What's the best Dual Sport Adventure Motorcycle for YOU *DCAM* [mv]{

So you guys, one more thing. Before you go out buying a motorcycle and you're like, you know, you're a 5'10 guy, 180 pounds like me, you got like a 30 inch inseam, think about the motorcycle that you really want to get. Because when you're test driving it, you're not thinking, oh this is probably going to be really too tall for me if I'm off-road or, you know, I'm probably not going to take that many really long distance trips. Dang it! Or, you know, there's lots of things you overlook when you're like really getting amped for a motorcycle. You know, maybe you're like, oh man, you know, I love a DRZ400 because that's whatever ride has. That's what Jake the Garden Snake has, you know. Or maybe you're like, man, I really love the Yamaha WR250 because that's what Accidental Broadcast and Ride Victoria have. Or, man, I really, I really love the, you know, X, Y, or Z because that's what somebody else has. Truthfully, that somebody else is not you. You know, I bought a KLR650 because I thought I was going to do some really big, like, freaking huge intercontinental trips. With my friend. It turns out that my friend never bought any motorcycle. Not nothing. I mean, he didn't even buy a cafe racer like he wanted. And then I moved and moved to a place with crazy trails like this. And, you know, the KLR is a great bike, but for a guy my size, holy crap, don't get me wrong at all. I absolutely love the KLR, and more than the KLR even. I love, love the KLR community. That's like, those guys are amazing. And they will, it seems like 90% of them will drop everything they're doing and help you, like, immediately. The KLR community is incredible. Some of the nicest guys you'll ever meet. And that's why I still stay active with the KLR community, even though I don't own it anymore, you know. It's my brother-in-law's, but I still love that whole thing, you know. But when it comes to a person my height and my ability, I'm not gonna lie, guys. I'm slow and I'm weak. I'm not that strong. And when it comes to picking up a 450 pound motorcycle, that is not my idea of fun when you're out in, you know, 100 degree heat of southern Utah. However, you know, the DRZ400 seemed like it was, it was a pretty good compromise because I'm gonna be out here in the heat and, you know, I can pick it up really easy. It's really nimble. It handles the kind of trails down here exactly right. Now that's not saying, oh, it's so much better or whatever. I have to say it is better on the trails for me. Maybe for you, you can boss a 450 pound motorcycle around trails like this. Maybe KLR is too small. Maybe you need a KTM Adventure 990. The fact is, is that you might see somebody else riding a certain motorcycle and you're gonna think, oh my gosh, that's the motorcycle for me. When realistically, oh my gosh, this is, this is really kind of humiliating. We've got a, we've got a scooter. We've got a scooter. I'm on the, I'm on the same trail as a guy with a scooter. I need to pick some harder trails. Wow. This really makes me feel stupid. I should, I should go kick it over. I should go run it over. No, good for them. Good for them for getting adventurous. You could do trails like this on a scooter. It's me again. Future evil EverRide from the evil future timeline. And basically I should have kicked over that scooter. But what I wanted to say that I missed out in the video, to find the right bike for you, to make a estimate, go to different forums, go to different biker forums and find out, A, the personalities of people who are riding the bike that you're riding. Do they match your personality? Are you going to be with 50 year old guys when you're an 18 year old kid? Are you going to be an 18 year old kid riding a KLR 650 with 50 year old guys? Try to find out who you're going to be riding with and who you'll enjoy riding with. Because that makes a huge difference. And another thing you're going to want to do is find out the sizes of people who are riding the similar bikes. It's going to range a lot, but find out the averages. So later in the day, I went on to list my top motorcycles that I would buy for adventure motorcycling when it comes to cost effectiveness. And I don't want to put that up right now. I'll probably make another one because it wasn't very well put together. But I do want to point out what makes a great adventure motorcycle for you. And here are some of the criteria that I came up with. They're old enough that you can buy, you know, maybe an early 2000s model for a really good deal. They're very reliable. They've been around for a long time and so there's tons of parts for them. And parts are cheap. Because here's the thing you guys, if you buy a motorcycle that has one model year, how hard is it going to be to find parts for that? Well, it's going to be pretty difficult. Now, if you buy a motorcycle that's been around for, you know, 20-30 years, like a KLR 650, without a whole lot of body style changes or anything like that, then guess what? You're going to be able to join a huge community and you're going to be able to find parts really easy and really inexpensively. And the bike's going to be inexpensive. And there's going to be a knowledge base online of how to fix the thing if anything ever goes wrong with it. Keep it in mind that the bigger the bike, the better of a rider you are going to need to be to keep it rocking off-road, okay? So for example, Mr. Duffactor, he has a KTM 990 that he can ride just as fast as I can ride this DRZ. He is insane, but he used to race motocross, so he absolutely knows what he's doing. I'm a teacher who goes slow and talks while I'm riding. I'm not going to be that incredible on a motorcycle. The fact is, he knows how to perfectly handle it, and he is a boss on that machine. However, if I saw a video of Mr. Duffactor just destroying on his KTM 990, and I didn't know he was a former motocross racer or anything like that, I'd be like, oh man, well those must be really, really maneuverable and really easy to ride and all that stuff. And then maybe I'd go out and spend 10 grand on one, and then, oh this hill is big, and then have a realization after I buy this thing that, oh my gosh, I totally bought the wrong motorcycle. How sad would that be? That would be really, really sad, especially because I'm probably, when I sell it, I'm probably going to take some depreciation on it, right? When you're choosing a motorcycle, choose wisely. Just because you see, you know, a guy like Mr. Duffactor just dominating a KTM 990, don't think, oh well anybody can do that. There's a guy on YouTube, I forget his name, his video is called the KLR650 is an awesome motorcycle, you just have to ride it, or something like that. It's called something like that. But I mean, he's jumping it and taking it all crazy hill climbs, and that video is one of the things that convinced me to get a KLR650. And when I came down to it, yeah, it didn't take long to realize that I'm not that good of a rider. So, you know, even the KLR650 is, I'm gonna go ahead and say it, it's a little bit too big for me. It might be perfect for you, it might be perfect for the type of riding you're gonna do, but for me it was just a little bit too big. So something that you might want to try out, first of all, if you're new to dirt riding, hey golf balls, if you're new to dirt riding and there's something, tons of golf balls, what in the world? If you're new to dirt riding and you just, you just, you know, want to get out there and try your hand at it, you know, I would start with something right in the middle, and a 400 is perfect. And maybe you'll stay at a 400, maybe you'll say, hey, you know what, I need a little more oomph for my freeway commute, and you'll, and you'll need to get a 650. Maybe, maybe you get a 400 and you're like, you know what, I just can't really maneuver it like I would like to. And then maybe, maybe you, you know, scale down to a 250 or something. You got to choose the right bike.