love riding the little 09klx250sf that i have around town, expecially up here in the mountain passes. want some more power (stock right now) so it will end up with the performance goodies as time allows. i also want to be able to go riding offroad with a bike more often without sliding around all the time. the question is: get a cheap old dirtbike for offroad only or a set of 's' wheels/tires with a set of knobbies for when i want to go play offroad?

2nd bike: i've found a few 70's-early 90's dirtbikes from 200-500cc for under $400 running/rideable just not pretty. benefit here is that when i break something on it i can just roll it up onto my flatbed and fix it when i have time. downside is thats another vehicle for me to have to maintain, putting me back at 4 (09 sf, 87 lifted chevy crew cab 1 ton pickup, 89 suburban rock crawler, and another bike).

2nd set of wheels/tires: price on this seems to vary between $500-$1200 depending on if there is a used set for sale at the time, plus the other items that would be needed. upside here is that i would still be at 3 vehicles meaning more room, downside is that to go play in the dirt i'd have to basicly tear part of the bike down every time i feel like going. also if i break something my daily ride will be down.

any input? i'm kind of leaning towards the 2nd bike but want to hear yalls opinions about it

 

Mate, speaking from first hand experience, with all the best intentions of swapping wheels to suit the riding you want to do, the novelty wears off fast. Do yourself a favour and get a 2nd bike suited to the dirt riding you intend to do.

Even though changing the wheels is pretty simple and doesn't take long, you'll find it annoying very quickly and find you won't really do it. Even though I have a set of road wheels at home right now, my bike has the knobbies on and I'm destroying them ridng to/from work on the tar - simply because I couldn't be arsed swapping the wheels when I last got back from an offroad ride. And with switching between s and sf you have to deal with different brake rotor sizes making the job more complicated than mine (albeit still rpetty simple). Remember you'll need to change your chain every time too as the sprockets on the 2 sets of wheels are different.

You also need to consider what sort of riding you plan on doing as the KLX is only suited to a limited type of terrain. If you plan on doing tight single track, you'd be better off buying an old 2-stroke that is nice and nimble IMO (*cough* KDX200 *cough*). If you scour eBay enough I'm sure you can find a decent deal there on a bike that suits your requirements perfectly.

 

Without a doubt, get a proper dirt bike! Neither the S or SF (with S wheels) have the power, weight, or ground clearance to ever be true off road machines. Don't get me wrong; you CAN take either off-road, but they will simply not keep up with the off road bikes. A used dirt bike can be purchased for less than the cost of an extra set of wheels...

 

Plus I believe the front rotors are bigger on the sf model. You'd have to put yer rotors on your offroad rim. Correct me if Im wrong.

 

2nd bike..... I hate to read where someone say you can't do this or that with that kind of bike. Back in the day at one of the places we used to race a guy raced a Harley Sportster in the hare scrambles, he had ***** on it and if you didn't ride real hard he'd beat you. After that I figured you could do about anything with any bike if you really wanted to.

 

Yah I agree with linkin5. The S is a highly capable off-road bike with the right mods and the right rider. Makes me wonder if the guys saying differently even know how to ride off road? Or ever took the bike offroad?! haha

I can run circles around a lot of dudes on straight up motocross bikes on the trails.. My KLX does single track like a dream. 90% of it is the rider, not the bike. To the guys that say it is not good on singletrack - I welcome you to come to CT and I'll show you just how well it does

Also - there's much more that needs to be changed on the SF to make it an S. There's a couple threads on it.

 

I'm with Arctra, I have both sets of rims for my SF and would rather just have 2 dedicated bikes instead of swapping wheels.
It's only 30 minutes to swap the wheels but I am lazy.

 

Larry: “The S is a highly capable off-road bike with the right mods and the right rider. Makes me wonder if the guys saying differently even know how to ride off road? Or ever took the bike offroad?! Haha”
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You’re right Larry, the S is a competent off road machine and in the right hands it’ll go just as deep as any OHV. I agree and I regularly take my SF into some pretty steep & gnarly stuff myself. Rider skill being equal however, the S, let alone the SF (which is the subject of red’s inquiry), simply can’t match even a basic dirt bike.

Spend $1000 on a used KDX 220 and you’ll have 80 less pounds, 2.5” more ground clearance, 15 more horsepower and 2” more front suspension travel than an S. AND, you haven’t had to incur the costs of any additional mods, or mess around swapping wheels either!

 

im going to have to be different and say get a second set of wheels, as a second bike (if street legal) needs to be insured, a second set of wheels doesnt. just put a sm rotor on the dirt wheels, figure the gearing out, and if your as **** as me, get a second set of forks.

 

Sure there is an expense to having two bikes road legal but I think the convenience would be worth it by far instead of always changing wheels. And what are the chances that while you're home changing things over the phone rings with the result of you not going riding at all. With the second bike you would have been already out riding when THAT call came.