That's because they've stopped making them.

As mentioned in the ad I posted earlier, production has stopped.

:'(

 

Hopefully to make way for something new!

 

We need EFI KLX's here in the USA... Uncork with exhaust system, Put on a tuner, CDI module, get 25 HP(?) with 30 min of silly bolt-ons..

 

Oh Wow! Thats like stopping production on Kraft Macaroni and Cheese. What will the world do now?

 

I'm thinking fetal position..

 

Guy in the shop told me same happening to the CRF250L, only the mo(re)tard CRF250M will be available soon.

These bikes are like SUVs, too many posers buying them to look cool but never actually using them off road, even swapping wheels and tires for motard ones. Motards sell; low slung 2WD "SUVs" with long overhangs sell...

They don't need to replace it with anything, as Kawasaki already have the D-Tracker.

You know, the "dirt track" bike, so you can wear a colorful peaked helmet and colorful jersey, to ride to Starbux and prop your (colorful) peaked helmet next to you, so everyone knows you ride both Romaniacs and Motocross on your D-Tracker...

:P

 

Absolute shame-- I dont get the whole "Motard" thing-- I dont mean to insult anyone, but I think they look ridiculous and whats the advantage of putting tiny wheels on your bike and/or limiting yourself to on-road wheels anyway? Its much easier to put road tires on an S. If you are going to stay on the street, why not go Ninja or Vulcan?

If you ever decide to put off-road wheels you will lose all kinds of traction due to the tiny wheels?

Basically you can put road tires on an S, but you cant really go the other way with the SF without a serious reduction in traction due to the small size.

 

Watch what you imply... the hottest most exotic cars and some bikes in the world have not been imported to the U.S. for the same reasons... DOT/EPA regulations.

There have been a few Porsches and other street legal in Europe sports cars along with all those cool two stroke twin/triple/four cylinder sport bikes like the NS/RZ/RG models that never legally got here.

The KLX250 is in rare company there.

 

You have to ride one in its element to understand it. A dual sport with 17s, essentially the formula for the supermoto, can pretty much kick a sport bike's butt on a really tight technical road, like Deal's Gap type roads. Where handling and quick directional changes are at a premium over horsepower and speed, the supermoto design is great.

Fact is the same can be accomplished to a point with a standard dual sport with good street tires on it for road riding. Actual SM racing usually needs the wider 17s as well as a bit better handling for said conditions.

i lived in an area that rewarded supermotos and dual sports with some of the most fun back roads. Many of the secondary state routes and county roads were like roller coasters, turns and all. Then the dirt/gravel back roads with the same situation... It is fantastic. I am looking at going back over this week to go play. I will be running the KLX and my friend will be running his DRz400SM. He has a ZX14 and the DRz will leave it in the dust on the cornering we will be doing. Even a 600 won't really hold with them when the roads are bending.

Then when you take surface conditions into account, there is no bike that holds a candle to the dual sport/supermoto set up. Tight corners, some rough road surface conditions - good stuff.

Even the smaller wheels don't hurt as much as you'd think. Been there, seen that. The only negative to any dual sport or supermoto really is the seat, period.

 

Regarding importing, while the rest of the world has been enjoying EFI, the KLX has remained carb-only in the US for a looong time.

In fairness, if you watch truly skillful motard riders you can certainly see the fun of the racing, though I can't help feel it's basically a bunch of kids tearing up a car park...

Enduro racing started, I believe, though I may be biased as I'm from there, in the UK. The concept is Point A to Point B, be it via public roads or shortcuts off-road. As such the enduro concept was a fully road-legal bike capable of going off-road, with around a 50/50 mix.

Motard racing seems to be more like 90% sliding around on tarmac, with about, maybe, 10% over grass or something, to justify the off-road styling?

As mentioned earler, I rode a motard off-road for a couple of years. 17 inch wheels front and back, albeit (fat) knobbly tires, which were a real pain to find, and over-firm suspension. It's not something I'd recommend!

The front end could never really carve into sand or mud and was forever washing out, whereas the back end would wheelspin all too easily. Watching guys on KLX150 and 250s scampering over terrain my motard was jolting and crashing into really drove home the lesson. Small fat wheels have some benefits, none of which apply off-road.

With the right tires the lean angle you can get on a KLX is bananas; I've seen guys laying as near horizontal as makes no difference, with the stock tires.

And if anything, you can broadside a KLX easier with it's stock tires on tarmac than you can with motard tires, and most motard races seem to involve almost as much broadsiding as speedway?