KLR mania

Searching for electrical gremlins in the parking lot of a Marvel, AR diner revealed nothing

There are a few more things that we did to the bikes that I felt were essential but don't really fit anywhere: The stock footpegs are pretty crummy, especialy when they get wet. Dual Star sells a really trick set of serrated motocross pegs that do the job just fine even in the nastiest mud. You can't ride if you can't keep your feet on the pegs. One other item I cannot over stress is the importance of upgrading the subframe to a beefier setup. Dual Star again sells a kit that comes with drill bits and much heavier-duty stainless bolts. Much needed. Our plan was to carry a lot of weight in some really rough conditions. After some of the trails across country I felt sure we had really overstressed the subframe and I continued to check it day after day. Every crash and getoff I just knew I had cracked something. Nothing. Good stuff. Another little thing we opted for was the billet oil filler cap. Apparantly in some places in the world it is kind of cool to open peoples oil fillers and put foreign objects in there, sand, sugar or whatever. It comes with a key take on and off. At the end of our cross country trip it was time for sprockets and chain. We had planned all along to replace these but not until we were about to leave the country. Both of our front sprockets were pretty worn and did not look as though they would last. I thought I would replace everything while we had the chance. Jeff up at Dual Star had 2 RK x-ring chains, AFAM rear sprockets and PIB front sprockets sent down to Vegas where Spice and I had planned to get a major service on the bikes. They arrived before we did. In that same shipment I also had them include some tank panniers but that's for the packing section. Greg Frazier installed a Scottoiler on his bike and I thought I would too. These little resevoirs feed a constant stream of chain oil to the chain right above the rear sprocket. The rate of feed is fully adjustable depending on your conditions with only the turn of a knob. It took me a while to figure out the whole flow thing. Sometimes the entire rear of the bikes would be covered in oil and other times the thing would be dry as a bone. I tried to keep an eye on both bikes and WD-40 them to clean when I had a chance. The jury is still out on the Oilers. I'll keep you posted.

Sometimes all the gear in the world won't help

So now the bikes are built but now how are you going to carry everything? I have had Touratech bags in the past and had no reason to think there was anything better. The only problem with Touratech and Cycoactive, the importers, is that they don't actually make a rack to hold the panniers for KLRs. The only way to make the whole system work is to buy a rack made by Happy Trails, the same people as the fork brace. I figured if the rack is of the same quality as the brace then everything would be fine. Unfortunately, this was not to be the case. I had some problems mounting everything up. Unlike other Touratech units, they don't come premounted so you are left on your own to figure out what is going to be the best setup as far as front-to-back and up-and-down. Nothing seemed to lineup so a little bit of force was needed. Mounting the second set was a little easier since I had already made most of the mistakes. I like the panniers a lot but the mounting could be better. A couple of low-speed tipovers revealed some more weak points. The reason we chose aluminum bags was mostly for security. If I were only doing domestic dual-sporting I would opt for soft bags if only for their resiliency in a crash. I hit a very immobile rock at around 15mph and literally pretzeled the rack. It cracked at the mounting points and twisted to the point where I couldn't bend it back. I banged on it and bent it every way my ax would let me but it was not going to happen. I had hoped it wouldn't be so easy to put a $100 rack(for one side) out of comission. I ordered a new to be delivered in Vegas. The other one I tossed in the trash.

Spice and I both looked around for tankbags for the trip. Dual Star came through with a fairly new model that seemed to fit all my needs. It is expandable and has a window for the map that is attached with heavy-duty velcro that can be transferred to the solid black raincover. Spice opted to keep a little lower profile with a small Wolfman unit, which was fine by me. The only thing she has to say about that is that it absorbs gasoline rather nicely in an extended tipover. I bought a couple of fairing packs to hold some spare tubes and a fullsize cover for both bikes. I bought one cover in Atlanta from a BMW dealer but the cover came from a small company called E-Z Touring in Bend, Oregon. Spice and I ended up meeting Peter Dempsey, the owner of E-Z Touring, while we were in Bend and bought another one. We called him up to get our cover and took a short ride to his house just north of town. I think in some of the more unsavory places in the world a cover will be a wise accessory. The tank panniers came when we got to Vegas and solved a packing problem. With an already overloaded bike we needed to get more weight on the front end. These little guys hang off the tank and hold an amazing amount of stuff,WD-40, air filters, chain oil, parts cleaner, etc. They don't have raincovers, however, but for stuff that won't get hurt by water they are perfect. Apparantly Greg Frazier had some part in the development of the tank panniers as they would occasionally move around in crazy conditions before the latest version. They haven't budged yet save for a local Tucson derelict that wanted to see what exactly was inside. Comes with the territory I guess.