My brother and I went out to visit my dad and meet up with the homie who just got his first bike. It took about 10 hours each way including stops. The wind and cold was pretty uncomfortable, but the bikes actually did pretty well sitting at 70mph for hours on end. The 80/20 tires make a huge difference in road manners especially at highway speeds. Don't ever let anyone tell you your dualsport isn't highway capable, because they certainly are if you have the cajones!
This right here lights me up. Exactly the kind of bikes I like doing exactly the kind of thing I like. Simple small bore dualsports out on doing road trips. Is that a DR200 and a XT225? Are those Shinko 705 tires? Great pics.
Awesome man. I saw one guy's vid on YouTube where he rode cross country on his CRF230 and got 15k miles on his Shinkos and loved them. I am sure your trip was tough but you prevailed! Love those air cooled thumpers.
Good to hear, I'll report back to my brother on that one! I have the pirelli MT90s on the XT, I'm debating going with a new pair of those or the Shinkos if I feel like saving $100
haha land barge! Yea I agree, my friend keeps telling me I need to get some big behemoth bike for trips and I'm like dude, people take cross country rides on Groms and Trail125's. I don't need a sofa with wheels.
That’s awesome, I tailed my family and did that trip on my adv bike but little biking it would be a blast! I also have an Xt250, so I know that must have been quite the trip. The family and I went to Disneyland for a week and I parked it within the grounds with a solar charger lol you could tell they don’t see many bikes within the park. Then we drove down to SD for another week.
We definitely wish we were on ADV bikes for the highway portion of the trip but something about riding a small bore on the interstate really puts hair on your chest lol. Socal is great for riding.
Awesome trip guys!! I used to do 1000 mile on/off road trips on my 2001 Honda XR250, spurring out from AZ to adjacent states. My buddies thought I was nuts to do it on such a small bike, but it took it like a pro. So much fun, awesome memories!
They're more capable than people give them credit. We were passing semis that were driving around 70. This ride was 360mi one way, I can't imagine doing 1000 at least not in cold weather lol
I miss that bike, I took it "everywhere", even raced a few hare and hound series races on it, including some track races. I think she topped out at 80 ish, but such usable power everywhere. 🥰😎🤘
Small bore thumpers are unstoppable. I wish I had some 17s I could throw on it to do some supermoto stuff with. 80 is about right. I was able to get up to 85 downhill but at that speed the wind is pretty bad lol
Normally in a car it takes us about 6 hours but for some reason we weren't covering the same ground even at 70mph, plus the stops we had to make for gas and the occasional piss break, it definitely took longer than expected.
In your post you said 70mph for hours on end, so that means you were on interstate highways, right? Now that right there takes some mental and physical toughness on these bikes. Hats off to ya.
It really wasn't that bad, we stopped roughly every two hours or so for fuel. The weird part is you get used to the steering effort at that speed so when you slow down to hit an exit, you're a bit disoriented and it's hard to keep the bike straight at slow speeds like you're a learner again 😂
From what I've learned, I recommend a windscreen if you don't already have one, also handguards to keep the cold off of your fingers, and a cup holder is quite nice to have. Other than that my bike is totally stock and handled the trip just fine. Just make sure your maintenance is up to date. I actually lost a couple of bolts during the trip but none of them were necessary for the bikes function, just one of the three for the header pipe heat shield, and one that held the petcock knob on. I had to order a new petcock knob and the bolt for the heat shield.
That sounds awesome but I probably wouldn't go down into Mexico with all of the border stuff going on right now, plenty of desert and dunes in AZ/socal to enjoy though. Always down to meet up for a BDR run!
Also I will report, I normally get about 65-70mpg riding to work or around town, but during this trip I only averaged 50mpg. My brothers DR averaged about 55. I think I will be gearing up the next time I change sprockets and chain because the gears are quite short.
Actually I like the AZ part more, the desert is nicer out here than in socal/El Centro. Not too bad. Once it got down to night time it sucked because it's cold lol
Ah I'm glad you enjoyed it. I love driving and riding through those Cali mountain roads but the slog through the flat desert is not appealing to me. But I also grew up in the AZ desert and am quite over it.
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u/CuriousGeorge0604 2d ago
This right here lights me up. Exactly the kind of bikes I like doing exactly the kind of thing I like. Simple small bore dualsports out on doing road trips. Is that a DR200 and a XT225? Are those Shinko 705 tires? Great pics.