The bike I want...by MrKnowItAll

Having gone to bigger and bigger single cylinder bikes over the years has finally peaked for me. The last 2 I have owned (an XR650L and a 640 KTM Adventure), plus test rides on other 650's has wained my interest in real large single cylinder bikes.  The main reasons are: 1- vibration and 2- lack of low speed chuggability on most that are over 525cc.

The reason I've liked the older large single cyl bikes in the 350+cc range (since my first 72 360 Yamaha) was their almost unstoppable off idle power, and usable midrange power without having to rev the snot out of them.  But, for some time now, the manufacturers have gone to 4valve heads, and twin pipes for better breathing to look for more peak power and efficiency.   This just naturally leads to more revs, smaller fly wheels, and 1800rpm idle speeds. So much for that chug,chug,chug putt along all day engine.  EFI is now available on several, which is also boosting the power, but several makers still haven't got the off idle transition sorted out, even on most multi cylinder bikes, let alone a big single where it seems to be exaggerated even more.

The vibration part has calmed down a bit on the latest big singles thanks to better engine balancers, like on the BMW 650 and KTM 690, but between the two, the BMW power is just flat out boring, and the KTM power is flat out crazy. Some have said its almost too much offroad power, or at least the wrong type of offroad power.  
Where my KTM 640 was superb at what it did best, which was to tame any type of fast terrain, as long as it was offroad. Anything more than 20kms on a straight road was only just tolerable, and the longer the straight pavement ride, the less tolerable it was.  This was my long distance dualsport ride, but more often than not, I would have rather trailered it to the real starting point of the ride than drone down the road to get there.

The best points of the KTM for me was its fairing for bad weather riding, and its solid construction. It survived several low speed tip overs in the woods and even got me home after a couple of pretty fast backroad highsides that was enough to break the handlebars once, but me and bike survived with just a couple scrapes. (jury rigged and rode 80km home)
 
But once I'd get to the technical part of the ride, I would have rather been on my 300 2T, so the big milage range and the extra weight of the fuel always seemed to be working against me.  It really was engineered to be a Paris-Dakar race bike, with street credentials.  

Gearing also plays a part in the low rpm running.  Gear it for the road and 1st was too tall for offroad. Gear it for offroad and the revs on the road were too high for long range comfort.    Somebody, someday, has to be able to make a 6 speed gearbox soon that can cover both situations.  My 650L had the worst spread of offroad gears of any dualsport I've owned.  1st wasn't too bad after a countershaft sprocket change, but there was a huge jump to 2nd which made it hard to ride in tighter trails as you couldn't leave it in second if you had to slow right down.  I was always going from 1st to 2nd, and back again which meant a clunky downshift to 1st thru neutral, and the occasional missed shift when it didn't get by neutral.  My KTM640 was only a 5sp, but it had much better spread between the gears and could be run in 2nd and 3rd when geared nicely for offroading, but needed a 6th gear badly for on the road.   KTM has finally come out with 6 speeds on all their models now, but even before you ride them you need to change the sprockets, which for some reason comes with overall gearing good enough for a speed record at Bonneville. Not a big deal, but about $100 for parts you shouldn't be forced into buying right away.  A lot of other 6 speed bikes well seem to have this close ratio mx gearing as well. Just a little more spread between the gears would make it a perfect offroad/dual sport gearbox.

So this, and the fact that my next big dualsport will be doing less tight trail and more back roading has be thinking of moving to a twin cylinder.  The problem now is... the manufacturers seem to have decided that 990-1200cc to be size the buying public needs here in this country.  There are other brands/models available in other parts of the world in the 500-800cc range, but not here.
I've never really had the desire or insurance money for a litre bike, even as a straight road bike, so I'm stuck in the middle of the model range mud bog.

When I saw the BMW 800GS model for the first time at a Christian Pfeiffer stunt show I was really getting interested.  The engine sounded amazing and smooth, with lots of grunt.  Then, I started reading the reviews about the cost of ownership with the new BMW. Parts prices were bad enough, but a lot of the bike isn't designed for typical offroad damage like in a small tip over.  Then the quality control issues began to show up.  There is a lot of Chinese involvement here in this model, plus as a 1st yr model, the bugs included clunking front forks, cheap chains that broke, clutches coming apart, gravelly sounding engine noises, off idle stalling... the list is huge enough for me to say no for now, and the main reason I've never bought a first yr model in anything in the first place.  Not til I see some making it past 50K km without needing a major rebuild that is.
The KTM 950/990's have also taken since 2004 to get them almost right, but their list of problems is not short either.  And most owners are dumping them once they get to 30-50k kms before they will need a very expensive rebuild. 

So, for me anyway, the size/model I want is still eluding me.  Maybe its something like a reliable 650 Wee-Strom Suzuki with less street bike clothing and wheels, or an Aprilia Pegaso Trail (I know, another single, and not even available here, but at least its based on the Yamaha 660 engine which has been pretty smooth and reliable for several years in XT's and ATV's)    

Somebody soon has to see there is a large gap between the real offroad models with bricks for seats, and the 'adventure' models which are basically plasic bodied street bikes with upright handlebars.  So come on bike makers.. I want a mid size twin cylinder (V-twin or parallel) with wire wheels, comfortable seat thats not too tall, suspension that works on pot holed and washboard roads, not street bike heavy, and can tip over at a walking pace without needing $2500 worth of parts.  

Anybody with me ??