I read through your whole dirt bike journey yesterday (and great photos) and thoroughly enjoyed it!
Quick question based on your experience- do you think the KLM (or was it KLR?) 600 was enough or would a larger bike (say a V-strom 1000 or BMW GS1200) be "better" for the on-road/off-road sections. Any thoughts on this? Thanks and again great read!
cheers
Andy
BTW - how much was the Fwd Air home? I shipped with them from Boston to LA in 2004 and it was $520 but Im guessing its gone up since then. Thanks!
Hey Andy! Good to hear from you again. Wow, I can't believe you read the whole thing. Cool!
You could do the Eastern portions of the TAT on a bigger bike such as the BMW GS1200, but once you get to Colorodo and beyond, the TAT takes on a whole different character and I definitely wouldn't recommend it. My buddy struggled out West on his KLR650. You almost really could use a full on dirt bike out there. My XR650R was a good choice, although a little too tall for me as you probably gathered from reading the thread.
Knowing what I know now, I would have lowered it, but before I left, I thought I would need the extra ground clearance. It wasn't nearly the issue I thought it would be. If I were to do it again, I would also consider doing it on a 450 (lighter and more maneuverable) if geared correctly, although it was hard to fault the 650.
A guy we knew was doing it solo on a KTM 450 and was several days ahead of us and he even recommended that we bypass some of the higher passes for fear the KLR650 wouldn't make it. In hindsight, he was pretty much right. I won't say it can't be done, but I don't think a larger bike would make it on a lot of sections out West.
The guy who created the route, has some diversions for larger bikes, but I don't know if the diversions are enough or if you would still run into problems.
It was a great adventure and I got to see a lot of this beautiful country of ours. If you decided to do it, PM me and I'll help you any way I can.
I gave myself a little carpal tunnel syndrome from 10-12 hours of constant buzzing for 21 days. Even after 2 months, my hands still go numb, but it is slowly getting better.
Forward Air was $750 dollars for a medium sized container (which was almost to small for the tall XR) from Portland, OR to Charlotte, NC. Bike arrived in about 4 days. I paid a similar amount when I bought the XR to have it shipped from Arizona to my door (JC Motors) and it took them almost 2 months. I'll never use them again and will never recommend them although they have good reviews on their website.
--xTalon