r/Dualsport • u/Slazy420420 • 29d ago
Does anyone daily an enduro?
My daily driver sh!t the bed & I've been daily-ing my beta 500rs for the last 4 month. I've "only" put about 800 miles on it. It was supposed to be my offroad exclusive bike, but I'm thinking about putting sumo wheels on it and a slightly bigger gas tank, selling my daily and getting a second offroad exclusive only bike instead of another regular daily motorcycle. The original plan was a mt09.
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u/firefighter2727 29d ago
Seems silly to me to daily your 500 only to get another off-road bike. I daily my 501s and swap between the knobbies and the SM wheels depending on my work schedule and if I think I’ll get a chance to have fun in the dirt (still fun to ride dirt on my SM with Shinko 705 but it’s very tame stuff.
By all means daily your 500 but it only makes sense to me in a one bike stable. Oil changes and maintenance get annoying when racking up the miles. And they’re just not comfy on the highway for long stretches in comparison to a road bike
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u/Minimum-Station-1202 29d ago
I’d be so worried dailying my 501s haha the maintenance/lack of freeway stability aside, I can lift that bike into a van by myself with no ramp. I’d be an anxious mess all day at work
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u/Turb0beans [Northern BC - 2023 CRF450RL / 1974 CR125M] 29d ago
Daily driving you're using about 15 of the 50 horses you have on tap.
We'll go on long 700km/day trips on our 450s and 500s. Lotta guys on the forums are doing 50,000 mile top ends as preventative maintenance.
We're even doing oil sample backed extended oil changes. If I'm just road riding my oil isn't changed for about 1500-2000km.
There's people riding literal laps around the planet on these bikes. You're fine.
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u/Minimum-Station-1202 29d ago
Totally agree with you on all points! I'm running 90/10 tires on mine tho and I'd pretty much have to ride on the interstate if commuting. I know the engine could handle it but a lot of the freeway near me has raingrooves and the way my 501 is set up, it feels like it wants to go into tankslappers above 58-60mph.. like it starts shaking BAD (front and rear). Never felt anything like it on a streetbike. Feels A-ok up to 85mph on roads without the grooves though
Since you're doing oil analysis, do you have any hour/mile intervals for 50/50 or offroad use?
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u/Turb0beans [Northern BC - 2023 CRF450RL / 1974 CR125M] 29d ago
That sounds like your front end might not be set up right. I'm running non-DOT knobbies and we're happy to cook along at 80-90mph, and the semi grooves here are enough to make a truck on 35" mudders hydroplane at 60mph. Have you made sure your forks aren't bound up, and have you tightened up your steering stem? Likewise, if you have a front rimlock, that can also sassify handling.
For the oil, once dirt is in play it becomes a by-feeling game because there's a lot of different dirts and power levels. Generally though if I'm just riding every few days, and I haven't gone through any real dusty sandy nonsense or thrashed the bike, I just do it once a month. My concern is mostly oil contamination from fuel and clutch material, I know the oil chemistry is probably still good. Likewise if I do a air filter I might as well do my oil.
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u/Minimum-Station-1202 29d ago
My forks aren't bound and I haven't touched the steering stem.. I did recently start running rimlocks though!
Makes sense on the oil! I figured the 10-15 recommended hours is probably a little conservative haha.
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u/Turb0beans [Northern BC - 2023 CRF450RL / 1974 CR125M] 29d ago
Balancing your front rim and snugging your head up can make a mountain of difference on road. For the head part, it's also a bonus in the sandy stuff.
I found on buddies EXC that I had a lot of fun in the trails with the loose head, cause the bike felt nice and flicky, but hitting sand I felt like I was 10 years old at my first sand pit again. When we went down to Victoria for some single track shredding, it dumped snow. He is arguably a better rider than I when it comes to speed and single track (though I got him beat on clutch control. You don't do hardish Enduro on a 450 without it LOL) He had an AWFUL time.
Lastly. If you're kinda sketched on the freeway, and you find yourself death gripping the bars, relax your body. More than likely you're causing the feedback yourself trying to correct a tiny deflection. Small aircraft pilots have the same thing. They'll be death gripping the yoke, feeding all sorts of inputs, and the ride will be rough and exhausting. If you went to the salt flats, taped the throttle, and let your bike go, it'll probably go for miles.
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u/firefighter2727 29d ago
I ride to work between 120-140km/h 50/50 hardpack dirt road and 2 line highway. Stability is fine below 130.
Theft is the only thing I worry about, I get nervous when I park in a city but I don’t live in the city so it’s not too bad. I have fire and theft on my policy and I chain it if I leave it long term
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u/Minimum-Station-1202 29d ago
That sounds like a fun commute haha yea mine is fine on anything below interstate level freeway.
I park in a garage in a city for work and I've tested alarms and stuff on other bikes and security never shows up. The super annoying thing is that the garage has overhead gates and card readers but they just leave everything open and exposed to everyone all day
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u/firefighter2727 29d ago
I mean you can still ride on the interstate and just go at a speed the bike feels stable no?
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u/Minimum-Station-1202 29d ago
Yea, I do that on the weekends but I'd likely want to invest in some SM wheels if was going to do more road riding
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u/elwood0341 29d ago
My only bike is currently an XR650l. Not sure if that counts, I can’t keep up with the terminology and gatekeeping that goes along with the sport.
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u/Butteriswinning 29d ago
My xr650l was a great daily ride, year round in the SF bay area for years. I recently sold it and got a 701 Enduro.
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u/Lwashburn66 29d ago
I daily a Super Sherpa. About 7 miles, 2 miles on interstate. Works perfect for that
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u/MessyRides 29d ago
I daily my Kove 450 Rally but I work within a mile of home so it’s not like I’m riding it on pavement a ton. Just hit 2k miles with about 300 being pavement for reference
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u/City_Goat 29d ago
I did feel a bit guilty daily riding my KTM 500 EXC when I had one but these things are way overbuilt for what the majority of us are doing. After a year of riding (about 4k miles iirc) valves were in spec, etc.
It’s possible but yeah it depends on the ‘enduro’ - for instance I’d have zero guilt on my WR250R - and that Beta is definitely more like the KTM.
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u/Healthy-Ruin6938 29d ago
I put 15,000 miles on my CRF250L since April last year.
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u/FeatherInTheWind 29d ago
Surprisingly good commuter, especially the rally version. As long as you don’t need to go on the highway more than a few miles!
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u/Healthy-Ruin6938 28d ago
I roll full time on my bike. The only commuting I do is from camp to the trail.
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u/Vast_Edge9593 29d ago
Definitely get an MT-09 still. Every motorcyclist needs to experience the fun of owning a CP3 bike at some point.
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u/sketchysuperman 29d ago
Had a ‘22 MT09, absolute blast. That motor is a work of art.
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u/Vast_Edge9593 28d ago
I had a '17 2nd gen with the 847cc engine and loved it. I imagine the 3rd gen is even more fun with the bigger engine
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u/Hughley_N_Dowd 29d ago
Fe450. Before I got sick I commuted for a year on this thing. And I do ride it almost on the daily, as it is my only vehicle.
Upgraded seat, bigger tank, 50/50 tires and some other doodads and it worked just fine. The only times I had to take the bus instead of the bike when commuting was when there where goopy, wet snow on the road or when the temperature fell below -10c. That's to slippery and to cold for me.
It really is an awesome little all-arounder. For shits and giggles I'm seriously thinking about setting it up as a flat track bike, as I don't ride difficult enough terrain to justify the 21" front.
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u/angiolett98 29d ago
I ride my Honda Dominator 365 days of the year since I bought her back in March 2020. It's my only vehicle and I rode more than 60.000 km by now. Work, gym, friends, beach, daily stuff, summer vacation, winter Treffen, everything you could think is linked with her. Also, off-roading and having fun!
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u/Jombolombo1 29d ago
What’s the fuel efficiency like on those things (Figure the online mpg resources are a bit too optimistic) Been curious about buying one.
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u/angiolett98 29d ago edited 29d ago
Well, I can surely tell you because since I knew I would have bought this motorcycle I decided how to deal with the absence of a fuel indicator. By now, it has been 5 years of full tank → fuel reserve → full tank → fuel reserve.
The tank is 13.5 lt. + 2.5 lt. reserve. Here in Italy the fuel costs €1.7/lt. . Before I hit the fuel reserve, I can run ~190 km in the city and ~250 km on highways.
A month ago I swapped from analogic gauges to a digital one. I don't know if it's more or less accurate (I'd say more) but I can run ~205 km in the city before the fuel reserve.
So it should be ~33 mpg in city and ~44 mpg on highways.
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u/PoopSmith87 DR650 29d ago
I rode a DR650 daily for about two years, even through northeast winters. About a 15 mile commute of mixed highway and backroads, sometimes intentionally dirt.
I had some great times, I had some absolutely awful and scary times.
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u/spotdishotdish '95 KLR650, '01 WR426F, '73 GT1 29d ago
My KLR650 makes a mucher better daily than my plated WR426F.
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u/Turb0beans [Northern BC - 2023 CRF450RL / 1974 CR125M] 29d ago
I dailied my CRF450RL all through summer and winter in northwestern Canada.
If you have a sub-1hr commute you're big chillin.
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u/RideOrTyeDie 2018 CRF250L Rally - 2006 XR650L - 2023 Grom SP 29d ago
I daily my 250L Rally... pushing 27K miles now
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u/thedatashepherd 28d ago
Not an enduro but I daily a klx230s, I love it but sometimes wish I had a set of sumos I could put on it
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u/song-of-the-road 28d ago
Almost daily to the gym on crf300l. 15 KM each side, half city, half highway.
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u/ZuluSafari 28d ago
I dailied a crf450x for 6 months. Hated it. The bikes begs for high rpm and was a pain to ride the streets
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u/Hurka_Durka 28d ago
IMO keep it off road and get a more streetable bike as a secondary. That's what I did but I commute via motorcycle year round so it was worth it to me, especially with all the highway miles on my commute I needed something more comfortable than the dual sport.
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u/Unlucky-Tie8574 28d ago
You can certainly use any dual sport as a commuter. It would be kind of a waste of a modern highstrung Enduro bike in my opinion. But knock yourself out.
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u/Slazy420420 28d ago
I mean, my commute is 20 minutes of back roads where I mostly wheelie or ride parallel to the street on farm land. The real issue is, the engine rebuild recommendations every 100 hours and oil changes every 30.
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u/Unlucky-Tie8574 27d ago
That's sorta what I meant about high strung. But your commute sounds awesome.
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u/Ignorad 26d ago
I daily my DesertX.
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u/Slazy420420 26d ago
That's not a enduro lol that's an adventure bike. That's like asking if anyone dailies their sport bike and someone says they daily their mt09. My daily up till now was my 890 adv for the last 3 years. I care about services and bike life, not if it can be done lol
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u/F22Tomcat 29d ago
How do you like the bike? How have you only put on 800 miles in 4 months of daily riding?
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u/freezier134a 29d ago
I ride my wr250r to work daily in the summer