Dood! You are my kind of guy! 1300 miles on a two-stroke takes cujones! I will be pulling for you.

You'll be just fine on your two-stroke as long as it has a plate. In Idaho as long as it has a headlight and working brake light you can get it plated.

If not, I'd do it anyway but just take it easy when you are on pavement. I rode the entire Tour for years on bikes that didn't have a plate (but did have a trail sticker) and never had a problem. Just ride on the shoulder of the highway and don't do any wheelies in the center of town. Make darned sure that you get the trail sticker though.

What are you going to do for lights?

m

Well - it probably doesn't have enough of a stator to run any lights. That being the case there are two options: look for an aftermarket stator (Call Mike at Ricky Stator and see what he says), or get one of the Trail Tech battery powered HID helmet lights (SCRM16) - each one of these babys puts out thousands of lumens. More information on all of these can be found in our "reviews" section.


m

I believe that Jason Weeks, service manager at Pocatello Power Sports, has the same KTM you are considering riding. He's asked about doing the Tour with it as well. He would be another great source of information about what you'd need to do to make the bike Tour ready.

It's a 2009. I am worried about the fuel. I won't be able to have a chase vehicle. I live in Atlanta and not sure I could convince anyone to do that! Besides I really want to take this on unsupported, that just seems like the nature of the thing. I believe I can get a tank that holds 6.4 gal but still not sure that will do it even if I bring a bladder. Not to mention the premix. I'm wondering now if I shouldn't sell my DRZ and get a Beta or KTM dualsport and use that instead. My initial reason for going with my 2stroke was it is my most capable bike. My Drz is in great shape and I've used it on the TAT and other Colorado/Wyoming rides, but I don't feel very confident in my skill level on this course considering that no one else has made it on one of those. I believe Martin posted that it and the KLR (which I also own) are the worst bikes they've taken out there...
Thoughts?

First - FWIW let me say how impressed I am with the last two posts. You guys have obviously read everything about the Tour and understand what it's all about. Even though you are both going to go at it solo and unsupported you will not be alone since you'll have the rest of us pulling for you as hard as we can. We respect guts and intelligence which both of you appear to have in spades.

Bikes for the Tour are a perennially heated topic. I, personally, am a Honda-Yamaha kind of guy just because those are the bikes I raced during my roadracing career and those are the dirt bikes that I have always ridden. Low purchase cost (especially with the current value of the dollar vs the euro), easy availability of parts (ditto), high reliability, huge aftermarket support and, in both cases, nothing is ever good enough for their engineers. When you spend a lot of time working on bikes you come to appreciate how well built some brands are. You may need to do a little work to turn 'em into cruise missiles with knobbies, but in stock form they are built like anvils.

Tour of Idaho veteran and mi amigo Dan Colvin is a huge fan of KTM and has a sweet 525. My impression of KTM is that they are great right out of the box (the WP suspension is basically race ready) and the quality of build is also quite high. Like all bikes teutonic the engineering seems, at times, to be more about showing off than practicality (to me anyway). But KTM's are fast, fast, faaaaast - and really light. Reliability seems very good. The purchase cost is a little higher and parts are expensive (right now, anyway) but buy once, cry once then smile for a long time.

Dan C. is a very nice Jewish boy from NY and for him to swear by a bike from the hills and dales once occupied by the Third Reich is about as good of a testimonial as I reckon you can get.

I would point out that the local bike for sale ads are filled with XR650R's for sale for less than 2K. Other bikes I've personally spent a lot of time with that I know would work (and are also relatively inexpensive) are WR250's and WR450F's, YZ250F's, XR600R's and of course the CRF450X. Mark Sampson has a WR250 that I think is one of the most intelligently setup bikes I've ever seen for trail riding. Since it gets 60 - 80 mpg you can get by with a reasonably-sized tank and still have huge range.

I have personally ridden well setup KLR's and DRZ's over portions of the Tour and I would not recommend these even for Johnny Campbell. Even if you managed to get it setup right it would still be heavy and poorly suspended and just plain not too much fun to ride. A previous poster on the T1/T2 2010 thread talked about watching a very skilled rider spank a bunch of would be hill climbers on a BMW HP2 and I liked that story because I am a big believer in the general concept that it's way more about the skill of the rider than the bike. But over 1300+ miles, it's about the bike too. You need a dirt bike.

I don't question anyone's riding skill or integrity but sometimes I do question their math. When I hear dual sport guys talk about how they did 90% of the Tour and had no trouble with their KLRs', DRZ's etc. I have to wonder how 90% of less than 60% of the route we describe comes out to be anything other than about half of it.

Whatever you get just make sure that it has a 200+ mile range with the tank that it has (and supplement that with a bladder), a beefy electrical system to support lights (I like HID but Halogens are cheaper, don't require DC conversion, and work fine), and the best suspension you can afford - properly adjusted. I'd also invest in increased oil capacity with an external cooler, replace the stock coolant with engine ice (in a water-cooled bike), get a steering damper, some beefy aftermarket pegs, a bodacious skid plate, stout hand guards and then set the whole thing up so that it fits you like a glove. You'd be amazed at how much difference that spendy Works Connection Elite Clutch Perch makes after 45 hours in the saddle. Beyond the bike invest in a SPOT beacon, GPS, the lightest tool kit and first aid gear you can find and you are good to go. The list of things I carried this year is at the bottom of the story on the MoJazz site.

The fact that you are taking a year to prepare means that you understand that this is has the potential to be an overwhelming undertaking (pun intended). There are going to be times when you are way down in a hollow somewhere, it's getting dark, you're low on gas, your GPS won't get a fix and you really don't know which way to go. You are going to be cold, hot, thirsty, hungry, scared and more tired than you may have ever been in your life (in one of those moments this year I discovered a 40" tree across the trail that I had to drag the bike over). There will be times when you are really going to want to say "screw it" and call for the cavalry. But the fact that you invested a year of your life and made the commitment to go it alone will sustain you through those times. And when you are done you will never forget what it was all about.

Salude!

That's the rub.

Group rides tend to evolve at the lowest common denominator. I've done the Tour with Dan Colvin and most of it with Dan and our buddy Steven Verschoor - but beyond those guys it would be difficult for me to find individuals among those I already know with the right combination of riding ability, outdoor acumen, conviviality and sticktoitniveness that I'd be willing to spend a bunch of time with in stressful circumstances - without wanting to beat on them with a tire iron.

Also the odds of a mechanical failure putting a halt to the entire endeavor go up by the number of riders besides oneself. We think that group rides are fine (unsupported), but the odds are against larger groups because so much has to go right for a lot of people - unless you are willing to leave someone behind to fend for themselves against large, hungry carnivores.

Solo or twosies are best, IMO. I do like your idea of planning in advance how the ride's going to continue if something goes wrong tho. That's using your noggin.

At 50 you are a mere whippersnapper.

m

Hayshaker - I'm aiming for about the same time so let's stay in touch. I've only ever ridden solo and twosie so I agree with the sentiment here.

All - Thanks for the knowledge share. I've got my research to do around bike choice/setup, but also a great deal of mental and physical prep. We do have some great single track here in GA and I've started working with a coach at Highland Park Resort (1000 acres of one way trails) on skills enhancement etc. I will be posting progress and will be leaning on this crew for sure.

Thanks again

2 Stroke on the T1, and a 300 KTM to boot !!!

Hell yes is my vote. I only rode 2 1/2 days of the T1. My plan this year was the CDR and the T1, our trip hurt a rider and the trip changed to more CDR riding. Next year sole focus will be riding the T1 and T2 with some extra riding in the Oxford Mtn and Potatello area. Excellent riding and at those location I'm thinking about a KTM300 too. Early plans for the T1, I would ride the 300 from the southern part of Day 1 until American falls then swap out for a XR650R and use Martin's shuttle service to get the 300 to Pocatello. BUT, I've seen that Martin is changing up some routing up to Challis. Martin is now on a 450x, so I think I will change plans and ride the 300(or a 525) to Challis. Gas for the 300 will be tough on Day 3, I need to work over fuel requirements, MPG is the Achilles heal for the 300.

The 525 might trump my 300 plans though. With a larger tank the 525 will be heavier, but 15+ more mpg is hard to pass up. I will also make sure to have a Radiator fan on my T1 bikes. Big climbs, some at a slower speed and high temps about killed my DRZ400k. Having not rode any of the T1 north of Challis, I'm not sure if I'd ride the 525 all the way north or switch to the XRR(it is more comfy than a 525). The group I'll be riding with is 2 or maybe 3 other riders, all on KTM RFS bikes and 4 strokes, but a 300XC would be loads of fun and VERY in it's element.

We plan to ride early in the AM, and ride the daylight hours, a large headlight won't find it's way on the 300 for me, LED tail light and a 5w/25W headlight might work on a stock stator. A HID head lamp would be nice to have, but I probably wouldn't pack it unless we planned night riding.

Keep us in the loop on the 300 plans, and share your setups.

My bad! I posted the previous post before looking at the T1 description page.

After looking at the Tour description page which shows the miles and elevation I see the total miles are 130. The first leg to Downata will be the longest of 45 miles which I don't think will be a problem because of being a lot dirt road. I think all looks good.

Idaho Man I'm surprised that you are only getting 50 miles out of a tank on your 300. We have been making over 80 miles with reserve on trail rides. What jetting do you run?