Need advice on my first bike.

[ambex]

Alright here is my situation, iam 23 and have never rider a motorcycle. On or off-road, although I do freeride mountain biking so I have experience with bikes, just not ones with motors. Iam 6'3" and weigh 220 lbs, iam looking for a bike to rip around town with to my friends houses as well as go on some trails and have some fun.

Iam currently considering a KLR 250, KLR 650, suzuki DT250, suzuki DR200SE, and the Yamaha XY225 as fully built street legal bikes. Another option would be for me to get a CRF150F and make it street legal with a kit. Any comments on these bikes or suggestions about other bikes would be greatly appreciated.

Thanks

 

[bikepilot]

Though not on your list, a DR400S would be ideal for you IMO. The DR650S and the XR650L are also good options.

You should realize that a street legal 4-stroke will have a substaintial weight penalty compared to a full race bike. The big KLR while a good adventure touring bike is much to big to be much fun off road. The DR200 and CRF150's are way too short for you (my mom is 5'2" and comfortably rides a stock DR200). You could convert an off-road only bike, but realize that the maintance schedule could get a bit excessive if your doing a lot of street riding on an off-road race bike (like a CRF250 for example). A converted off road trail style bike like an XR400 or XR250 would be an excelent option, great reliability and lighter than a factory dual sport.

I belive yamaha has a street legal TTR250 that might also be quite good for you.

good luck


btw I'm 23 and also do free ride mtb's (Kona Stab).

 

[i_955]

Excellent reply, some good choices and advice there.

 

[firecracker22]

You'd feel like a giant on a 150. Can you get a KTM 450 or 525 street plated in Canada? You an here, though some places are starting to get picky about it. If you can get license plates for one, they would be lighter and have better suspension than any of the Japanese dual sport models.

 

[bikepilot]

Although the race ktm's would be great from a performance standpoint, they are not durable enough to come close to withstanding regular street miles. KTM even states that the transmission gears are not designed to cope with such loads.

If your intended purpose is lots of serious off road with a little bit of on-road every once in a while then these bikes and one's like them (CRF, YZF etc) would be worth serious consideration. An XR 400 would offer something close to the same off road ability (well, to a novice rider anyway) yet would be much more likely to surrive street riding. Even an XR250 would be good as long as you don't need to do any high speed crusing (say >60mph).