time now on my third rear and second front.

The tyres in the photo look like Knobblies which may be classed as road legal but not the best for Full time road riding better to have a true road tyre which mabe described as Occasional off road :D

Road tyre? Pah I only intend to be on tarmac when I have to be. No point getting a bike like this and sticking to the boring stuff. ;)

Hell it doesn't even have mirrors or indicators. Might try and purchase the latter though. A mate of mine told me motrax do some good rubber ones which will survive as many knocks as you can throw at them.

Edit: What bike are you riding then Celtic?

On a CBT @ the Mo retook it last year, but as the new rules are coming in I'll step up to a 600 Supermoto or the DRZ400SM :D

@ present riding an XR125 Honda from new 13k miles riding all year round and mostly flat out all year within reason - Time to step up cause @ this rate it could become expensive as the engine may not last much longer :lol:

So next spring will be test time for me - now time to see mr bank mgr me thinks ;)

Sounds like a plan to me. Have you ever been tempted to venture of the beaten track on the XR? I don't know what part of Wales you're in but I'd have thought there's some fun to be had around there, even on road tyres.

I'm pretty sure I have the landranger maps for Wales lying around somewhere. Let me know if you fancy finding some legal lanes within riding distance of where you live.

Never done any green laneing Dom and as I use the bike everyday for work I can't afford to have it off the road if I damaged it and I've never dropped it either also I need to keep it in good nick as she'll be the down payment when I trade up :roll:

good thing about the bike though is that you can flake it even in the winter as you know it's not going to bite back :D

It's just overtaking you have to watch yourself as she lacks a bit of power so your in the danger zone that little bit longer - always wondered about the 125 law as from that point of view as it's bloody dangerous especially when some arse of a driver plants his foot into the carpet on purpose and hangs you out to dry - but that's another rant for another forum :lol:

Fair enough, I can completely understand wanting to keep the bike in good nick if it's going to be sold on as a road bike. I remember from my RS125 days that it could be a bit hairy going for overtakes sometimes... and that's on a 2 stroke!

bet they are both faster than my toyota echo...;) (actually, i believe they are called the vitz, or yaris, where yous are.)

Ah now you're talking. My mum used to have a fridge-white 1.0 Yaris. What a car. I remember one year around christmas we had some relatives round and it was decided we'd all take the dog for a walk cause it was the done thing. Unfortunately the place we'd decided to go to had a car park at the top of a very steep hill, the thing barely made it up there with 5 people inside. :lol:

not meaning to thread jack...we have the 1.5 with the variable valve timing...blah blah blah. ours does ok, but the speed limit ust about everywhere around here is 55-70 mph. it takes it like half a minute to get up to 80 to pass...its sad.

so have you picked up your new toy yet? for sh!ts and giggles, i took a drz-400 SM out in the game, quite fun. you think tt2 or a later version will have some motard tracks?

It looks like I'll be getting it on Saturday now. Can't fookin' wait. I've also got my eyes on a little Garmin GPS thingy which I could mount on the handlebars. It should be possible to sort out some nice routes on the PC then transfer them across so I won't have to stop to check a map every 5 minutes (you wouldn't believe how hard they make it to find legal byways in the UK).

Think I might have to resort to trying one in TT to see if it'll ease up my impatience a little. :lol: It'd be fantastic if TT2 did have dirt tracks but somehow I can't see it. The amount of work required to come up with a decent physics model would be crazy. Sure cars do handle differently on and off road but with bikes it really is chalk and cheese. I do have a copy of ATV unleashed something or other which is quite fun though. It's helping me perfect my double backflip heelclickers ready for my first rideout. ;)

Well guess what's now sitting in the garage. :D I picked it up this morning and had a 40 odd minute ride back to my place. This would've been fine and dandy except for the fact about 20 minutes of that involved sitting on a dual carriageway at 70mph. I now know that knobblies + 70mph = uncomfortable. Bearable if there's no choice though. Anyway, after getting the bike back I decided it'd be fun to go and put it through it's paces.

However as my bike gear consists 100% of road stuff and I didn't fancy ruining it it was off to a bike shop or two to empty my bank account. An hour or two later I got back complete with tarty new helmet, goggles and some beefy MX boots which feel more like a cast than a piece of footwear.

As there's still no sign of the cheapo enduro gear I'm waiting for from ebay I figured I'd let my impatience get the better of me and go out in my leathers with my waterproofs on top. Time to go play! :D

The first thing I noticed was that there was definitely a good reason why enduro riders don't wear leathers with waterproofs on top. :P It was fooking boiling.

Ignoring the fact I was about to pass out from the heat I hopped on the bike and rode over to a trail that's just 5 minutes from my house. I'm already fairly familiar with most of the tracks near me through mountain biking, and knew that whilst this one is muddy as hell it's basically flat and shouldn't cause me any major headaches.

The first thing that hit me was that for some reason (the torrential rain may have something to do with it) the trail was really, properly muddy. The second thing was just how bloody good a knobbly rear tyre is at keeping you moving forwards when anything less would just be making lots of mess and digging you a hole in the ground. I barely made it into second gear most of the way along and your average dirt rider would have probably rode past me laughing whilst going twice as fast... but I'm a beginner, so that's fine by me.

After this I figured I'd stop in at a mate's house and show off my now christened new toy, but the bastid had just popped out, so it was off to try another of the 'easy' lanes near me. This one was looking quite a big soggier than when I last rode it too, but this time it was in the form of puddles (lakes? :P) rather than evil gooey mud. As I'm basically just a big 5 year old I pointed the front wheel square at the puddles, twisted my right hand and held on. Everyone should try this. The old 'you never now how deep water is 'til you're in it' phrase was at the back of my mind, but I figured these would be fairly tame, presumably due to some puddle-depth instinct I must have convinced myself I possess.

At about the point where I felt the water level go over my boots I'd realised that that instinct probably needed a bit of fine tuning. Fortunately it didn't get any deeper than that and the DRZ really isn't going to be bothered unless the water's deep enough to swim in.

5 minutes later the bike was back on tarmac and behaving surprisingly nicely. Despite the knobblies it's perfectly possible to fly around little B roads and I found myself going quite a bit faster than I'd have felt comfortable with on the SV.

So far I'm dead pleased with it, and I reckon the switch from road to dirt bike was a decision well made. Hopefully next weekend I'll be able to get out on some slightly more testing trails with some other guys, as the one downside to off roading is that doing it on your own is a bit risky, and I definitely don't fancy binning it whilst I'm on my own in the middle of nowhere.

More pics / random outbursts coming soon, probably. :P

An hour or two later I got back complete with tarty new helmet, goggles and some beefy MX boots which feel more like a cast than a piece of footwear.


those beefy casts will be your best friend when you throw your foot down to save a crash! i know...:shifty: glad youre having fun with it. as i am a road race guy, i can only imagine what its like to have some slicks on that puppy, and slide it around the corners.

have you top speed tested it yet? does it get up to highway speed pretty easy?

Hehe for sure. I mean to give you an idea though, these MX boots make my Sidi road boots (see below) feel like sandals. :lol:

http://www.sidisport.com/_Data/Articoli/MVB2-NEGR.jpg

As for top speed the official number is apparently 90mph but I'm not certain that the bike has standard gearing fitted. Equally my tyres are rated for 80mph so I won't be trying. :P Most I've done is 70mph on the motorway and that's really not much fun.

With the gearing I have atm it gets up to 40 pretty much straight away and still accelerates quickly up to 60 odd. I would feel pretty confident that I'd have a decent road bike on my hands if I geared it for say 100-110mph, stuck some sticky tyres on and got some stiffer suspension.

As it is it's still great fun on the road so long as quicker A roads etc are avoided. In the town it's absolutely brilliant and the hugely wide bars mean you can turn it on a penny. Only downside is 30mph is pretty elusive and the lack of mirrors mean I'm not entirely convinced this bike will look after my license that much more than the SV. :P