Difference between Motard and dirt/trail bike.

[Fondles]

So's all things being equal I'll be picking up my new (to me) Trail bike on the weekend, a 2006 Xr400.

She's running knobbies and shit but would like to whack on some street tyres and go the motard look. other than rims and tyres what is normally involved in converting to motard ? Or just leave it Trail Bike ? will be used as a commuter primarily but would be nice to swap rims and go play in the hills on Sundays.

This be the bike.

[GreyBeard]

Just wack some street or dual tyres on and go.

[Gammaboy]

Normally a 320mm rotor and 4 piston caliper gets grafted on too.

[JOHN MAYER]

Depending on how hard you plan on going, some people will change fork springs and oil too. Personally, I agree with the above... Street tyres/Wheels and ride it.

[BoganDAVE]

Most good motard setups run a cush drive, to stop the gearbox from esploding, hard shifts on tarmac kill the gearboxes

[BoganDAVE]

Alternatively, dont smash the gears like you would on dirtw

[Et!]

Go some tard wheels and big brakes. Definitely do the suspension, stocko dirt stuff it just too soft for the road IMHO

[GreyBeard]

Go some tard wheels and big brakes. Definitely do the suspension, stocko dirt stuff it just too soft for the road IMHO

errr.... it's an xr400 not exactly a terror machine on the road (or anywhere else). Anything more than tyres is a waste of coke & hookers muneez

[15UZU]

need to decide what you prefer, going easy on bitumen but good on dirt knobbly tyres and buying new ones often, or going much faster on bitumen and very very slow on dirt on road biased tyres.contrary to marketing hype,no 1 tyre is great at both things.

cheapest way would be to put some road style tyres on the stock rims.there isn`t a huge amount of 21/18inch road tyres on the market but they are available,and suck much less than nobblys on the road,especially if your doing big distance

[Fondles]

Cool wheels and tyres it is, cheers.

[brasher]

there was a xr400 SM toward the end of their lifespan, you could probably grab the wheels and brake off that. Might of been an Aus only release, I'm not too sure.

[Instigator]

Basically just 17" wheels so you can run road bike tyres.

You could probably use most common wheels with spacers or whatever to make them fit, Katana, CBR etc.

http://www.supermotojunkie.com/showt...oto-conversion



Looks like the same Excel rims as on the DRZ400SMs, not cheap though ~$2k a set I think.

[Fondles]

Thanks for the replies, turns out the bike is a JDM XR400M, was imported 3 years ago and old matey put on the dirt rims/tyres. still has the orginal rims.
Had a look at it yesterday, its not "immaculate with low hours" as advertised (few bumps and scrapes/14,000km on the clock) so have offered 5k (he wants 6K) imports are fucked out here due to the rego book scam by the gumbyment, thats a 2k spend hence the high prices on shit.

[Fondles]

And BAM, learn something new everyday.

There 3 types of "grey import" rego books out here.
1. Uber dodgy, details changed with liquid paper, most books are from old Honda Waves (125cc scooters), cost is about $300.00
2. dodgy, Grey import re-stamped to an existing book, mostly same brand and CC's but not neccessarily the same type of bike. semi "legit" but bike can only be rego'd in that province. (IE, rego docs issued in S.A, cannot transfer rego to N.S.W) cost is about $1500.00
3. Legit dodgy, import taxes paid under the table, book issued and bike will have no issues transferring provinces cost is about $3000.00.

This bike falls into the second category, The rego book says it a "rebuilt" (custom) 1989 Honda 400cc, no mention of XR, its a rebirth in that the old chassis and engine numbers have been punched into this bike, legally would never have an issue and can ride anywhere and re-sell to someone else. but the rego book cannot be transferred to another province...............

Bye Bye XR, your nice but your book is just too dodgy for me.

Email sent to find out which category rego book this DRZ400SM falls into, fuckin loooong drive to Phuket though !!

[rorz]

Wow, that seems bizzarely dodgy even for Thailand.

[Spoonfed]

The DRZ400 will be much better than the XR anyways.

[sv_i]

fuckin loooong drive to Phuket though !!

Shemale bang bus road trip? wtf are you waiting for.....?

+1 for dual purpose tyres being very "meh". If you want info on Motards, look at what the frenchies do, they invented it.

[lysdexia]

DRZ looks like it would be fucken fun!

[Fondles]

Fuckin chore to find/buy a decent bike out here.

Have given up on anything with a "legit" book.

Put a deposit on a 2007 DRZ400 today pending if a friend of a friends father who is a high up policeman in a Kanchanaburi can sort a "book" and numberplate for it.... would be a well dodgy book but enough to keep the police happy if they pull me over... easy $50.00 spend if he can sort it, will also need to pay the import tax, another $200.00.

Nice bike for 4k though.

[Uncle]

The DRZ400 will be much better.

Thats something you don't hear very often!

[Instigator]