Category Archives: Project Bikes

What I’ve ridden and what I’m riding

Versys 650

I picked up the Versys unseen and rushed back down the A1 to East London to meet the Mrs for a movie. First impressions: clutch and gear change not as light or as slick as the TDM sold the day before. Scorpion pipe a bit on the noisy side but the OE can came with. Steering drop-in almost as intuitive as the TDM but the upright seating position was much more what I’m used to, giving an impression of agility the strung-out Yam couldn’t quite muster no matter how high the bar risers. This alone is what shows potential in the Versys. Brake felt less good than the TDM’s brilliant Blue Spots and suspension was OK, hard to tell on smooth roads. Fuelling is flawless – much better than the glitchy TDM, especially after I fitted some cans on it. I did my bathroom-scale weight test which came in at 199kg with the tank about a quarter full. Call that 212kg wet. Not so light then. Back home I did the sort of close inspection I used to do before buying a bike in the time before internet. Instead, this time I’d trusted in close and repeated scrutiny of the ebay pics and ‘decoded’ the pitch of the seller. All in all the bike looked on the money so I got stuck in.

“Now you’re gonna think that I’m completely nutz, but this thing works! No more monkey butt!” XC Rider

The optional gel seat looked well made, and so it should be, going for well over 300 quid new. But it’s the same stepped shape as the OE unit and once slotted in you’ve no room to move around. There’s talk of the OE seats being terrible but it seems OK to me. Also, I believe that gel may sound cool and techy but has been discredited as a suitable medium for seats. Gel does not compress enough; it merely deforms a little and is too dense to shed heat.

Now on their third bike, my trusty Barkbuster Storms went on without a hitch, the end-bar Barkbolts screwed straight into the bar-weight threads. We’ll see if I miss those bar weights.
I added a couple of RAM mounts under the mirror stalks and raised the screen two inches with a bit of inelegant bodging (right). Chances are it will still be too low and I’ll need to buy something taller. I also wired in a DIN plug to run my Aerostich Kanetsu electric jacket and tyre pump. No toolkit came with the bike but at the very least I needed the C-spanner to back the over-stiff shock off one notch. A near-new one turned up on ebay for £20. Better than a hammer and chisel.

At ~2kg that Scorpion noisepipe may be only a third of the weight of the OE silencer but it makes just a little too much racket. I tried to refit the proper silencer but found the short link tube between the downpipes and the can was rust-welded to the downpipe. I dare say I could have persevered but to save 4 kgs I tried to shut the pipe up a bit.
Talking about after-market pipes, I’d not done this for years but learned while researching a set for the TDM that at the lower end of the price range, a silencer is just a can – one size and shape fits many and it’s just the link pipe between the can and the bike’s downpipe that differs from bike to bike. It makes the prices they ask all the more galling as any impression of tunability for your particular machine is a fantasy. Just choose the look you like: long, short, oval, black, round or square, and hope your bike runs well on it. Though it sounded just right – characterful but without an anti-social din – the TDM’s fuelling was worsened at in-town near-closed throttle speeds. That could easily have been tuned out with a Power Commander (more expense). Meanwhile, the Versys seems to fuel fine as it is.

The Scorpion’s baffle or ‘db killer’ screwed out easily and looking at it, I wondered what I could do to deaden the din. I contacted Scorpion but got no reply so wondered it the ‘slap’ of the exhaust pulses against the flat end of the perforated baffle might be reduced by fitting a flow-diverting cone (left). That may well work but I didn’t have one of those lying around so I settled for riveting a big washer over the end (inset, left) and hoped for the best. I think it may have worked a little but not enough so I may try the cone or a bigger washer before freeing up that seized on link pipe and refitting the OE silencer.

I’m a fan of Tutoro bump ‘n’ pump chain oilers and had one waiting in the wings. This time I knew how to fit the twin-nozzle oil feeder correctly, biting into the rear sprocket (inset, left), and found a tucked in frame rail to mount the reservoir (left). The feed tube routing is not so elegant but it seems to have survived the first tankful. With the adjuster screwed out one turn it’s feeding oil at just the right rate.

Put out a red light
On collecting the bike I noticed a red light on the dash that didn’t go out down the road. I didn’t know what it was but as the bike ran fine I wasn’t worried. At home after a bit of RTFM I realised it was an FI warning light and thought it might be some Lambda/O2 sensor playing up due to the Scorpion pipe. It turned out the Lambda was still there, attached to the downpipe. Exchanges with the seller claimed it had never happened before which seemed a tall story as it lit up on starting the bike in his yard. It’s one of the perils of buying a bike unseen. A bit of internetting on the V forums brought up owners with FI lights on due to burned-out fan motors which wasn’t the end of the world. I tried to book myself into a couple of local Kawa dealers for some diagnostic therapy, but no replies. It seems despite all your fake palms and coffee machines and ‘three-bags-full, sir’, nothing’s changed in DealerWorld. With a few exceptions, to me going to a bike shop will forever remain a last resort.

It took a lot more internetting, including getting bogged down in irrelevant, complex and expensive official, dealer-spec Kawasaki Diagnostic System (KDS) software, before I found out I could run a self-diagnosis with just a bit of wire. No bootleg KDS software, no ODB2 readers (mandatory on bikes from 2016) and no expensive visits to can’t-be-arsed dealers.

The Versys appears to have an astonishingly user-friendly system where you simply plug in a bit of wire into an unmarked female bullet connector under the seat (see above left) and then, with the engine running, ground the wire anywhere on the frame. A workshop manual may be different, but there’s nothing about any of this in the handbook. Once you ground the wire as instructed, instead of the ECU going BANG! followed by a puff of acrid smoke, the FI light on the dash flashes up a sequence: long = #10, short = #1. Translate those flashing codes and work it out from there. The print out pictured left and the pdf version here are based on posts like this buried on various forums.
Must say I’ve never come across this before but am gratified such useful roadside self-diagnosis is even possible in this ‘contact your authorised service provider’ world. I feel quite differently about CPU-reliant machines now, as easily establishing the cause of a red FI light is a long way to fixing a problem.

In my case I got 6+7 which equals 67: ‘Oxygen sensor heater (Europe)’ spoken in an annoying robotic voice. Don’t know what that actually means but I soon tracked it down to a missing fuse. You’d think the previous owner knew it was missing and time will tell if that 10A O2 fuse blows again, but now I know the bike runs fine with that ‘fault’, it matters less.

While the seat was off I took the chance to move some chunky space-wasting connectors and big fuses to make room for a Cycle Pump and tubeless repair kit (above right).

Before I’d fixed the FI light I went for a run down to Bexhill-on-Sea (below left) on the south coast to check out a Ladybird Book exhibition on the seafront. It was of course just an excuse for a ride but once there it was great to recall the images (above) which I’d not seen for some fifty years. What a wonderful 2D world it would be in Ladybird Land.

On the way I popped into another Kawasaki dealer in Heathfield, Sussex on the off-chance of an on-the-spot plug-in diagnosis. They were at least helpful but in the end the brief advent of spring-like weather has the sole mechanic up to his neck. While there I spotted the latest, 3rd generation Versys (above right) which came out this year. Among other things they’ve got rid of the Medusa Eye and added a simple adjustable screen.

I let the sat-nav bundle me onwards through Sussex following whatever came my way. As it was little use in the Sahara, I’m a relatively late-adopter to sat-nav but I like that you can throw yourself into unknown backroads and, providing you’re not a 40-ton lorry, know that you can easily work your way out while discovering interesting new places. A-roads lead to grubby, leaf-splattered single trackers and it was here I marvelled at the smooth fuelling but also how harsh the hitherto adequate suspension could be.
The Versys shock has no linkage or even a spring to give a progressive rate. Is all this progressive suspension business pie in the sky, then? It seems not; the progression is in the unseen ‘two-stage damping’ which doesn’t sound so progressive. The 1000 Versys does have the usual linkage, but the 650’s direct link from swingarm to subframe means any sudden hits make quite an impact. The usual case of over-sprung and under-damped? Feels like it and no great surprise.

Even though I’ve seen the light with proper suspension on the XCountry, that was a one-off deal. But on the bright side it’s said a shock off an ‘08 Yamaha R1 is a close fit, and over the years plenty of well-heeled R1 pilots have upgraded to aftermarket items or terminally planted their pocket rockets into the scenery, so used they go from 70 quid in the UK. And a stock R1 shock is a high-spec unit, with a remote reservoir and damping adjustments in all directions.
To fit one on a Versys there’s a bit of faffing with the bushes as well as the need to get a much stiffer custom spring made up due to the lack of a progressive linkage (the Versys spring won’t fit). But providing you don’t buy a totally shagged-out R1 unit, for about 150 quid all up you get plush and fully adjustable ‘£600’ suspension on the back. I bought an ’08 removed from a new R1 for racing for £150 off ebay so at least know it won’t be shagged.
So that was a start on my Adversysing which I looked forward to riding this summer and probably taking to Morocco in November. First mpg was a rather poor 20.3kpl (57.5 UKmpg) Long before that other things that will need attention including some sort of tail rack and something for the front end: a 19-inch V-Strom Thou wheel is resting on the landing.
Then, a couple of months later I decided I really wanted a similar but lighter bike, so I flogged the Versys and got a CB500X, the more modern bike which I’d been interested in all along. Adversys project ends.

Kawasaki 650 Versys project bike

Index Page
Versys 650 – Stage 1

Next up, Kawasaki’s 650 Versys as I continue my lifelong quest of an optimal mid-weight travel bike. As you may have read, I had a short affair with a TDM 900 but, great motor though it was, it soon became clear the TDM had gone too far down roadbike road to be hauled back towards its Super Tenere and Dakar Rally origins.

The origins of the Versys are less glamourous. Also known as a KLE650, before it came the KLE500 (left, below) which in its brief final form I came close to buying. The 500’s motor was based on the sheep-in-wolf’s-clothing GPz500 or Ninja (right) which dates way back to 1987. For reasons I forget, it wasn’t a contender when it came to making my Gs500R project bike a couple of years ago. I think there was something about a dodgy top end compared to the Suzuki’s better record?

But looking at KLE500s again a few weeks ago, they now rather obviously resembled what I eventually produced in the GS500R: 18/21-inch wheels; decent tank capacity and suspension travel; a bit of fairing protection and a flat seat. Plus the last model in blue with gold frame and wheels looked downright elegant compared to some of the earlier KLE’s challenging colour combos.
There’s a certain ‘honest old school hack’ appeal about a KLE500 that you don’t get with a modern electronic bike, but rosy-specs aside, carbs, tubed tyres and 21-inch front wheels are things I prefer to leave behind. Then it dawned on me that a KLE was in fact a last-gasp, emissions-choked spin on the old 500 engine, just as the paint was drying on the brand new Euro 3-compliant Versys back in Japan. So it was just another affable dinosaur with a motor necessarily strangled by all sorts of clumsily emissions claptrap prior to the whole KLE concept getting redesigned from the ground up as a 650. Recognising this, the KLE500 didn’t look so appealing any more, especially when you consider UK prices for a decent, last-model example start in the high teens and occasionally run up to nearly three grand! Of course I never actually got to ride one, but I don’t think it would have been too much of an improvement over my GS-R.

Some KLE500 builds: here • here • here and here

Why a Versys?
I remember taking that picture on the right at the 2012 NEC Show and thinking ‘man, that is one ugly bike: too tall, too plasticy and too darn lardy on its ill-proportioned 17-inch wheels. You’ll never catch me on one of those’. It was some way from the 99-kilo KTM Freeride which was the ‘bike de jour’ at the time. Two and a bit years later I find myself reappraising the Versys. It was an interesting lesson in how initial prejudices based on looks can be overcome once you look a bit deeper. That happens to me a lot.

Much of the V-bike’s new-found appeal came down to the used prices when compared to similar offerings like TAs, V-Stroms, the KLE500 and the newer CB500-X which I tested a few weeks back. Bide your time and you can find a good, late 1st-gen (2007-09) Versys for a little over two grand. Especially alongside a 500, that’s a whole lot more bike for the money. The main flaw is of course that, just as with the Super Tenere-to-TDM evolution, the supposedly all-dancing Versys actually became less ‘versytile’ by adopting fat 17s front and rear. IMO like Ducati’s Hyperstrada (right), it doesn’t do the bike’s aesthetic proportions any favours at all but is probably another example of me mistakenly judging a book by its cover.
With the 650s ground-up makeover came the typical 20 extra kilos, but also tubeless tyres √, efi √, what looks like a chunky subframe (above right) √, optional ABS √, easy to adjust shock √, easy-switch km/miles speedo and you’d hope a general refinement plus enough plastic to melt down into a giant Rubik’s Cube. The deeply stepped seat looked less promising (though worked well enough on my 660Z Tenere), as did the under-engine silencer’s vulnerability, even if it kept the back-end slim for saddlebags. At 19 litres, the tank has a near-ballpark capacity of 250-miles/400kms assuming 60mpg (21.2kpl) without the need to carry extra fuel, even if that weight isn’t low, as it was on my XCountry.
Pictured left are two Adversii built by a guy calling himself jdrocks on the advrider forum. He spends his winters building up V-bikes for something to do and has an admirable ‘keep it simple and costs low’ attitude, stalking craigslist for as long as it takes to snag used parts from crashed 650s, rather than hosing his rig down with a Touratech catalogue. I can relate to that.

The red one on the left is actually an ER-6n/Ninja, the road bike which the GPz became. If you’re planning to turn your 650 Versys or Ninja into a lunar rover, set a rainy weekend aside to read jd’s posts. You’ll learn that he’s unearthed benefits in adventurising a 650 Ninja over a Versys (chiefly better power from cams, compression and CPU in the otherwise identical engines). But here in the UK comparable ERs go for a bit more than a Versys. With nowhere to work and looking for a bargain, I wasn’t planning anywhere near as radical a transformation as his, so was happy to settle on a Versys.

Uncovering all this brought up another benefit of adapting a Versys into what jd calls a ‘gravel bike’: they’ve been around since 2008 in the US where similar XT-Zs, ATs and Transalps aren’t sold and F-series BMs are pricey. Because of that, enough people have Adversys’ed their 650 Kawas. Be it simply slapping a ‘rear’ TKC on the front (blue bike, above) Advrider is awash with ideas and know-how which all saves money, frustration and time.

AdvMoto magazine were among the first to set the ball rolling, as usual spending what looked like the cost of a second bike adapting a used 2008 Versys with hand-built wheels and every accessory under the sun (left). The result was not a value for money dirt tourer, but then trying new ideas can be costly.
I did think about getting a V-Strom, but part of this whole AMH project bike game is exploring less obvious ideas without spending a fortune. There’s nothing much to prove with the much admired Suzuki and anyway, in the UK they cost more than a similar or even a younger Versys.
It only took a week of so to find one nearby for an unlikely £3000, but offered a chance to have a closer look and see how it rode. This was one of the full black versions which I find the least ugly. With chrome only present on the forks and pipe, it all blends away like a black cat in a coal cellar. All you have to do is be careful not to look that Fiat-ugly headlight in the eye. Do so and, like clocking the Medusa (right – don’t look!), you’ll turn to stone.

Another all-black V-bike (left) turned up up north where all the used bikes seem to be. I picked it up unseen one chilly Sunday morning and by the time I got home and then flogged the overpriced ‘gel seat’ that came with it, it came in at £2100 with hot grips; light-but-noisy pipe + original; hugger; 12v plug; new back tyre and 28,028 miles on the clock. On the surface all good but some rust behind the scenes. More about it in the next post.

Honda CRF250L vs XR250 Tornado

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CRF250L Index Page
CRF300L Index Page
Yamaha Serow Index Page (soon)

updated 2025

Two 250 Honda trail bikes: one which I tried in the UK then owned in the US; the other which I’ve rented in Morocco several times. How do they compare? First, some stats, mostly gathered from the web and referring to the pre-2017 CRF. ymmv.

Scan over them and there looks to be little in it: same weight; same number of gears; suspension travel within an inch. Even the power’s the same, though the XR’s tank is half as big again and there’s 10% more claimed torque at 1000 less rpm on the Tornado (23.7Nm @6000rpm).

That could be down to the Tornado’s 1980s carb-and-air-cooled technology which makes the same claimed power as the modern water-cooled, fuel-injected pre-2017 CRF. But as you may have guessed, any benefits of the CRF’s greater compression and modern efficiencies are swallowed up by the catalyser and other gubbins to meet today’s demanding emissions legislation.

And that’s the biggest difference of all. Both are inexpensive bikes, but as far as I know, there’s no place in the world where you can choose between one or the other, well not new. The Thai-built CRF met Euro-3 emissions requirements in richer (or should that be ‘leaner’) western countries. The Brazilian-made Tornado won’t, so got sold where bike emissions were less strict.

Riding the 250s
Although I rode them a few months apart, my impression was the XR was a more agile machine that lived up to its XR prefix. Much of that may have been because most of the time my CRF was loaded with some 15-20kg of baggage plus a rack, bashplate and screen, all which adds some 15% to kerb weight – quite significant on a 23-hp 250. But even unloaded on Utah’s fabulous White Rim Trail (left), I still feel the XR would have been a nippier and better-sprung machine. Fuel consumption is the same – so much for the mileage benefits of efi. Rider weight and payload will have a bearing on this: one light Tornado rider in Morocco was getting close to 100mpg (35.5kpl). I only got close to that a couple of times on my CRF in the US and – interestingly – nowhere near that on a UK test bike direct from Honda.

Suspension felt longer and more supple on the Tornado (in RSA they did a low seat model some 40mm lower; see table above left), the back disc is much better on the CRF. Both can sit on 100kph all day until you encounter steep inclines, headwinds or high altitude.
Though it ran up to 10,000′ (3050m) without issues, some days my CRF certainly felt the elevations in Nevada and Utah at half that elevation. Add an incline and it struggled to do 80kph at times, though it might have been the local fuel which, in my experience, varies greatly in USA. At 2300m (7300′) on a rough track in the Moroccan Atlas, the CV-carb Tornado also gets strung out between first and second gear but still fuels surprisingly well once off the pilot jet.

Conclusion
The Tornado felt better all round and were it available in the UK cheap I’m sure I’d have bought one by now**. But maybe that’s the way it is with an ‘exotic’ unobtainable machine, let alone one whose old school technology recalls a simpler era which someone my age can relate to. Apart from being annoyingly tall for some, it was everything you want from a 250 trail bike: light, good brakes, economical, fast enough and well sprung. For travelling the weak point on both 250s will be the subframe, but people have managed, so long as you don’t load a bike like a refugee’s GS12.

** Fast forward a few months.
I met a TRFer last week and he told me 250 Tornados from around 2003–4 are found in the UK and as I check the usual places I find he’s right. The one on the right had 8000 miles on the clock and looked in great nick but was going for a rather optimistic £2200. In 2016 a UK dealer was even looking for £3500 for a near-new 2004 Tornado! There was another one on gumtree, same age and mileage for a more reasonable £1400.

And in 2015 they stopped importing the Tornado into Morocco where the all-conquering CRF250L joined the line up. In Brazil the XR250 Tornado has become the XRE300 (left) – a Tornado engine bored to 291 plus efi, rear disc, optional ABS and cool, rally styling for same price as the CRF250L. However, the 300 has a poor reputation in Brazil; riders even lower the compression to try and make it last. More here.

Alternatives

If you like it old style you can still get a similarly basic XR250Rs until 2004, or TTR250 (right) in the UK until around the same time. They sold new in Australia right up to 2012 but elsewhere are getting on.

Yamaha’s much-loved air-cooled Serow is an other one. Dating from the 1980s as a 225, it shot up to 250cc in the Noughties, got efi in 2008 then discontinued in 2019.
Left is Lois ‘on-the-Loose’ Pryce on her Serow heading down the Americas. A cult bike they say, a lot of people rate the Serow’s air-cooled, light-weight, low-saddled simplicity against the ubiquitous CRFs. In 2025 I bought myself a 2011 250 Adventure model (below) for Morocco. We’ll see how we get on.

As an alternative to the CRF, the injected Kawasaki KLX250 has been around for years, but for some reason, never created the impact of the CRF when it came out, even if the suspension is way better than the Honda. Now injected, it’s said to be power restricted in the upper gears, but there’s a dodge or two to get round that here.

Used prices of the more powerful and unrestricted WR250R make it a less obvious choice for a travel bike as opposed to a fun weekend dirt bike. They were pretty rare in the UK which stopped importing them in 2008, and got discontinued globally in 2020. Both the EFI Kawa and especially the Yam WR are significantly pricier used in the UK, but they’re more sophisticated and come with a higher spec than the CRF which seems to have caught up, price wise.

Rally and L – with a tad more power. Then in 2021 they became 300s.

In 2016 I got a WR250R in the UK and also bought a carb’d Kawasaki KLX250S (left) in the American Southwest, a well put together machine – an efi ought to be even better. More news on my WR here.

• Dual Sport shootout (CRF, KLX, WR_R)
• Tornado thread on Horizons
• Ed’s Yamaha WR250R in Russia
• My CRF travels in SW USA
• Honda RSA Tornado brochure
• My KLX-S in SW USA

Tenerising a TDM900

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“It all started back in the beginning of the nineties, when we wanted to create a bike, which would be ultimate fun on bumpy small roads…” [Link]

I was recently reading an article by Brett Smith about a documentary on American dirt legend John Penton which included the line: ‘… studying his life will offer one key lesson: make your bike into what you need it to be…’

With something like that in mind, a couple of months ago I got myself a cheap TDM900 with a view to adapting it into a gravel and travel bike with my usual low-tech and inexpensive tricks. The word out there was that TDMs were a much under-rated road bikes, one of the many ‘sleepers’ which meet with high approval from actual owners but slip under the radar with most of the conservative buying public and performance-obsessed mags. ‘Only 86.2hp @ 7500rpm’ they scoff. Clearly not worth getting out of bed for then.

Mine came with hand guards, hot grips plus a tall screen (√, √ and √) but also an ugly Givi clip-on top box and an annoying Datatool alarm which was as old as the bike and playing up. It cost me sixty quid to get it professionally extracted. DIY is not so easy but I made some back selling the reprogrammable key fobs.

Action with the project was initially slow, partly because with 50k on the clock, I wanted to ride it around a bit first to make sure everything went up and down and round and round like it should. I don’t recall ever owning a bike with such a high mileage but the word was that, especially with the low-stressed 900 motor and providing it had been looked after, there were at least as many miles and another decade left in it.

Another cause for hesitation was that in establishing the Yam was in surprisingly great shape, I discovered it was actually a very nice handling road bike of the kind I don’t recall ever owning. Is it the ‘small’ wide wheels; low-profile rubber; relative lowness; a Fibonacci-like trail/rake/fork angle combo? Who knows, but for a heavy bike it dropped into bends with no bar input required. Throttle and clutch were light and the gearbox was snickety-snick. Only the suspension felt a bit harsh on the knackered suburban roads round here, but had plenty of settings to meddle with.

Looking on the web it’s no surprise to find I’m not the first person to want to adapt their TDM into more of an all-roader (see gallery bottom of the page). After all, Yamaha’s TDM evolved from the original late 1980s, 21/17 wheeled 750 Super Tenere (left) which at 200-kilos and with a 26-litre tank was inspired by the Sonauto YZE 750T Paris-Dakar bikes (below).

Peterhansel in the ’89 Dak and quite possibly in the Tenere desert. Who wouldn’t want something like that in the garage?

In the early 90s the 750 Super Tenere was transformed into the TDM 850 (below left, in red), taking a regrettably big step away from the 75o’s desert racing aspirations towards what I suppose what they call sports tourers. It’s said the 850 was a solid hit in Europe and Australia, but a flop in the US where the 850 was dropped within a couple of years (quite possibly to the regret of this guy).

By the mid-90s we got the MkII 850 with a few improvements, most of which I forget but which included a less lent-forward engine (reducing carb needle wear) and best of all, the crank offset by 90° to give the motor an uneven ‘Ducati’ beat and crossplane power characteristics. This pulse and sound remain one of the TDM’s main attractions, especially once you fit some fruity, free-breathing slip-ons.

In Europe alone over 60,000 850s were sold in the decade before the lighter, alloy-framed and fuel-injected 900 came on the scene in 2002 [good article]. And by all the accounts I scoured (and not least to due to the 850s’ age these days), the 900 seems to be the one to get. It’s still in Yamaha’s line-up today, at least in Australia. In Europe it looks like the 900 may have been quietly dropped.

What would a TDM need to make it into more of an XTZ750? Would it be worthwhile simply extending the suspension, slapping on a bashplate and fitting some knobbly rubber before shoving it out the hatch over gnarly territory?

Wheels are 17 and 18-inchers but tall-sidewall tyres are an easy way to an inch or so of clearance. Some 4.10 x 18 or 120/90/18 tyres would actually be taller than a 19er and theoretically provide lots of dirt cushioning for the rims while probably giving less secure roadholding on fast bumpy bends. The two Aussie bikes above left are running high-wall fronts.

A more lateral solution to increase clearance was to reroute the under-engine pipes (left). But a quick look proved there was no easy way of bend them round the sump and centre-stand. The whole TDM motor is packed in tight with a 5-litre oil tank jammed between the gearbox and EFI.

Off-the-shelf crash bars do exist (right) and making a home-made bashplate wouldn’t be too hard. My 900 came with a kerb-mashed belly pan which I soon ditched but left the brackets in place for later. As it is, you can ding an exhaust without the sky falling in (plenty of used ones on ebay), but it only takes one rock with a mission to hole the cases, so it does need something down there which takes back the inch of clearance you gain from the high-wall tyres.

‘Better five inches of good, progressive suspension than eight inches of ill-sprung, underdamped movement’ you hear said, but I looked into lengthening it anyway. The back is easily done of course: find a used shock that’s a tad longer than the R1-type unit, buy an over-length aftermarket unit, or meddle with the dog bones.

On the front I had the idea of ‘fork extenders‘ before I realised they actually existed. Seems they’re a bodger’s hangover from the twilight years of the 70s chopper craze. You get either slip-on sleeves (far left) or screw-ins (left) to give your USU fork a few extra inches. You then either fill out the slack spring with spacers (chopped off ‘bar ends between coins we used to use) or splash out on longer progressives.
Some claim these extenders were outlawed years ago or that they’re dangerous, and even I have to admit that on a hefty gravel roader like a TDM, creaking, wearing slip-ons might eventually strain the lower triple clamps under repeated hard braking. Screw-ons in a modest ≤ two-inches seemed a better solution. This guy on xrv.org got some made for ATs and a mate offered to lathe me a set.
One problem with the TDM forks was it wasn’t simply a matter of packing out or slipping in longer springs – the fork damper adjustment rods running down from the fork caps (top left) would need extending too.

Thant’s not too hard but it was all getting a little more complicated and pricey for my low-tech, low-budget resolve. The next step was to track down a longer used forks off something else. The TDM runs 43-mm tubes and the slider tubes are 621mm long. First I wondered about simply buying a same-diameter but slightly longer set of replacement fork tubes off tube makers Tarozzi, but wasn’t sure if the milled fork tube ends differed from bike to bike. Probably, so then with the help of this handy Tarozzi fork tube length / diametre webpage I found that the twin-disc forks off an XT660Z Tenere came closest with an additional 90mm (3.5″) of exposed slider compared to the TDM. Like I said I wouldn’t want anything more than a two-inch rise which would leave 1.4 inches sticking out on top so it might have needed bar risers. I soon found a near-new pair of used 660 Paiolis.

And that’s about as far as I got with the TDM Super Tenere project. The acquisition of the longer forks required a call to action, including a suitable wheel; a spoked wheel on a Tenere hub would have been easy enough, though I’d rather stick with native tubeless. But the more I rode the TDM the more I thought this was not some worthless old hack like my GS500R. It seemed a real shame to quite probably snuff out TDMs exceptional road manners by converting it into a top-heavy dirt tank which, without the investment of high-end suspension, would lack any real-world off-road agility. One thing I learned with the GS500R (and the Benele from 1984 come to that, above left) was that it’s easy to make a bike taller to add ground clearance. It’s less easy or more costly to gain good-quality suspension.

TDM (yellow) overlaid on a XT660Z with key points marked to show just how much higher the red XT is.

On top of that I suspected the height difference between footrest and bars was too small for easy standing up (see animated gif left) and a stack of bar-risers to dodge that would create cable-length issues. Plus early on the scales had revealed a rather shocking 230kgs fully fuelled which I wasn’t sure equated with the claimed 190kgs dry (though the handbook claims 221kg wet). And they say the 900 was lighter than the 850.

I enjoyed tooling around on my mid-winter TDM, but great road bike though it was, I think I’ve become too conditioned to trail bikes: the stance and the impression of go-anywhere agility. I couldn’t see the TDM ever delivering that on jacked-up suspension. Despite its qualities it’s too heavy for my sort of riding which I’m reminded wants a bike that’s <200kg wet.

Below, a few examples pinched from the web of what could have been (mostly from this advrider TDM thread). Some are 850s and some are based on the same-engined, trellis-framed TRM 850 road bike or XTZ750s with TRM / TDM 850 motors.

Meanwhile, I may have a better idea of how to ‘make a bike what I want it to be’.

BMW G650 XCountry ~ 10,000 mile report

XCountry Index of Posts
• Introduction
• Stage 1 mods
• Swapping the subframe
• X-tank and X-rack
• Suspension
• Tutoro chain oiler
• Midsummer update
• The Spanish Plain

The BMW 650X range came and went between 2007-08. They were light and powerful but early reliability issues as well as a high price saw the models sell poorly and then get dropped. After a pause which saw the 800cc parallel twins make their mark, within a couple of years the lardy Sertao and later G650G reset things back to the pre X-bike F650s in terms of weight and performance. Some people think that was a shame.

The bikes from Planet X were a one hit wonder and you get the feeling that the X range – helped in no small way by Walter Colebatch’s extensive Siberian travels and associated development of his XChallenge – might be turning into a cult travel bike, not least due to their limited availability. There’s more on the history of X on the XCo intro index page.

My plans for my XCountry were to run it on a couple of Moroccan tours and maybe take the bike deeper into Mauritania. The later part didn’t pan out this year, but over ten months I racked up 10,000 miles, including 4000 to Morocco and back. I sold it at 16,000 miles.

My XCo set up
Soon after buying it I adapted my X bike as follows (see intro index page for more details on fitting these accessories).

Used Touratech bash plate (right)
Used Barkbuster Storms
Used Spitfire screen (right)
Full width KTM wheel nuts (right)
Throttle handrest
Used Yamaha steel shifter
Assembled a used tool kit from ebay
Added a 12v accessory plug on the bars and a DIN plug under the seat for the air pump (Later discovered OE accessory plug near the shock top)
Replaced alloy subframe with steel unit off a MkII XCo
Hyperpro 3D shock and progressive HP fork springs and oil change
Hot Rod Welding Xrack and Xtank
Hot Rod brake/sidestand protectors (right)
Adv Spec Magadan II Bags
Booster plug (fuel mixture improver)
Used RAM mounts on the bars
Tuturo chain luber
Wunderlich fender extension
Used Touratech sidestand foot

All those items I’d fit again without hesitation except maybe the TT side stand plate which fell off in Morocco as I was warned it might. I spotted a better, vibration-proof solution (right) while at Hyperpro. Not totally won over by the Booster plug, but if it runs cooler (richer) and hardly affects mpg then probably worth it.

Comfort
When I first sat on the bike I was surprised how small and short it felt and wondered if this might affect comfort. I dare say I may look big on it if I saw myself reflected in a shop window, but at 6′ 1′ and ~92 kilos the XCo proved to be much more comfortable than it looked. By the time I sold it, 700-km days in winter didn’t mean flopping onto a hotel bed exhausted.

Soon after buying it I refitted the small and cheap Spitfire screen from my CRF. There are doubtless better and flashier windshields, but the Spitfire did a brilliant job in keeping most of the wind blast and rain off me. It did this without introducing any handling anomalies at high speeds or in strong winds, nor feeling like it was in the way when riding technical dirt. Fitted on just a pair of stalks clamped to the bars, it didn’t ever budge in all that time. I may well fit it to my next bike.
Following a trip to Scotland, at round 8- or 9000 miles it felt like the foam in the seat had collapsed a little and the pad was less springy. However, that didn’t have any effect on long-day back-end comfort which suggests the shape and profile of the seat works as well as the foam in it. I came off a 750-km day in Spain with no soreness in the limbs or my butt, even if getting off to refuel every 2–3 hours revives the circulation. I also suspect leather trousers – or perhaps any fabric that doesn’t slip on the seat vinyl – extends posterior endurance. This whole experience was the opposite of the crippling seat pf the F650 twin I ran on a similar trip a couple of years ago.
Vibration at cruising speeds was never intrusive, though as with all big singles I’ve had, air-cooled or otherwise, some days at some speeds or engine or ambient temperature or load or fuel quality it feels harsh. I’ve never got to the bottom of it, but as it’s common to big singles it must just be the way they are. My main theory is fuel octane and overall engine temperature.
I bought some Wunderlich bar risers but never got round to fitting them. I had a feeling the added leverage on the rubbery bar mounts might not do them any good. On the dirt in Morocco I was a little stooped when standing up, but not enough to be uncomfortable. Had I also fitted the Hot Rod footrest lowering brackets I would have had a very comfortable standing stance, though I can’t say my legs felt cramped during regular seated riding. Part of the reason was I suspected that lowering the gear lever and brake lever may have been a faff and made them more exposed to damage on the dirt. As it is, on the dirt I tend to sit when I can and stand when I must. The Hyperpro suspension went a long way towards enabling such lazy riding.
The OE cast-alloy gear change lever is light but too strong and is said to transmit shocks to the gear shaft rather than bend. I fitted a folding-tipped steel gear change lever from some Yamaha or other. Although it was identical to the OE unit, it never felt in a natural position for easy gear changes, though the long throw of the clunky gear change doesn’t help.
Although they’ve been around for years I’ve never used a throttle hand rest (or whatever they’re called) but this XCo really benefited from one. The throttle spring must unusually hard. Other’s who rode the bike also commented on the handy hard rest which can be spun out of the way in a jiffy when off-road.

Fuel economy and Booster Plug
Like my Tenere which I ran over similar mileage and use, the fuel consumption on the XCo varied for not always obvious reasons. Twenty four fill ups before the Booster Plug saw an average of 70.5mpg. Worst was 53mpg (18.8 kpl) – the only reading below 60mpg so may have been a miscalculation. The best was 79mpg (27.5 kpl) with a few others in the high 70s, so probably not an error.

With the Booster Plug (~£100, right) I expected slightly worst readings: the average was 67.2 with a low of 56.5 in mid-Spain cruising at up to 70mph (on under inflated tyres, it turned out) and 80.5mpg over the Tizi n Tichka pass in Morocco (the same place my Tenere recorded a similarly high mpg one night). Reading the ambient temperature below the headlight and not in the air box, they say the Booster increases (richness) fuelling on acceleration but levels off back to normal settings at cruising speeds. If Morocco could be said to be less cruising and more accelerating on and off the piste, the lower average is less bad than it looks.

To double-check and to see if I could feel any difference, I unplugged the Booster on the way back. Within a couple of miles tooling round a small Spanish hill town looking an ATM, I’d stalled a couple of times at low speeds; never did that with the Plug. And later, pulling off the motorway to do something, the fan soon came on. The bike was running a little hotter as expected, but two fill ups saw an all time low of 56.5 and 54mpg for no good reason. Can’t think why that was unless the ECU mapping had adjusted to the Booster settings and was over compensating. Apart from the stalling and possibly mpg, I can’t say I detected any genuine difference with the Plug while riding the bike. I replugged the Plug in north Spain. Next mpg was 61.5 – less abnormal.

As is well-known the X bikes come with a 9L tank giving a range of 150 miles/250km -too small to be useful. The 6.7-L Xtank increased this to a comfortable 370 clicks/230 miles at average mpg.
After fitting the Xtank, a couple of times I got outlandishly high readings of over 100mpg when filling only the Xtank which I assumed emptied before the BMW tank. On the second occasion I realised that with both tanks full, the bike probably initially draws some fuel from both tanks, but definitely drains the Xtank first.

So overall the X bike’s average fuel consumption was identical to the F650 twin at 68.3 mpg, and about 5% less than the XT660Z Tenere while being a lighter, lower and more powerful machine (Had I meddled with a similar Booster on the XT it too may have used more fuel.) Click Esso for Xcountry fuel data pdf.

Oil and water consumption; drive chain
I changed the oil to fully synthetic at around 10,000 miles and used about 1.5 litres on the 5000-mile Moroccan run – more than a Tenere, iirc. I was told the bike might consume more oil using fully synthetic. But the bike also felt like it ran better by this mileage, though that may have been the more open, day-long steady riding doing the engine some good. It sure would have been handy if they’d designed the dip stick to be more accessible without removing the seat. And I never really got the whole oil level business: run it till the fan turns on, then walk round the bike three times, turn off and wait two minutes. I’m sure previous dry sump bikes weren’t so fussy (actually they were). Good thing is it’s an oil tank and so has more leeway for running low than a wet sump engine.

One hot summer’s day in London I noticed the coolant level down an inch – it may have been that way for ages. Again, it’s hard to tell the level without carefully peering in the slot. Once I topped it up it never went down again. I’d heard of X bikes suffering mysterious episodes of coolant drop with no actual leaks. The bike will get hot and the fan come on in town or on slow tracks with a backwind, but the fuelling never went off in such conditions, as it did with the F650GS twin in Morocco.

With help from the Tutoro oiler from about 7000 miles, I only adjusted the chain twice in all the time I had the bike and when I sold it at 16k, there was still had plenty in it. Was it these bikes that had chain problems when they came out? Whatever’s on there now is as good as anything.

Performance
The XCo was one of the most powerful 650s around. I imagine a KTM 690 has more poke (but closer gearing?) and the Husky TR650 I rode last gear has five extra hp and certainly sounded more sporty but carried proportionally more weight. There are times on technical dirt when the X power feels too much with the hot engine and pokey response, but of course there are as many other occasions when you blast past a vehicle with assurance. This extra power didn’t seem to affect the fuel consumption or chain and tyre wear, but does make the engine harsher and lumpier than say a Tenere or a docile Sertao/G650G. The fastest I ever went was a true 85mph, briefly. The Xco was happy to sit at a true 65-70mph (75 indicated).

The brakes feel pretty ordinary but there was only a small single disc up front. The front pads were going by the time I sold the bike so lasted at least the 10,000 miles I had the bike, maybe more. The back wore very quickly – at 9000 miles they were gone and I didn’t notice till I damaged the disc. A used rotor off ebay.de was £30. ABS works fine. I never had to rely on it on the road and on the dirt it could be forced to actuate, but in a useful way. I don’t see the need to turn off ABS for the sort of dirt riding I do.

Suspension
On the road, initially the OE suspension felt pretty good and firm compared to Jap bikes and considered it had been a BMW Off Road School bike. Best thing was the easy-to-use knob on the Sachs shock though on the front the UPD forks are unadjustable.
But what works OK riding UK roads may come up short loaded on the piste. After just a couple of thousand miles the rear Sachs gave out no matter how high I cranked the knob. Various options existed to re-spring the back end including rebuilding the Sachs unit for about £120 while maybe adding a firmer or progressive spring. That’s probably the route I’d have taken but for an intro from Walter Colebatch to Hyperpro suspension in the Netherlands. I rode over and got the full custom set up from Bas at the HP workshop. The full story is here but there are more or less three levels of shock: a progressive spring replacement; an emulsion shock and spring; and the full-on gas-charged, remote reservoir, preload, compression and rebound adjustable version.

That was what Bas did for me, along with a fork oil and progressive fork spring replacement, chrome slider polish and neoprene gaiters plus a new headset which had gone in an incredible 7000 miles?!
It was only months later when I experienced the real benefits of the custom Hyperpro set up while battling with five other bikes over an abandoned old track up the Jebel Timouka in southern Morocco. The difference is control: correctly tuned suspension responding predictably to riding over football-sized rock cubes without bottoming out. Although the Desert Riders Honda XRL was notably better sprung than the XTs I’d used up till then, I’ve never had the luxury of a properly suspended machine. And certainly on the dirt I can now see the value.

I bought a chunky and adjustable 48mm DRZ400 fork (right) but never got round to fitting it so assumed the reworked OE UPDs would be ill-matched with the full-on 461 back shocker. But over the Jebel and on other tracks the fork responded predictably and the whole bike felt well-balanced. At the bottom of this must be the progressive springing front and rear and the shock’s adjustable damping. Progressive is nothing unique to Hyperpro but it works in using the near-full range of movement without bottoming out. That and the hydraulic preload adjuster knob similar to the OE Sachs made the shock very useful. The settings for compression and rebound damping on the remote reservoir I didn’t touch. The Hyperpro set up transformed the XCo on the piste and I’ll get one or something similar for the next bike.

Road riding
With its do-it-all 19” front wheel, the bike swings predictably through bends compared to the more dirtsome 21″. After a few months the front end developed a heavy feel which I put down to the weight of the gear (rack, screen, plate, etc) I’d fitted. Turns out it was just the tyres and on replacing the worn Tourances which came with the bike with more dirt-ready Mitas E-07s the bike was entirely transformed in the bends – maybe even better than when I bought it. I won’t be in a rush to buy Tourances – not the sort of tyre I use anyway – though by this time I had the Hyperpro set up which probably didn’t do any harm to the handling.
The XCo was notably better – lower C of G – than the XT660Z on the road, though not as low and long and stable as the F650GS twin. And the XCountry was a lot less scary than the Tenere in gale force crosswinds too.
In town the worst thing about this bike is the clunky gear change, especially from neutral into first. Add to that the length of the throw needed. Trying out an XR250 Tornado in Morocco was snick-snick-snick and this unobtrusiveness to something you may be doing every few seconds makes a real difference to riding enjoyment.

Off road riding

Off roading in Morocco mostly involves rocky or gravel tracks, and while not TKCs, the Mitas E-07s did the job without any drama at full road pressures. Add to that the top-notch suspension and the XCo – loaded with maybe 15-20kg – never got out of shape on the dirt. I never came close to falling off and rode some gnarly shite on occasions.
Like all trail bikes, the gearing is too high and especially on the 650X, too widely spaced for technical off-roading. You just can’t go slowly enough at tickover in first gear which at times was too fast to negotiate some hairpins or rubble sections. The clutch worked hard on Jebel Timouka but with frequent rests for bike and rider, it never complained. I can’t say I missed a 21-inch front wheel on the dirt – that only comes in to play if the bike is usefully light and agile. I’m 6′ 1″ and the XCo was easily low enough to get my feet on the ground when necessary. I didn’t have a single hit to the bashplate. Again, I put that down to the progressive springs.

Loading
Even at £450 I didn’t hesitate in replacing the OE alloy subframe with the steel version from the Mk2 XCo (right). having said that it’s unlikely my Morocco trip would have stressed the alloy item. As on my Tenere, this is one part of a travel bike where I don’t resent the extra weight.
On the side the Hot Rod Welding Xrack gave the Magadans something to lash to and I especially like the wide ‘sheep rack’ design at the back (Walter C’s idea – right). I know it’s not the latest in adv bling, but a wide back rack made of good old-fashioned tubular steel is much more useful than the mini CNC plates you get these days, especially when it comes to manhandling the bike or even just tying things on. CNC is just flash and quick/cheap to cut. On my next bike I hope to adapt a Hod Rod sheep rack.

Equipment
The dashboard is about as basic as they get – just the speed reading (can be changed to kph with a bit of a faff disconnecting the battery) and a trip or odometre plus an array of colourful warning lights. I would have liked an oil or water temp gauge but didn’t go as far as fitting my Trail Tech gadget. A fuel light comes on with about 2 litres or 40km left in the main tank.
The speedo was typically 8% over compared to a GPS read-out, but the odometer (used for mpg calcs) was spot on over 100 true ground kilometres. No tools came with the bike and even if they had, they’re probably not enough to be useful, as is the trend these days.

Durability and problems
With BMW’s reputation of late, initially I didn’t feel so confident in this bike. Using it as a tour support vehicle you can’t take chances. One time in Wales the ignition didn’t come on with the key, but switching on and off again fixed that and it never happened again. When did that last happen with a Jap bike? The coolant level drop proved to be a one-off anomaly and in fact the XCo took its month and 4000 miles in Morocco in its stride.
I sold that bike feeling a lot more confident about it than when I bought it. A better gear change and smoother running would have made it much easier to live with, but the answer to that may be just round the corner.

xco-cw-draa — “You go first.” “No, no, after you, I insist.” Photo: Chris W

Adventure Motorcycling Handbook

The Website of the Book

Category Archives: Project Bikes

Versys 650

Kawasaki 650 Versys project bike

Index Page
Versys 650 – Stage 1

Some KLE500 builds: here • here • here and here

Honda CRF250L vs XR250 Tornado

updated 2025

Tenerising a TDM900

BMW G650 XCountry ~ 10,000 mile report

Index PageVersys 650 – Stage 1

Some KLE500 builds: here • here • here and here

updated 2025

Index Page
Versys 650 – Stage 1