I bought my KLX250 for your exact same reasons and riding styles. Im 6'1" 237lbs and I have loved mine since the day I brought it home. Mine is bone stock and seems to have plenty of power for what I use it for. I have ordered the jet kit and plan on doing that, HMF exhaust, 45t rear sprocket and air filter/crancase breather mods but thats it and Im just doing those because these guys are a bad influence on me...lol
Seriously I really like the bike just the way it is and Im 100% satisfied with it.

 

Yep 6-1 and 230 or 240, I think the scale is broke. Sometimes I wonder if I look funny on this 250, like maybe I might look too big, but sometimes when I pull next to a store window and look, (kind of like when women look in the mirror at themselves) Proportionally I look pretty good. Now that we have the physical part out of the way, let me tell you with the 13-45 gears, and the muzzy (or pipe of your choice) the jetting and the airbox sitting in the box with the rest of the parts I took off, the bike is awesome. Low enough for the tight trails, and high enough to keep up with traffic. Its all good. Sometimes when I go to the bike shop even 15 months after buying the 250 I still look at my second choice the Honda 650. And every time I walk out of the shop glad that I chose the 250. The 650 is a great bike, and lets face it its a Honda, and nobody knows bikes like Honda, but the Kawasaki KLX 250 is so much better looking than the Honda.

 

+1 on looks.

 

I should have clarified the one point about highway riding. I would only do short highway rides of like 20-30 miles on it and probably not even that long. Honestly I proably won't even do highways at first.

I am not a big wheelie guy and I"m not into driving super fast so I can't imagine it would be any different for me on a bike.

It sounds like this is a good backroads bike, a good commuter, and an OK highway bike as long as you keep the trips short. If it is as good (or better than) the DRZ at one or all of those things then it might be for me.

 

+1 I am very happy with the bike the way it is. I don't know what anyone is talking about when they say it won't wheelie (with stock gearing)in second! I ride them all day long in second gear for as long as the street lets me. If you are not racing someone it is a great bike. You will have to change the gearing for sure. It's a cheap easy mod that most bikes need. I even changed out the gearing on my zx10r, there is no need to do 101 in first gear!

 

+1 [sm=exactly.gif]

 

Yeah, Idunno..maybe they're talking about a power wheelie vsa clutch popper. I wasused to doing clutch poppers in 2nd with the CVK and stock exhaust....almost put it on the tail light the first time I tried it after installing thepumper[8D]

 

Tremor, you are right. I meant that if he is looking to do roll on wheelie's that he would have to significantly mod the bike. I am sure that for someone that is good at wheelies (not me) gets the front up, the bike has more than enough power to keep it up.

 

I've had mine for over a year now and love it as well. Have completed all the mods with the carb, KDX snorkle, added a HMF exhaust, de-smogged , and changed rear sprocket. Mostly all just tweaking it in to my personal likes. All of the above make for a wonderful bike that I will own a long time.

 

Ya im talking about hit the throttle and the bike lands on top of you type of wheelies . I rode my friends hondas 250 2 stroke and that thing had crazy power in the power band, I almost killed myself when the power band hit for the 1st time, I coulnd't help but wheelie and I wasn't trying to, nor did I want to [:@], that was scary power right there. The KLX doesn't have that. But you can wheelie it in 1st and 2nd, but I have to work the bike to do a wheelie. THough I was going up a really steep hill climb one time and it flipped over on me, lol.