Dirtbiking

[Hal65]

Anyone ridden with their gf or wife? Do they enjoy touring the country on these bikes? On road and off? Or is it too much of a bother for them?

 

I'm considering taking girls who I'm not serious with as a sort of fun day or week trip, otherwise I'd just ask my SO's opinion

[Damrongsak]

On 5/27/2021 at 3:46 AM, JonnyF said:

 

Totally agree on the bike. Riding tight trails you don't need much power. A light flickable bike can be much more fun and way less tiring. That's why I recommend the KLX140 (or the 150BF if you need a street legal version).

 

An absolute steal at under 100k. Bullet proof too.

 

The small street-legal KLX 150cc bikes are no longer listed on the Thai Kawasaki site.  The KLX250 and D-Tracker 250 are also gone.

[canthai55]

1 hour ago, Hal65 said:

Anyone ridden with their gf or wife?

Dirt bikes, and dual sports, are not designed to carry a passenger for any great length of time.

One a 150cc your cojones will be riding on the rear of the tank. While every bump and downhill will have your passenger pushing you forward.

And where will you put your gear - and hers ?

Wanna ride 2-up ? Start with something like a CB500X

 

[Hal65]

A 500 can work but I was thinking of two 150s so we could both ride and have the experience of riding

[Neilly]

There is also the KLX230, it's air-cooled and at 121,300 Baht not that expensive

 

 

 

https://www.kawasaki.co.th/en/motorcycle/klx230

[Hal65]

Is there a map that shows all Thailand's trails? I expect if taking a serious trip, most of it will be on road, but it would be nice to incorporate some trails too.

[canthai55]

6 hours ago, Hal65 said:

Is there a map that shows all Thailand's trails? I expect if taking a serious trip, most of it will be on road, but it would be nice to incorporate some trails too.

For the North check out GT-Rider site and Forum

[Neilly]

11 hours ago, Hal65 said:

Is there a map that shows all Thailand's trails? I expect if taking a serious trip, most of it will be on road, but it would be nice to incorporate some trails too.

 

I use Calimoto in conjunction with Google Maps. Calimoto is a free app and I have it on my phone (Android) and my computer (Windows) and once you create an account it will log your rides as well as let you plan new ones.

 

This is a log of the tracks/trails we've ridden on Samui...the darker the blue the more times that track has been used.

 

 

All rides are logged individually, this is our last ride on Friday...

 

 

https://calimoto.com/en

 

 

[Hal65]

4 hours ago, Neilly said:

 

...trimmed

 

 

Nice trips! How do you tell if the path is road vs trail?

 

Also, how did you get your dirt bike/dual sport onto Samui? Did it cost a fair amount?

[Neilly]

4 hours ago, Hal65 said:

 

Nice trips! How do you tell if the path is road vs trail?

 

Also, how did you get your dirt bike/dual sport onto Samui? Did it cost a fair amount?

 

When you pan in on Calimoto the tracks/trails are shown in brown.

 

I bought my Honda CRF250L here in Samui from the local Honda dealer

 

 

[Randell]

On 5/30/2021 at 10:36 AM, Neilly said:

 

I use Calimoto in conjunction with Google Maps. Calimoto is a free app and I have it on my phone (Android) and my computer (Windows) and once you create an account it will log your rides as well as let you plan new ones.

 

This is a log of the tracks/trails we've ridden on Samui...the darker the blue the more times that track has been used.

 

 

All rides are logged individually, this is our last ride on Friday...

 

 

https://calimoto.com/en

 

 

Thanks for the info Nellie interesting app.  Cheers

[Neilly]

7 minutes ago, Randell said:

Thanks for the info Nellie interesting app.  Cheers

 

It's a good app once you get the hang of it ????...one of the saving graces is that it doesn't require data to run (unlike Google Maps), once you've got the map on your phone it just uses GPS

[canthai55]

29 minutes ago, Neilly said:

 

one of the saving graces is that it doesn't require data to run (unlike Google Maps), once you've got the map on your phone it just uses GPS

OSM is the same. Works without a SIM card even

[Neilly]

6 hours ago, canthai55 said:

OSM is the same. Works without a SIM card even

 

Calimoto & OSM

 

[Neilly]

On 5/28/2021 at 9:26 PM, Hal65 said:

I was thinking of two 150s so we could both ride and have the experience of riding

 

I have a feeling your vision of dirtbiking and mine are not quite the same...

 

 

[Hal65]

35 minutes ago, Neilly said:

 

I have a feeling your vision of dirtbiking and mine are not quite the same...

 

Beautiful video, if a trip to Chang Mai has even 10% trails I'll consider it a win.

 

A less pretty version of this is what I expected. I don't think trail riding is a mild motocross event

[Neilly]

17 minutes ago, Hal65 said:

Chang Mai has even 10% trails I'll consider it a win.

 

CM has some of the best trails in the whole of Thailand...go for it ????

[papa al]

58 minutes ago, Neilly said:

 

I have a feeling your vision of dirtbiking and mine are not quite the same...

 

 

These trails roads would be piece-o-cake on a Kawasaki 150.

Or even a Honda Wave.

[Neilly]

5 minutes ago, papa al said:

Or even a Honda Wave.

 

They're all farmers tracks and 99.9% of them are used everyday by guys on Waves with bald tyres and two plastic crates hanging off the back

 

 

 

[Neilly]

11 hours ago, Hal65 said:

I don't think trail riding is a mild motocross event

 

No it's not, and that was sort-of the point I was trying to make...to me a dirtbike is one that is specifically designed to run off-road. You are more interested in what in UK is referred to as green laning (I'm not sure what it's called in the US)...and that is where I started out, on a Yamaha DT175 many moons ago.

 

Our bikes have been modified to run in the hills here at a faster pace than standard bikes, and as such aren't dual sports any more, with a top speed of only just over 100kph and only about 120km out of a tank of fuel, long distance bikes they are not! We could (and have) run the same trails on standard bikes, but it isn't anywhere near as much fun.

 

I would still recommend the KLX230 over the 150 unless you're short of leg (the 150 is quite low)...but I would also recommend actually renting a bike and doing some tracks before laying out money on a bike just to see if you like it

[papa al]

If anybody wants too do some moderate dirt-biking around Patty ...

... papa down.

 

[Smithson]

On 5/28/2021 at 9:26 PM, Hal65 said:

A 500 can work but I was thinking of two 150s so we could both ride and have the experience of riding

You may also have the experience of waiting, that's what it was like when my mate's GF got a dirt bikes.

[Smithson]

On 5/31/2021 at 9:05 PM, Neilly said:

 

I have a feeling your vision of dirtbiking and mine are not quite the same...

 

 

There's different types of dirt riding, I think this is trail riding. One problem with this is the tracks are used by regular vehicles, which makes it difficult if you want to race around. I prefer the slower type technical tracks, where you can push it more.

 

There are some interesting dirt bike coming out of China. One is apparently a copy of the 2006 CRF 450, the other a 225 two stroke. Both get good reviews and can be improved with small mods that don't need an experienced mechanic.

 

[Neilly]

1 hour ago, Smithson said:

There's different types of dirt riding, I think this is trail riding. One problem with this is the tracks are used by regular vehicles, which makes it difficult if you want to race around. I prefer the slower type technical tracks, where you can push it more.

 

At the moment it's not too bad as the harvest season is over, there's still the workers up taking care of things but they are all on bikes, thankfully not so many pick-ups now. One bonus for us due to there not being any tourists here at the moment is there are no 'safari' trucks about...it was always in your mind that you'd meet one on a blind bend (and that happened on many occasions).

 

Samui is a fairly small island so any tracks that do exist will be farmers tracks so nothing in the way of 'slower type technical tracks'...about five or so years ago the tracks were not maintained at all...but now with the big money from durian they've be able to make them much better (for them, not us)...some of the tracks back then would take us half an hour, now we'll do that same track in ten minutes.

 

We're always on the look out for new tracks, but after riding here for more than ten years there isn't many places I haven't been.

 

We did 105km yesterday, as you can see there isn't much of the island we didn't get to...

 

[Hal65]

The islands present an interesting and possibly rare opportunity to trail ride in a setting few can emulate.

 

I've seen dirt bike rentals on Koh Lipe so I bet it's a decent island too. Phuket is big enough that I bet it has a few trails. Koh Chang is closest to me and may have some interesting options as well.

[Neilly]

5 hours ago, Smithson said:

There are some interesting dirt bike coming out of China. One is apparently a copy of the 2006 CRF 450, the other a 225 two stroke. Both get good reviews and can be improved with small mods that don't need an experienced mechanic.

 

I think this vid covers those two...

 

 

[papa al]

papa has a 2001, 250cc 2T Honda Trials bike for sale.

Good tires & new o-ring chain.

Bike has great compression.

Red.

Too much power for papa.

Too 'core.

B50,ooo.

Test ride.

.