Is the KLR650 the bike for me?

This site may earn a commission from merchant affiliate links, including eBay, Amazon, and others.

ThatGuy

Puppy
Joined
Oct 18, 2012
Messages
11
Reaction score
0
Location
Cape Town
Bike
AJS (all models)
Hello KLR owners,

Some of you may have seen my intro post. If you didn't, you missed out on something amazing :p. I'm looking to get a bike so I'm posting around to see what people have to say about the different bikes and whether they'd suit me. Some of the text is a bit of a copypasta from other threads I've started in other model specific pages.
I'm new to this whole dual purpose business and am looking to get a bike fairly soonish. Ideally I'd like to know what I want and buy it by early to mid December but if I have to wait for something good, then I suppose I'll deal with it.

I would really appreciate some advice. My housemate has an '08 KLR and seems to be pretty stoked with it. He did a fair amount of research and got himself a great deal. He has told me about the KLR clan website which I will have a squiz through when time allows - there's a lot of info to go through and what with this whole 8-5 job thing that I have to go to every day, there isn't as much time as I'd like to go through it all. (I hope that I don't get in trouble for writing this during work time.)

Following is a bit about me and the riding.
I'm 1.75m tall and my inseam is 83cm(+-36")
Most of my riding will be commuting - a 60km round trip per day with the occasional mission over a weekend and hopefully a bit of dirt thrown into the mix somewhere. So probably 90%+ on tar.
Reliability is key.
My budget is about 33k give or take a couple of grand and I don't want to have to lay down any more money for at least 6 months, preferably more.
I am a touch nervous that I'll drop it once or twice so I don't want anything too shiny and new but I also don't want an old beater that I have to spend hours and hours on to keep in shape. I don't plan to drop it, but then again, I don't think that anyone ever plans to drop their bike - it just happens.

A couple of questions:
Are there any defects with the post 08 KLR that I should be aware of? eg the doohickey.
I'm looking at anything from 2008 so many kilometers should I get concerned about or not even consider a bike?
Any particular extras that are vital?
Are there any mods that are considered important for maximum enjoyment? eg the yamaha guys suggest and extended screen and changing the front forks on the XT600E.
I know I can get a decent KLR for 33k but realistically, what could I get.
Comfort wise, how does it feel?

Compared to an 2000-2004 XT600E and the post 2000 generation of Transalps, how does the KLR fair? From what I've read, the XTs and KLRs are generally a bit cheaper but they also seem to be a bit older tech - is this a valid
Transalp vs KLR vs F650GS vs XT600E vs (any suggestions)


Any insight would be great as well as any reading that you think I should do to help inform my decision.

POST MODIFIED: I have modified this post to strikeout the irrelevant stuff. I understand that this is not the correct place to ask about comparisons, just to find out/discuss KLRs and that is what this post is about.

The copy/paste referred to is that the format is pretty much the same because the information I'd like about this bike is similar to the info I'm trying to gain about the other bikes. I am not trying to 'rack up posts' and apologise if it seems so. I am doing research on motorcycles so that I can make an informed choice when I buy one.
 

Latest posts

Top