Thinking about a dual sport/adventure Motorcycle

Bill said:
https://www.beemerboneyard.com/feelerhndloh.html

This is the set of feeler gauges to get unless you already have 2x of the right sizes.
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I've read through the "adjustment for dummies" procedure and watched the video on it. I also got multiple sets of feeler gauges so I can do the whole thing at once.

It seems the real thing is going to be getting it richer and then I think putting the better plugs in.
 
Ted said:
I've read through the "adjustment for dummies" procedure and watched the video on it. I also got multiple sets of feeler gauges so I can do the whole thing at once.

It seems the real thing is going to be getting it richer and then I think putting the better plugs in.
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Plastic bag over the air filter? ;)
 
SoonerAviator said:
Plastic bag over the air filter? ;)
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Actually, what some people have done is put on bigger injectors. Stock are 31 lb/hr, and 36 lb/hr is the next common size up which is about the right level of increased richness for what I think this needs. Can always tweak some with some resistors to fool the ECU into different sensors. I'm going to see if I can find an Amazon Warehouse deal, sometimes I've found stupidly cheap deals on automotive/technical things where somebody ordered the wrong parts and then nobody wants to buy the "used good condition" ones.
 
Ted said:
Poked around a bit at the R1150GS, including getting it set up for adjusting the valve lash tomorrow.
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FWIW, here's what it looks like under the waterboxer valve cover:

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Bill said:
FWIW, here's what it looks like under the waterboxer valve cover:

View attachment 100534
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Yeah, that is more conventional. I think that move to a 4-valve/cylinder head while working within the limitations of the airflow being back to front (as opposed to top to bottom) drove them to the design that they have on the 1150.
 
Ted said:
Yeah, that is more conventional. I think that move to a 4-valve/cylinder head while working within the limitations of the airflow being back to front (as opposed to top to bottom) drove them to the design that they have on the 1150.
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Well, that, and having to stick with the mid-cam architecture. That's why the cam head was a big evolution of the R259 engine, moving from mid-cam to OHC. That was a snappy engine!
 
Brad Smith said:
Since I work on my own bikes, simplicity of design works for me. Adjusting valves on the air head is going to be way easier than the water-cooled engines.
If you rack up the miles like I do it becomes a pain in the butt to do a complicated check/procedure every 6,000 miles. https://maintenanceschedule.net/bmw-r-18-2020-maintenance-schedule/
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I agree, having maintenance that's simple (or at least simple once you've done it a time or two) is really nice to do. And it's amazing how much nicer this R1150GS rides after some minor maintenance and hacks. I've got some more minor things to work on it with it, but now I'm convinced I can make it to my liking.
 
Brad Smith said:
Since I work on my own bikes, simplicity of design works for me. Adjusting valves on the air head is going to be way easier than the water-cooled engines.
If you rack up the miles like I do it becomes a pain in the butt to do a complicated check/procedure every 6,000 miles. https://maintenanceschedule.net/bmw-r-18-2020-maintenance-schedule/
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The valve check on the water boxer is no harder than any of the earlier boxers, but yes, if the shims need to be changed, the cams have to come out first. Still not horrendous, and nothing like doing them on a typical inline bike engine. It's all about tradeoffs, I'll take the higher horsepower and snappy engine performance in trade for slightly harder valve adjustments.
 
Bill said:
The valve check on the water boxer is no harder than any of the earlier boxers, but yes, if the shims need to be changed, the cams have to come out first. Still not horrendous, and nothing like doing them on a typical inline bike engine. It's all about tradeoffs, I'll take the higher horsepower and snappy engine performance in trade for slightly harder valve adjustments.
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Or to go one step further, my Harley with hydraulic lifters never needs adjustment.

But I prefer solid lifters to hydraulic any day - much crisper engine that way.
 
When looking at touring bikes one of the big plusses to going with a Harley was the hydraulic lifters, but in the end I bought the Goldwing Tour. That said, it being a horizontally opposed engine, the plugs/valves are very accessible for maintenance.
 
Bill does the Goldwing require valve adjustments? I would’ve thought Honda would’ve gone hydraulic on that engine.
 
Ted said:
Bill does the Goldwing require valve adjustments? I would’ve thought Honda would’ve gone hydraulic on that engine.
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Hahahaha, no!

So here's another unique (strange?) valvetrain design for doing 4-valve heads. Honda calls it "unicam", and I suppose it's used to reduce size and weight.

The cam is pretty much directly over the intake valves, and the intakes are actuated by short solid rockers, and the adjustment is shims.

The exhaust are actuated with long roller rockers, and the adjustment method is screw and locknut just like an oilhead valve. It's an "interesting" design...

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That is an interesting and unique one. I knew that Honda stuck with SOHC valvetrain on the Goldwing, which on such a low revving motor really does make sense. But that's an interesting one. My 3000GT VR-4 had a DOHC setup (4 cams per engine, 2 per bank), and the cams had tiny rockers and hydraulic lifters to actuate the valves from the cams.
 
The BMW has been something I've had fun with and it's helped me to figure out some more about what I want, and similar for my wife (although she hasn't ridden it). It's also been fun to play with a little bit and learn a few things about it. But, I think I'm going to bring it back to my friend this week.

Lessons have been that I do want some sort of dual sport/adventure motorcycle. But this BMW isn't it. It's too heavy and although I've made it ride much, much better, the personality just doesn't do a ton for me. As @Bill has said, it's a more uninspired and agricultural engine. Often I don't mind that (after all, I do like our Harleys and those engines are fairly agricultural), but this just didn't seem to be an inherently great era for this series of bike, at least for my tastes.

The obvious question would be why not keep it around if my friend doesn't care, but if I have something around I'm going to look at it and tinker with it. I have enough things to tinker with.

So the BMW will go back to its home, and I am going to sell the Guzzi and replace the two of them. We may also sell the Triumph as my wife is finding the ergonomics harder to deal with and she wants similar. She sat on a BMW F750GS and liked it. I'm leaning towards thinking a Ducati Hypermotard with some more off-roadish tires would be a good solution for me. Yeah, the hardcore off-road folks will point out that neither of those bikes are really good/true off-road bikes, and they aren't, but for our purposes they would be improved vs. what we have currently while meeting that other aspect of on road enjoyment.
 
Last weekend a friend of mine took the BMW 2-day off-road riding school. That got me more interested/motivated to mess around with the BMW in my shop more since I hadn’t taken it back yet and my friend isn’t in any rush to get it back.

So I took it around my property, working on some of the technical aspects and having fun with low traction, going through the ruts, etc. And as I’d noted before, it’s a lot more fun when off road. I may continue playing with it some more around the dirt and gravel roads and work on getting better at off road items with it while I look for something else that I think would better fit that role.

One thing the BMW instructors said was that the course was actually easier on the bigger bikes. You have more weight, but the extra torque makes a lot of aspects easier since you don’t have to rev. I can see that, but also can see it varies a lot depending on the kind of trails you want to go on.

Unfortunately there don’t seem to be a ton of good riding trails around here, but there are tons of dirt roads. I’ll need to do more of those.
 
I've been doing some more thinking, riding, and researching as I try to figure out what my mission is for a bike to compliment the Harley The R1150GS remains what I'm riding around the property and on the gravel roads.

One thing I'm realizing further is that sportbike riding isn't really all that much my thing these days. We have the Daytona 675 in the garage - it hasn't been ridden in months. Really I enjoy the Harley for road rides where it's got enough oomph (thanks to the upgrades I did). But I enjoy technical vehicle control, and off-road riding is really where a lot of that works for me. I also see the future of dirt riding with the kids more, and the places that we travel in the RV almost all have some really awesome dirt bike places.

Undoubtedly, the 1150 is the wrong bike for all the reasons other than the fact that it's on the current free-borrow price. Plus while I've been riding for 18ish years, I'm still a newbie on off-road types of riding. I tend to live my life in reverse.

A lot of folks mentioned some of the various single cylinder Japanese dual sports in the 400ish lb range. KLR 650, Suzuki equivalent. I think those end up not being what I want. While lighter than the BMW, they seem to be too much of compromises.

So, that's pointing me in the direction of a smaller, proper dirt bike - probably something in the 250-300cc range. The KTMs have my attention. I know they're more performance than I need, and of course there are going to be more expected issues with them, etc. That also fits my personality. Some of the ones made in the past 10 years have fuel injected 2-strokes. While I'm not a huge 2-stroke fan, in this case that appeals to me. I tend to figure the electronic controls will help reliability and usability. What I also like is the higher horsepower levels, which would make the bikes more usable for riding on the paved roads between the dirt sections, rather than being maxed out at 50 like some smaller bikes are. I'm not worried about a bike being overpowered. I've ridden enough sport bikes and don't have an issue with throttle control, so I think having more power than is needed won't necessarily create issues for me.

I know I want to avoid carburetors. I want to work on what I want to work on, and I've been getting sick of older carbs on small engines that gum up. That does limit my options but I think ultimately I'd be happier with something fuel injected long term.

So, more thinking, but I do think I'm heading in the right direction.
 
Ted said:
I think I probably am still not wanting new at this point. But yes, that looks like it would do the job. 2 vs. 4 stroke is the biggest question. I think that EFI is a must for me, just because I'm sick of carbs.
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I'd stick with a street legal dual sport so you can be out and about and connect trails, and 4-stroke is nice as you can pull into any gas station and fill up without having to futz with premix.
 
Bill said:
I'd stick with a street legal dual sport so you can be out and about and connect trails, and 4-stroke is nice as you can pull into any gas station and fill up without having to futz with premix.
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I definitely agree with street legal (or at least something I can ride on the street without getting attention). That's also a good point on the premix for 2-strokes. I'm not sure whether the newer ones do the oil mixing automatically or if they still need to have the fuel premixed. That would be an issue and make it harder to refuel away from base.

One of the hard parts with motorcycles is test rides since most of the time people don't want to let you test ride a motorcycle (with good reason), including dealers (this is maybe with less good reason).

More to consider. And more riding to do on the BMW as well. Yesterday I was definitely feeling more "off" as it pertained to riding and wasn't my best practice day. One thing with riding is that I don't have as many miles (or, more appropriately to consider, hours) as with driving or flying. While with flying and driving I have that level of it being completely natural and those vehicles are more an extension of my body, I don't have that with riding despite having ridden for 18ish years, as I haven't ridden a ton of miles and there's been a lot of off and on in that period.
 
Ted said:
One thing with riding is that I don't have as many miles (or, more appropriately to consider, hours) as with driving or flying. While with flying and driving I have that level of it being completely natural and those vehicles are more an extension of my body, I don't have that with riding despite having ridden for 18ish years, as I haven't ridden a ton of miles and there's been a lot of off and on in that period.
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Ha, and I'm opposite, I just don't fly all that often, and am at about 500hrs. As such, I'm still on my best behavior when flying and really mind my P's and Q's. Motorcycles, OTOH, are a natural extension of my body. I stopped counting miles in 2003, I crossed a half million miles on two wheels that year, and have put an average of 12kmi/yr on bikes since. Riding isn't 2nd nature, it's pretty much 1st nature...
 
Bill said:
Ha, and I'm opposite, I just don't fly all that often, and am at about 500hrs. As such, I'm still on my best behavior when flying and really mind my P's and Q's. Motorcycles, OTOH, are a natural extension of my body. I stopped counting miles in 2003, I crossed a half million miles on two wheels that year, and have put an average of 12kmi/yr on bikes since. Riding isn't 2nd nature, it's pretty much 1st nature...
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I was thinking about that. Driving, I'm somewhere in the 500k-1M mile range. Easily something north of 10,000 hours, probably more in the 20-30k hour range when you think about it. Although my flying hours are around 3300ish, when you factor in the metal time going through the "brain game" aspects of it, that's probably also closer to 10k hours total. When you figure how much of flying is a brain game, that matters. By comparison, motorcycling is maybe 1,000 hours. I doubt if I've ridden more than 20 or 30k miles at most, over a long period. I have to think about an internalize it a lot more at this point.
 
My first bike hurt me because I was young, dumb and had no fear. Fractured neck, shoulder, elbow. Airplanes work better for me. Although I have an old dirt bike frame Yamaha 2 cycle I am thinking of putting a 4 cycle engine in. I would drop off at a local town so I can use it when I fly in.
 
Bill said:
I think I love both because of the brain game. Both are highly satisfying when done right, yet deadly when not.
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Agreed. I tend to think that when you look at it, airplanes are sort of halfway between cars and motorcycles as far as the physical aspect of vehicle controls go. In a car you can ultimately generally just hit the brakes, it will come to a stop, and you're done. On a motorcycle you always have to do some kind of body movement/balance to stop or else you fall over. In an airplane you don't have the same aspects of your body weight, balance, and movement to control the plane (well, other than some ultralights) that you do on a motorcycle, but you still need to essentially be constantly controlling the position, trajectory, etc. of the aircraft until you've landed, or things don't end well.

The brain game is different for them all, and fun.
 
I love my tricked out KTM 350 EXC-F. It's lowered because everyone in Austria must be at least 6'4", and I have added stuff to help with enduro and dual sport riding. I looked over a ton of different dirt bikes from 230-450cc. I wanted street-legal, enough umph to ride 2-up if needed (haven't ever needed it except with my then-5yo son when his batteries died on the Oset), and good for single track riding. 2-strokes are nice, but you have to worry about mixture and too much/too little oil based on how you are riding. This also makes filling up at a gas station annoying. I did the AZ BDR with a guy riding a big 2-stroke KTM while I was on my BMW GS. Fuel stops were a pain (and more frequent), and when we split up on the ride home his engine seized. Not the kind of thing I want to worry about.

One of the things that made me go KTM was looking at what I needed to do to the other bikes to make them 'mine'. After new suspension, better parts, tricked out this-and-that, I was basically building the KTM, but still wouldn't have a KTM. The maintenance schedule for the KTM is more, but if you don't run it like a race bike it doesn't need to be as strict.
 
If it's just dirt and gravel roads any street bike decently ridden will do those just fine. The euro or ADV bikes come more in handy with trails and stuff like that. I think I rode every surface there is on my first bike, a little parallel 400 except lunar. I rode Mexican dirt roads, which give a new and unpleasant meaning to the word road.
 
Maybe..... TU250. It's not the fastest thing. It's not an off-road bike. Just what a normal motorcycle would be back in the 50's, but with fuel injection.
 
c
steingar said:
If it's just dirt and gravel roads any street bike decently ridden will do those just fine. The euro or ADV bikes come more in handy with trails and stuff like that. I think I rode every surface there is on my first bike, a little parallel 400 except lunar. I rode Mexican dirt roads, which give a new and unpleasant meaning to the word road.
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I get that, Michael, and for doing that this R1150GS does fine. I'm also somewhat evolving (and trying to figure out) what exactly the mission is. At the start it was more about gravel roads, which is still part of the goal. There's also the other goal of wanting to do and get better at off-road riding, and do some off-road riding in the places we RV. It's very doable to carry a motorcycle as well as the Land Rover, although realistically I'm not going to leave Laurie and the kids in the Rover to go motorcycle myself, so think of that as more of a future goal.

At 600 lbs, a highly uninspired engine, plus the fact that it's not mine so I try to be nice to it and will return it at some point, the R1150GS is really not a winner in any category other than "free is better than good". As @Bill correctly noted, the later ones are way, way better. If this was my friend's R1200GSA that feels like closer to a 400 lb bike (even though it is a bit over 500), I would probably say "this is perfect enough" and leave it alone. So that probably tells me the direction I should be going. However there's a lot to be said for a generic small dirt bike just for the things you can do with a 200ish lb bike that physics gets in the way of for even 400 lbs.

Albany Tom said:
Maybe..... TU250. It's not the fastest thing. It's not an off-road bike. Just what a normal motorcycle would be back in the 50's, but with fuel injection.
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That one definitely doesn't do it for me.
 
It's about the rider. I know riders who can do offroad on a gold wing better than I can on my DRZ. That said, big bikes can be a handfull offroad, and just plain pigs. My Africa Twinn is somewhere close to 600lbs, my DRZ400 is 300 lbs. That DRZ is a lot more fun offroad. The Africa twinn is much more enjoyable on the road, but it's no Goldwing. I have had the Africa Twinn on some pretty narly jeep roads. As well as the WeeStrom before it, just not much fun like it would be on the DRZ. My go to thought is..........Would you take your Subaru there? if yes, then I'm good to go on the Africa Twinn. Maybe not the fun of the dRZ, but it carries my camping gear better.
 
I just picked up a new 2022 FE501 and put a plate on it... I didn't get the 501S because I didn't want blinkers and the other junk. In Texas we can be street legal with no blinkers. It is super light and runs great! It will stand straight up in 5th just by wacking the throttle. 6th is tall and basically overdrive. It runs 112mph gps speed. I have had over 100 different bikes in my years and I like this one a bunch. I had a KTM 1190, 1290,690 enduro R and they were all to heavy for any real offroad riding...
https://www.husqvarna-motorcycles.com/en-us/models/enduro/4-stroke/fe-501-2022.html
 
Places like this are doable on big bikes, not too much fun, but fun on a small bike. I was on the Africa Twinn. Riding with a GS1200 and a 950KTM. We came across another guy who was in trouble. Nooby rider all by himself. not a good idea. ATTACH=full]102055[/ATTACH]
 

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Ted said:
That one definitely doesn't do it for me.
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Back to the Ural then... :) Or maybe a 30 year old Triumph.

I just don't see you riding around on something that looks like it came off the kid's rack at Wally world, or that has a "husky" sticker on the side. Most new dual sports look like that, at least to me.
 
Oldmanb777 said:
Places like this are doable on big bikes, not too much fun, but fun on a small bike. I was on the Africa Twinn. Riding with a GS1200 and a 950KTM. We came across another guy who was in trouble. Nooby rider all by himself. not a good idea. ATTACH=full]102055[/ATTACH]
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A GS will get across that alright, but unless you're a good rider it's slow going!
 
If you want to get better off road, get a smaller bike. KTM 200-250 2 or 4 stroke (I'd suggest a CRF or TTR230, but from what I've read those aren't really your style). I am so much more comfortable riding a small bike on the dirt. Drifting through turns, popping up the front wheel to get over something (or just for fun), jumping, you name it. The throttle is much more forgiving, but with enough power to get a good roost if needed. I started on the street, and (as you know) when the rear tire releases (like an accidental peel out) it's scary as F. On a dirt bike, that's just known as 'riding'. When I started steering with the rear wheel, my whole 2-wheel outlook changed.
 
I recently rode a CRF230 around for a while, and after riding the GS it felt like a bicycle. So light and fun...
 
Most of the ADV bikes are street bikes gussied up to do light terrain duty. Were it me I'd want a duro bike, a dirt bike with the bare minimum to do street.
 
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