Pick up my WRR tomorrow!

HI, I am Russ from Mid Missouri, and am going to pick up my first "dirt" ('08 WRR) bike tomorrow. Anything I should know/check-out before I lay my money down? The bike is bone stock besides some hand guards, I will be getting a skid plate (suggestions appreciated) but is there anything else that is "necessary" to ride off road? I plan to trailer the bike home, and have heard that I need a fork block, and I have heard that fork blocks are completely useless...what is the forum concensus? Your experience and knowledge are appreciated!
P.S. I do plan to read the owners manual cover to cover before I ride it (well maybe after just one little short ride).

congrats on your new sweet little ride. had my 08 for a month now, bone stock, just got a flatland racing bash plate yesterday. from my reading here about the only worry about the bike is fuel pumps overheating on hot days and stranding you for hours as it cools down (problem resolved by new design), otherwise there seems to be little to worry about beyond good routine maintenance and with the first valve adjustment at 26k there is just the easy stuff left. been on the trail a couple of times and had a blast myself, the ride is light nimble quick and with lots of brake. easy to pick up when i fall over, very important to me. you will find lots of wonderful and knowlegable folks here and lots of good info with a little digging. enjoy that little first ride, sorry about the trailer thing though, they should be ridden home i think.
sean

You can argue that fork blocks don't make any difference if you want, but you can't argue that they cause harm. A piece of scrap 2x4 and a saw will produce a fork block - and how often do you plan on trailering your street-legal dual sport.

For offroad, get a good bash plate, radiator guard, strong Cycra guards that attach to the clamps, disk guards (mine have enough dings in them to tell me they were a good investment even with my sedate riding), and case saver. Any additional armour... depends on how gnarly you get, I suppose. I have a Ricochet bash plate, Force rad guard, Sandman case saver, and the disk guards are GYTR. Not many complaints have been seen about these or other brands, so...

There was an early range of '08 WRRs that showed a spike of fuel pump failures - about Feb through April, I think. There have been around 25 in all reported between here, ADV, and TT; it's a hard number to get a handle on because some people posted in multiple places, others reported a pump failure when it turned out to be something else, etc. And some people of course probably didn't post about it when it happened. How many WR's were built during that range and what percentage failed/were reported... who knows. The majority of owners of bikes in that range have had no problems whatsoever, but it is also a fact that some people have had fuel pump failures in that range, enough that it is a known issue.

Mine is in that range and I haven't lost any sleep over it in the last three years, with nearly 10,000 miles on my bike so far this year alone. If you're really flinching about the possibility your '08 will suffer a pump failure, buy a new pump, switch out the original, and sell the original as a new, unused pump from an '08 manufactured in whatever month. Somebody will buy the unused pump at a discounted price to have on hand as a spare, and for $100 or so, you won't lose sleep anymore.

Anyways, welcome...