Gearing Question - 14/50 to ???

Hi all,

I've had my 2013 WR250R for over a year now. When I got it, it had SM wheels on it which I swapped back out for the stock dirt wheels. I ride a fair amount of single track, but also some highway / forest roads to get there.

I knew the bike was re-geared, but hadn't paid much attention to it until on a recent trip with a bunch of other riders when I noticed how far off my speedometer and odometer are. Like easily 10 - 20 MPH at higher speeds. Fortunately it's a 6 speed so I can still hit highway speeds...but I have no idea how fast I am actually going because my speedometer says 80 when I'm going more like 60.

I digress...

So I got home and checked my gearing. Turns out I'm running 14 - 50, which is great for trails, but maybe not so much highway?

My question is this...

Is there a modest gear change that I could do WITHOUT requiring a new chain? I don't mind buying a new sprocket, but don't really want to buy a new chain. My initial thought would be 14/48. Perhaps I could accomplish this by just removing 1 link from the chain (per this calculator) - http://sprocketcalculator.com/

So to simplify the question, thoughts on going to 14/48 vs my current 14/50 and using the same chain? Gaining 4% speed and losing 4% torque of the 8 that I initially gained over stock with the current setup.

Bottom line, I don't mind the torque that has been gained, but I'm not sure it's worth the loss in highway speed. On a side bar, it's annoying to me that the speedometer can't be reset to match the new gearing.

I don't have enough knowledge on the gearing to be useful, I'm sure others will comment there. But for the speedometer calibration I think most use the 12oclocklabs SpeedoDRD. At least that's what I did.

Yeah, get one of the two speedohealers.

For me, 14/48 is pretty good for dualsport. See if youre able to fit the 48 with the chain you have now, otherwise remove 2 links-
it depends on how long your current chain is.

You can keep a 13 fo swap out when you need more low end grunt for your singletrack rides.
I change my front sprocket pretty oftes, as I use my bike for a lot of different stuff, and really like how you can change the character of the bike.

I have two sets of wheels: Shinko 244s for road at 13/45 and Pirelli XCMH for dirt/dual sport rides at 13/49. I can do both setups with a 112 link chain. I do use these reversible axle blocks to reduce how much I have to mess with the chain puller bolt when going back and forth between wheels. I set the speedo healer for the road setup and don't worry about the speedo error on the dirt setup

https://www.rockymountainatvmc.com/p/960/44404/Works-Connection-Axle-Blocks

gearingcommander is great for this stuff

https://www.gearingcommander.com/

I actually have those reversible axle blocks as well, so I could run the SM wheels that came with the bike, and the dirt wheels. I'll have to look to see how much room I have for adjustment with the current chain and dirt wheels. I might be able to make it work with a 48t sprocket.

This bike came with a ton of stuff on it. I wouldn't be surprised if it has a speedo healer that was set for the SM wheels. But I could be wrong. I'll have to look.