A few months ago my brother got a hold of me, he had found a 2006 KLX250S that was about 10 miles from where I live. He asked me to go look at it for him to see if it was worth the price. Long story short - it was virtually perfect and well worth the price, but the thing was I test rode it...

That 250 was like a mountain bike under me compared to my KLX650! So a plan hatched. I planned to sell my Zephyr and go exclusively to the 650 and have two sets of wheels. After that ride the plan became - find a 250 I could afford.

My brother sends me an email of a 2009 KLX250 on ebay, that, as it turned out, was about 35 miles from where I lived so I contacted the seller to see the bike. Unfortunately it had about 8 hours left, the pictures made it a bit questionable and I had no time to get to see it. The auction went off with one bid at $2000. A few days later I was contacted, fought the snow to get to go see the bike yesterday, and got to see the bike up close and personal.

15,000+ miles, but after looking the bike over it is apparent a huge part of the miles were on road. The plastics were scuffed and one rear subframe tube had paint worn off, the kick stand had the usual wear from use, and the sprockets are shot. But the bike, under the actual dirt, which he had not washed off, was really physically "clean". No big scrapes on the bottom of the frame, no bashed stuff that I could see anywhere. I didn't see scuffs on the engine guard ears either. All nice clean silver paint.

Shots from ebay as long as they're up:




So I now am a KLX250 owner, final price - $2000 or $1000 and my Zephyr (he's giving me a great buy so I figure I'd treat him right on my Zephyr). He wants to build a cafe racer look and the Zephyr could do it.

Either way, I am now a 2 - KLX kind of guy. Now I have to do all the tricks. Now I may be able to actually venture off road with some confidence I can actually deal with "tossing" the bike around. With the 650 if I got stopped and leaned a shade too far I had no choice but to lay the bike on its side, get of and pick it up. I am hoping the KLX will be a lot easier to deal with. I likely will drop it an inch or two, just to help out a bit.

Bike is still at the guy's house, in the basement. He needs to see my bike, but it would still be there. His basement entrance is in the back yard on a down hill lot (front to rear) and there is probably about two and a half feet of snow and drifts back there. When I left it took me about 45 minutes and finally a really great guy in a Dodge 4x4 pulling me, to get out of the housing development where the bike owner lived! And I still almost got stuck trying to leave the entrance to the main road - about 30 feet! There was no plowing in that allotment along with a lot of side streets. Seems the worst of the snow swept right through where I was at. When I got home there was snow, but nothing like I encountered there. There was at least 3" of packed snow on the streets of that allotment and I couldn't get on top of it or dig into it with my truck's too wide standard tread tires. Now I wish I'd gotten some skinny snows for the truck.

Regardless, now I'm going to be here doing some serious searches and question what I cannot find. Later...

Anyone interested in a Renthal bar riser? It makes the bike feel like I've got ape hangers when I'm on it.

 

Congratulations! Its about time you drank the cool aid and joined the rest of us.

Send some snow this way please.

Is that a Renthal or Rox riser? I may be interested...

 

Wish I could send it. I'm about due to go shovel up to a foot of it off the drive, we've had probably about 4" of the stuff from last night to today and there are going to be some spots with up to a foot due to the wind blowing and drifting. Next Tuesday is supposed to not get over 2 degrees all day. Looks like I'll have a few days off from school. Hate that, we're going to end up making up days this summer, but worst of all for me is missing days during the six week classes I teach. 3 days represents 10% of the class and I can't afford the kids missing those days. I'm one of the few teachers who don't like snow days because of that. It's nice to have a day off, but I end up in worse shape than ever in the classroom.

I was mistaken, the bar risers are Rox, the R machined into them made me think they were Renthal since it had the bars. Once I get the bike I'll post something here unless my brother or one of my friends wants them.

 

Well you're in it like the rest of us now




- I've been to Delaware OH from MI a couple times; once to buy a new Dodge from the dealer there

 

Yeah, how deep in the "doo" am I!

 

Cool, Mark. I think the first mod it should get is a manual cam chain tensioner.

 

I was wondering how long it would take for this one!


It's cold out here, but the roads are dry. The KLR is calling. I'm out for a short one.

 

I excercised restraint when I read his post a few hours ago.

 

Rear disc looks undersize. Non stock

Good bike still

 

What's this manual cam chain tensioner?...









He's toast now. He's an incessant tinker like someone else I know.