I haven't been around in a looong while but I feel like you folks are probably the best people to bring this question to. I don't care for brand loyalty or egos, so hopefully this can be a helpful place to discuss my dilemma. For starters - I'm no newb when it comes to riding on two wheels. I used to bomb around on a CBR600 in my younger days, I had a GSX-R600 for a bit and then my longest ride was on an R6 that I dailied through Boston traffic for a few years. Since then, I've toyed on some dirtbikes but nothing monsterous (no huge 450's or purpose built race bikes, just trail bikes like a TTR and CRF-F). Nothing with ABS, traction control or drive modes - all old school mechanical stuff that will lock up in a heartbeat or throw you off if you get too sassy with it. Also, I am ENTIRELY powerless to my monkey brain when it comes to aesthetics (that GSX-R slipped in there, I don't know how I ever found that thing attractive). How a bike looks and makes me feel is much more important than practicality (I'm not old enough for that feature yet). However, a bit of practicality sure goes a long way. Okay now I guess we can talk about wants and needs: My daily commute to work is 15 miles, mostly 75mph Texas small town two lane highway. I can take actual back roads if needed, but they're littered with gravel, and this actually feels like it won't be a detriment for most of what I'm looking at. My son has a CRF100 and he and I would love the ability to go ride together, whether that's in our own hay field or maybe some of the trail systems that my wife and daughters frequent for their horse rides. No real serious stuff, basically glorified SxS trail systems that you can easily drive a factory F150 through. So my daily commute isn't that long, I won't be blasting down the interstate all that often if at all and I also won't be dealing with too much traffic. The want to also go off-road has lead me to the world of Dual Sports, which as you can tell is entirely different from my previous daily driver bikes. I've really been looking at the CRF450RL but these have a bit of a tarnished reputation for being a total pain in the ass to deal with (twitchy throttle, extremely frequent maintenance schedule, etc) . The CRF300L doesn't come with these complaints, but they lack the power I think I'm going to want. While I don't care to do 130 down the freeway anymore, being able to throttle the front tire up and not absolutely struggle on that 75mph road to work are appealing. I've looked at some other options like the KTM 390 Enduro as it's more of a street bike with dirtbike accoutrements but they're also known to be a little underpowered and the bigger KTMs/Husqvarnas seem to have that pesky frequent maintenance schedule that most high performance bikes seem to have. A lot of the other dual sports out there tend to have really outdated aesthetics (Looking at you, Suzuki and Kawasaki) which just kind of turn me off. I want power, but I don't want 1000mi oil changes and 3500 mile valve checks. Am I missing something? Is there something else out there that fits what I'm looking for without also being some overdressed Adventure bike or a $15,000 BMW? Thanks for reading my rambling nonsense and let me see what you're using to give me some ideas, even if it doesn't fit exactly what I'm looking for. OH! An important part that I just haven't yet had the opportunity to confirm. I know that going to test ride one would answer this for me, but I'm not there yet. I'm not a big guy. I'm 5'9" 185lbs with a 31" inseam. I know some of these dual sport bikes tend to be fairly tall. Would I be destroying the off-road capabilities/geometry by lowering the suspension a bit?
Klr650 or a transalp. Klr if you think you'll be in the dirt a little more often, transalp if you plan on using it on road more often. That or you just have to have two. A street bike, and something for the trails. Good luck.
