KLR650 vs Himilayan
 

In 2009 I rode from the Canada/USA border to the north shore of Alaska, then proceeded to ride every hwy in Alaska and then over the Top of the World Highway into Dawson City and then returned via the Alaskan Hwy. Going up I took the Stewart Cassiar. 14,000kms in total over a 22 day span of time. When I got back home again to southern BC, it was almost 3 months to the day that I finally gained all feeling back in my finger tips. Numbness and pins and needles feelings preceding that - all from the vibration of the KLR and of course the road surfaces over the northern 600kms or so of dirt. Shortly thereafter I bought a 650 Vstrom and never felt any numbness again.

So for those who actually have ridden both the KLR650 and the Himilayan - how does the Himilayan compare with the KLR650 in regards to vibration felt through the bars into the hands? Tnx

Ian

Being a smaller single cylinder, it may vibrate less. But not much. It's not known as being the smoothest bike out there.

Even if it did vibrate less, it will irritate you in other ways.

Dropping down from the reliabilty and robustness of a KLR to a cheap and unreliable Indian bike with terrbile brakes and suspension with barely enough power to get down the road may have you craving your KLR650 back. No matter how much it vibrates.

On your KLR, did you have rubber footpegs ? Thick grips ? There are lots of reasons a bike vibrates. And a few ways to address it.

However, the only way to find out if a bike is better for you than the one you have is to find a way to get a ride on one.

No point asking here. Everyone feels things differently and has different tollerances. Get a test ride.

Vibrations on a motor bike are a killer if you have to ride most days !
You will feel you have travelled 500 miles per day ............ but only done 150 !
I have been to morocco a few times on a yamaha xtz and allways came back a bit shattered ! . but went back on a bmw gs 800 and felt fine !

:scooter::scooter::scooter:

I listened to this podcast on Adventure Rider Radio - it is about vibration on bikes and ways to eliminate / reduce the effects so food for thought and pointers as to what can be done.

Thanks for the pointer - I listened to most of that (skipped the adverts and a few other bits) but it didn't tell me much I hadn't worked out for myself (that bikes vibrate, and some bikes vibrate more than others and that for most of us vibration is so far down the 'wish list' as to come as a surprise when we ride something for the first time).

What I found depressing about it was that most of their 'fixes' - change the gearing, fill your handlebars with lead shot etc - have been around since the year dot, and were well known to British bike riders in the 50's / 60's. That we're still talking about doing the same now is a pretty depressing indictment of the bike industry (either that or those two old codgers they interviewed still live in the 50's / 60's :rofl:) Yes, a lot of bikes now have it engineered out one way or another but put enough miles on any bike and you'll feel the effects of vibration. Even my GoldWing 1800 will leave you with tingles after a long day. You can zone a lot of it out if you ride any bike regularly, but put a non rider on as a pillion and they'll notice it straight away.

All single engine bikes will vibrate or zing a bit through the foot pegs ./ tank.
Great for a bit of charecter , but a nighmare after 2 / 3 days .
Worst 2 bikes that come to mind are...............
1 yamaha xt 600 e
2 Ktm 640 lc

There are proably a few more :scooter::scooter::scooter:

I have owned 3 big single cylindred bikes, a Honda Dominator NX650, Yamaha XT660Z and a Suzuki Dr650 and I also rode a rented Himalayan in the mountains of northern Thailand earlier this year and btw I have also ridden Royal Enfield Bullet 500s in Nepal, India and Bhutan - but I have never ridden a KLR.
All of these single cylindree bikes do vibrate a littlebit, and the RE Bullet most and the Tenere second most. But to be honest I have never been really bothered about it. After a 10-12 hour day on the Tenere my hands was a bit numb but 20-30 minutes after jumping off the bike my hands was ok again. So that KLR must have vibrated a lot…LOL

Damage to nerve function doesn't work that way--it's more like hearing damage, in which when you go to a loud concert or use a loud tool your hearing may suffer for a bit, then recover. But in the longer term, if you do this repeatedly you're likely to suffer permanent damage which never gets better. Furthermore, people are different, and what happens to you doesn't necessarily correspond to what happens to the next person.

I am no expert, but I do have various kinds of permanent nerve damage (for which I've now had multiple major surgeries), and my advice would be to be sure never to do stuff which has longstanding neurological effects--numbness which lasts 3 months certainly qualifies--and to refrain from thinking that your experience so far in life can predict how it's going to work in the future--for you or for anyone else.

Just another perspective to consider. It's difficult to learn important life lessons from the experiences of other people, but by the time it happens to you personally it may be too late. How this might apply to vibrating handlebars and what steps may therefore be worth taking in response is an open--but worthwhile IMHO--question.

Mark

By all means - I have never said anything about how nerve damage develops, I just mentioned that I have ridden several big single cylindred bikes several hundred thousand kms with having any nerve damage so I presumed your experiences and following health problems was because of your KLR had more vibrations than other similar bikes. It can be or not be because of the bike specific characteristics, or handlebars and weights added to handlebars, or other factors. I also said it in a jokingly way. I acknowledge your problems and hope your doing
well nowadays despite the health problems you mentioned.

The bike I have ridden which vibrates and buzzes the most is BMW's highly refined and luxurious S1000XR.

And I think I've ridden and owned all the popular singles out there.

The S1000XR buzzes and vibrates at such a frequency that your fillings rattle loose and your corneas detach from your eyeballs.

So bad was the problem, BMW released a free campaign to add rubber dampers to the steering clamps. Which didn't do a lot.

So to say "Singles vibrate" is a little ambiguous.

Some singles do. Some don't. It depends on how the motor is tuned. If the motor has a large flywheel or balance weight etc. And simple things like if you have rubber footpegs and thick rubber grips.

Yeah, gotta make your own decisions there. Two anecdotes in that regard:

I had a 2010 XT660Z Ténéré that vibrated at over 60mph so badly I couldn't focus on the road because my eyeballs were shaking ... the dealership I bought it from said there was nothing wrong with it and I just didn't have experience riding big singles. I went back to my old and beaten XR400 after and it felt silky smooth by comparison.

While doing a road tour in France on my ER6f (2 cylinder 650) I got sick and the small vibration was enough that I was in excruciating pain trying to ride it. I swapped to my other half's CBR600F for the remainder and the amount of pain went down to a quarter of what it had been.

Long story short, vibration makes a big difference, people's experiences may vary, and bikes of the same model can vary greatly, it's worth resolving these issues if you're going to clock up the miles.

Good gel gloves make big difference. Also how bars set up, bar ends, vibration damping rubber mounts, etc.

Gel gloves ? I haven't seen those.

Yes , gloves with gel palms are very effective at isolating your hands from moto vibration. I've happily used gloves made by Olympia for years.

https://www.amazon.com/s?k=olympia+g...l_13ficvvwpk_e


.........shu

Ahem...
 

Strangely enough, just like all the beers you've promised me over the last 15 years eh?.... but who's counting? doh
Merry Xmas anyways!