Sure the KLR is a perfectly OK bike, and cheap. But to buy one so that you have a bike that a street-corner mechanic in "deepest, darkest Africa" can fix is a fantasy.
Several years ago now I rode across Russia with a group of 7-8 people; most on GSs, one on a KTM, and one guy on a GSPD. Guess which one broke down? The GSPD...and after the very-experienced owner spent a few days attempting to diagnose the problem, had new coils shipped to Siberia, etc., it still didn't run, and he had to ship it home from Irkutsk, while the GS/KTM riders rode off into the sunset.
I'm not interested in another "what bike is more reliable" pissing match--all bikes break--but the point is that often when it's broken, its broken, and a well-chosen/prepped modern bike is less likely to break.
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