Dual-sport a GS500E ??

[Ken in Regina]

Hi, I'm Ken and I appear to be addicted to motorcycles. I say that because I just returned to riding after more than 16 years away from it. Apparently I just can't stop. 

I sold my last bikes in 1994, a 1982 GPz550 and a 1987 XL250. After much thought and research over the past year and a half, I bought myself a new 2009 DRZ400SM in June. I've sort of dual-sported it. It now has a windshield, luggage rack, top case and trials tires. Great for gravel and dirt roads and some mild dual and single track offroading. It's surprisingly good on the highway, but it's still a dirt bike .. tall, wide bars, skinny seat and the usual buzz from a big single.

I surprised myself at how much pavement mileage I've put on this year ... surprised because when I sold my last bike I really wasn't interested in anything but backroad/offroad riding. I guess the time off did me some good. 

Anyway, with all the highway riding I've been doing this year, and looking forward to more next year, I decided I needed something a little more suitable. But I'm not interested in something that locks me onto the pavement. I simply can't resist a tempting looking backroad or trail if I'm in no hurry to get somewhere (I'm retired so I'm rarely in a hurray). I looked at the "real" dual sport bikes, like the 650 Vstrom and similar but they're way too big for my 29" inseam. I don't need all that extra power and especially not the weight that goes with it. So I decided to buy good used 1994 GS500E and dual-sport it myself. That's not a difficult thing considering all that really means is dual-sport tires, like Avon Distanzias or Metzeler Tourances, and wider, taller bars. Maybe a skid plate to keep gravel from chewing up the pipes and frame downtubes.

I know that most in here seem to like to turn their GS500's into sportbikes, if they mod them at all. But if anyone has dual-sported theirs or knows someone who has, I'm sure open to any suggestions, hints and tips. Suspension is of particular interest since it's likely pretty sacked on a 16 year old bike and will probably need upgrading anyway.

...ken...

[Bluesmudge]

I think another big issue with the bike as a dual-sport is going to be foot-peg position. Even in their standard configuration, they are pretty far back to be confidence inspiring in the dirt. Also, don't expect to ever be going fast over whoops and pot-holes with the stock suspension. Although it may be soft enough, I don't think there is nearly enough travel, because it was designed for street use.
If you want to continue with your project, go ahead. Still, I think you might want to look a little more at other dual sport and adventure-touring bikes. I have a 1988 Honda NX650 that has a very low seat hight for a dual sport, does great off-road and is comfortable up to 70mph on the road and like almost any motorcycle, you can lower it further and cut some foam out of the seat. Besides, if you can ride a DRZ you can ride anything, doesn't it have a 39" seat height?

[saxman]

http://www.advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=288338

This should be a good source for some inspiration.

[Clancy]

i've got my stock-ish gs into some pretty weird places. Seemed to handle it fine.
I think it was about 17km each way of this kind of terrain. no drama.

[Ken in Regina]

Thanks for the responses. In order from back to front:

+10 Clancy!! That's exactly the sort of off-pavement stuff I want to be able to do with it. I'll probably use a little more aggressive tire. I like the Metzeler Tourance my friend uses on his BMW GS.  You said "stock-ish". Can you expand on the "-ish" part please?

+1 saxman. That was a very interesting read. But it's way beyond what I'm after. I don't need to build a motard anyway ... I already own one.

Bluesmudge, thanks for the suggestions and concerns. In no particular order: Re: seat height .. My Dizzer is an SM .. 17" wheels, 34.9" seat height. I've swapped seats for the Suzuki "gel" seat for about an inch and I've set the rear preload on full soft for probably another inch when my butt is on it. I can tiptoe both sides on flat ground. I'm not entirely satisfied with the seat height yet but I'm close.

Re: the NX650, as far as I know Honda does not sell an adventure tourer/dual-sport in Canada. As I already mentioned, I don't want anything that big anyway. Don't need the power; don't want the seat height and weight.

I mentioned that I sold my last bike 16 years ago. I didn't mention that I rode for 30 years. To save you trying to do the math, I turned 64 on Thursday. I'm a donker now. I got all that other testosterone driven stuff out of my system in my former riding life.

I mentioned that I bought a DRZ400. I plan to keep it. Here's a pic.



If I want to go for a ride that's all or mostly off the pavement, e.g. gravel/dirt roads and/or trails, I'll take the Dizzer. If we plan to ride a bit of pavement to get there, that's okay. I've done 300km highway days with no great difficulty. I just prefer not to do that much pavement with it.



What I want is something more civilized for when we plan to do all or mostly pavement for the day. But I want the ability to toodle down roads like in Clancy's beautiful pictures. Any reasonably "standard" street bike is capable of doing that without a lot of modification. As you can see in Clancy's pics, there is nothing there to tax a street bike suspension.

I really hate it when old phartes like me get into "back in the good old days" stuff because they really weren't all that good, technology-wise. No way I want my 1964 Triumph back. But. During my thirty years of riding you could always buy a "standard" motorcycle. They were superb do-everything bikes. All you really had to do if you were going to ride backroads was put a slightly more aggressive tire on and you were good to go. Unfortunately, today there are no longer any standard motorcycles. The naked pre-2003 GS500E is the closest I can find. For my purposes, it will do, I think.

I don't need longer travel but I'm sure open to suggestions for upgrading the suspension. Probably something more progressive, so I get some compliance for the ripples and sharp edges but a little stiffer as it compresses  to avoid bottoming hard if a guy happens to hit a bit of a hole.

...ken...

[Clancy]

just intake, jets and exhaust mate. stock shocks.

[Ken in Regina]

just intake, jets and exhaust mate. stock shocks.

Thanks. I see the exhaust. What is it and how much louder than stock?

What did you do to the intake? If there's a thread I should search for, I'll be happy with just a quick reference what to search for.

...ken...

[Clancy]

its an Ixil an its pretty loud.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZdZcHScKNNI
Umm.. rejetted carbs. 20, 65, 147.5 off hand.
K & n lunchbox air filter. Search any of those key words and you'll get a million hits.
I'd say half the people on this site have redone intake exhaust and jets. preyy common mod followed by progressive shocks. 
A bloke by the name of Buddha on this site is the jetting guru. I'd be surprised of he doesn't pipe in on this thread sometime. Mentioning jets is like his bat signal.

[redhenracing2]

Mentioning jets is like his bat signal.

Lol.

If you can turn a screwdriver, you can rejet a Gs. I did it at 16 without ever having seen the inside of a carb. If you will be playing in the dirt, I wouldn't touch the intake. Exhaust is decent with a few holes drilled in the baffle, I wouldn't waste money on a shiny pipe if it's going to see a lot of rocks and dirt.

Oh, and welcome to the site

[the mole]

I've ridden my stock GS a bit on roads similar to Clancy's photos, no problem, but the stock forks will bottom fairly easily on a bumpier trail. Mine had 1" lower bars when I bought it, if I was doing much dirt riding I'd like to go an inch or two above stock and move the footpegs forward a couple of inches. But that would mean modifying the gear lever linkage, as your foot would be too close to the pivot.

[mister]

No probs on this...



Michael

[GI_JO_NATHAN]

Yeah I've been thinking about this for a while as well. You for sure need progressive front springs, and maybe emulators and heavier weight oil. Also maybe swap to a kat or I think R6(?) shock to get a little lift and stiffness. You can also lift the front end up a half inch or so by sliding the forks down to the top of the triple trees.

[tt_four]

5-10 years ago I wouldn't have been too sure about the idea, but lately after seeing some of the supermoto/street bikes, like the ducati hypermotard and some of the KTM bikes, it's a lot easier to see a cross between the two. I understood the function of a dirtbike you would ride on the street, but when some of those newer bikes started coming out they just looked way to big and heavy to really be lumped in with supermotos, but it seems to work. The GS obviously isn't as big and heavy as those bikes, but some better tires and upright handlebars and you should be fine.

When me and my wife bought her GS, I tried to teach her how to ride up at her parents house. They had a giant yard and I definitely did a bit of offroading on the GS when I'd play around on it. It clearly wasn't a dirtbike, but it worked and with some better pictures it would've been fine.

Wish I could see the picture of your DRZ! I'll have to wait until I get home since your images are blocked on my work computer. The guy I usually ride with has one and it looks like a lot of fun. I've been toying with the idea of getting one, but I keep going back and forth. I'm still young though so I'm sure I'll definitely own one at some point over the next few years.

[Ken in Regina]

@Michael -- Yes, that's exactly the sort of thing I will do on it when the opportunity presents itself.  The idea is that many days I ride with friends who are pavement-only guys. If they see a little dust on the road they turn around. So the GS is for those days. But a couple of the guys I ride with have dual-sports (adventure tourers, whatever) ... BMW f650GS, Suzuki Wee-Strom. So sometimes in the middle of the ride we'll take a dirty "short-cut" on something like that road and meet the others somewhere up the road. Like that. So my GS will be mainly a street bike that I can swing off onto that sort of road, or the one Clancy showed us, without hesitation or even slowing down much.

@JoNathan -- What's an "emulator"? I've seen it mentioned a couple of times now in this forum. I'm a computer professional so I understand it in that context. But in all my years of motorcycling and teaching riding I've never encountered it in the context of motorcycles. Help? 

5-10 years ago I wouldn't have been too sure about the idea, ...

Actually, 5-10 years ago you could still do it more easily than today because there was still a pretty good selection of standard motorcycles. Standard motorcycles need very little modification to take off the pavement onto roads like Clancy and Michael have shown us. When I bought my first motorcycle in 1965 - a very slightly used 1964 650cc Triumph - lots of the routes we call highways today weren't paved yet. So it was normal to drive/ride half the time on unpaved highways. I was stationed on Vancouver Island at the time and most of the northern half of the Island was unpaved. If you wanted to travel anywhere up there you simply drove on gravel.

I'm not complaining or bragging. That's simply the way it was. And standard motorcycles with a good all-purpose tire did it just fine. We just didn't think about it.

If you want a real adventure tourer, like the BMW GSs or V-Stroms or Triumph Tigers, etc., which you want to take in a wider variety of rougher terrain, of course you will want a little more travel and ground clearance. But that's not what I'm after. Oh, I want that, but I chose to take care of the more serious offroad needs by getting a motard and putting trials tires on it.

After riding the Dizzer over 5,000km this summer - more than half of it off the pavement - I know that I don't need huge ground clearance or loads of suspension travel for what I want to do. The only time I actually used any significant fraction of that capability on my Dizzer was when a buddy and I took our bikes out to the Rockies for a week and did a fair bit of moderate double and single track. Otherwise, the picture above where you can see my Dizzer and a buddy's BMW GS out in a field shows about the most aggressive I'll get with the GS. My buddy has no knees left - the payoff from years of skiing and really aggressive dirt biking - so he can't stand on the pegs any more. I won't have any concern taking my GS anywhere he's likely to take his GS, even though the bikes are quite different.

I'm still young though so I'm sure I'll definitely own one at some point over the next few years.

I sincerely hope you do. Almost no matter where you live, there is so much interesting country out there that is only reachable by going off the pavement. If you can ride on roads like Michael and Clancy showed us, above, you will have the opportunity to see so much more of the beauty of whatever country you are in. And usually way less traffic to intrude on the joy of the uncaged motorcycle experience.

You don't need to be a motocross rider to get there. You just need to have a bike that won't get you in trouble on a bit of loose gravel and perhaps the occasional puddle and have the willingness to learn how to ride on it. The added bonus is that when you develop the skills to be comfortable riding on roads with loose gravel, you will find your pavement skills will go up a notch.

Cheers.

...ken...

[tt_four]

I sincerely hope you do. Almost no matter where you live, there is so much interesting country out there that is only reachable by going off the pavement. If you can ride on roads like Michael and Clancy showed us, above, you will have the opportunity to see so much more of the beauty of whatever country you are in. And usually way less traffic to intrude on the joy of the uncaged motorcycle experience.

You don't need to be a motocross rider to get there. You just need to have a bike that won't get you in trouble on a bit of loose gravel and perhaps the occasional puddle and have the willingness to learn how to ride on it. The added bonus is that when you develop the skills to be comfortable riding on roads with loose gravel, you will find your pavement skills will go up a notch.

I spend a lot of time going back and forth as to what would be a good pair of bikes to cover most of my needs. The majority of my riding is just fun evening/weekend rides. I live in the city so I don't need anything for commuting, or highway riding, or even running to the grocery store since I can just walk/bicycle just about anywhere faster than I can get there on a motorcycle. A supermoto would fill 95% of my needs, with the only downside being the seat height in stop and go traffic since I'm only 5'8. Currently I've got a Buell xb9 and the GS. The GS is getting sold in spring and I'm picking up something next fall to replace it. I seriously thought about a supermoto for that, but the XB sucks on the highway at anything over 65mph, and for a 984cc bike the 92hp is a little dissapointing. The only reason I don't want to pair it up with a DRZ is because if I'm going to have 2 bikes I'd really like one of them to be able to be ridden on the highway for longer periods of time, as well as something with a bit more of a top end punch to it. My current thought is to pick up an old gsxr streetfighter project, which would cover highway travel if I need it, and then the DRZ could cover most other things, but it still wouldn't be for 1.5-2 years until I started thinking about trading in my XB on one. If I'm gonna trade in the Buell I'd much rather try to find a street legal RMZ450 or something like that. 220lbs with 50+hp sounds like more fun than I could handle!

[DoD#i]

Yeah - bone stock no, I put in new springs up front GS500 and I ride on stuff similar to what Mister posted (maintained town gravel road - maintained meaning it's graded once or twice a year, and they plow the snow off it.) I would not call it dual-sport, and think it's too heavy to be a true dual sport (as in out in the woods). But fine on dirt roads, as long as you don't treat them like pavement (the ball-bearing effect of loose gravel will teach you not to do that, should you be so silly.)

[Ken in Regina]

+1 DoD#i. That's what I'm after.

There's even an upside to "the ball-bearing effect of loose gravel ". It's way easier to hang the back end out on gravel than on pavement. Even at my advanced age that's still a hoot! 

As far as weight, compare the specs of a naked GS500, any year, to, say, a BMW f650gs or a 650 V-strom or .... you get the idea. Yes, my GS500E is about 100lb more than my DRZ. But it's also about 100lb lighter than my buddy's BMW 650GS. Right in the sweet spot for something that's nice and comfy for mainly pavement riding with an occasional toot down a gravel road or an easy cowtrail.

@tt_four -- Instead of getting rid of the GS, just put some Metzeler Tourances or Avon Distanzias on it and go learn to ride on gravel. Heck, just take it out for a backroad ride as it sits and see how it works. It's fun!! You'll see some places you wouldn't have, otherwise. It will also give you an idea just how much "dirtier" you really want to get. Also, the tires I just mentioned, and similar, are still pretty good street tires so you really won't lose anything on the street. That's what they run on super motards and other hooligan bikes!!

...ken...

[scratch]

Now you guys got me thinking about BMW F650 forks on the front end (same 37mm diameter) and a longer shock in the rear...

If the rear is lower than the front, you're kinda moving the footpegs forward...

[tt_four]

I really like the looks of those tires. I grew on on bmx bikes, and to be honest am kinda scared of what I'll get into if I have a bike that I can bounce of walls without it getting hurt. I remember the abuse I put the BMW gs650 dual sport through when I had it as a loaner bike. I'd be even worse on a bike that's 200lbs lighter.

Those tires look like fun too. I'll have to see how many places there are out here where I could even go off road. I'd definitely want some tires that give me options though.

[GI_JO_NATHAN]

@JoNathan -- What's an "emulator"? I've seen it mentioned a couple of times now in this forum. I'm a computer professional so I understand it in that context. But in all my years of motorcycling and teaching riding I've never encountered it in the context of motorcycles. Help? 

...ken...

Basically, an emulator is a little valve that goes in your forks underneath your spring and your damper rod. It adjusts your low speed dampening and allows you to tune your high speed dampening to adjust the firmness of your ride. Mine is from Race Tech.