First decent dirt ride

Hey all, owned the WR for a while now and spent plenty of time on gravel and firetrails etc but just gave it its first 'proper' dirt ride yesterday. 13/48 gearing was installed with Michelin AC-10's, other wise its bog stock, sag setup perfect for my weight (about 90 kg's) and clickers set as advised by someone on this forum, was an ex trials rider from memory. These really are impressive little bikes, I was concerned about the weight and suspension (this bike replaced a KTM 200 exc) I have been so impressed with it.........and quite a few people at the ride were equally impressed!! I would strongly urge anyone with a WR to ride it a bit with decent tires before mucking around with suspension re valving, the ride yesterday was a mud fest, there were bikes just scattered all over the hills and stuck in bogs everywhere.......the compliant power of the WR was a winner, my riding buddy and I have both raced in a few 2 hours in the last year or so and both previously raced motocross (a long time ago!!) he was on a Gas Gas 250 enduro bike with full soft mud tires and every time we stopped his comment was 'geez that thing goes good'

A young guy rode with us for a bit on a KTM 250 sx with a paddle mud tire on it, he wandered over in the pits after and said 'I cant believe the way that thing goes'......'and with those tires!!'.....'and look at that little exhaust'

My impression is that they carry their weight very low, suspension is very good but may be a little plush for really fast or big stuff, steers like its on rails, just beautifully and the ergo's fit me sooooooooo much better than my old KTM's.....you just want to stand on those pegs.

Instead of just raving about it I should have taken a few pics before it was cleaned to give you all and idea of what New Zealand mud looks like, on that note, it dosent shed mud as well as a full on dirty, got jammed up under the guards etc a bit more than I think would on a true MX or enduro bike.

Lots has been said about the soft power delivery of these things, I agree that when I first got it, standard gearing on the road it felt a bit sad (raced a 525 smr motard for a while though...) change that gearing and get it in some real dirt and it just feels fantastic, nice power delivery is just a lot less taxing on the body in the knarly stuff, really appreciate it after a few hours of hard trails. Not bagging anyone for the mods they have done but for me the only real advantage of a pipe and all that stuff would be getting rid of some pretty high weight.

Just my opinions here, strongly advise anyone thinking about modifying their bike to give it a real good thrash first.....you might be pleasantly surprised and have extra money to spend on tires and gas!!!!!!!

Yeah, fully agree. I have the same tires and same sprockets. Terrible on road, but a total mountain goat off road.

GusinCA wrote:

Yeah, fully agree. I have the same tires and same sprockets. Terrible on road, but a total mountain goat off road.

I agree, I have the breathing mods and aies etc done, but stock exhaust and decent tyres. I just did a full day alongside 8 ktm 450 and 530s in the mountains of catalunya northern spain, the little wr far exceeded my expectations, carried the extra weight well and on the loose hair pins with big drops was carving a course on the inside of the ktms. at the end of the day arm pump and fatigue where evident in the other riders , but I was fresh as a daisy. I am seriously thinking of putting this in a full on enduro .