I recently completed a trip of several thousand km. in the Yukon and Alaska on what was an experiment for me - a 2011 Kawasaki klx250s. The point of the exercise was to avoid using my 750 cc. street bike which has proved very incapable of dealing with gravel/dirt roads in the past and to have something which would be easy to pick up if necessary. So here are my impressions.

Generally:

My friend (who was on a BMW 650 single) and I saw hundreds of bikes during the trip (the north is definitely a destination) and mine was the only bike under 650cc being used for serious travelling. There's much talk of going anywhere on anything but it's pretty rare for anyone to actually do it.

For those who care about such things, the klx, unlike some of the other 200 - 250cc dual sports available, has more of a big bike look, basically because it's tall and because the radiators add some bulk to the look of the mechanicals. Add racks and a windshield and at a distance it sometimes is mistaken for a KLR.

Highway Performance:

Absolutely no problem. Once broken in the klx could cruise without any strain at 110 - 115 kph (65 -68 mph) all day and exceed that if necessary. Hills rarely required shifting down more than one gear from 6th to 5th. Lots of torque relatively speaking.

Vibration was not an issue. There is some under acceleration but once settled in I had no complaints. Chip sealed pavement caused more vibration than the engine. The stock Dunlop knobbies were surprisingly pavement friendly.

Carrying Capacity:

I had the bike quite heavily loaded using luggage racks (top and side), soft bags, a large duffel, a small duffel, a small tank bag and a fender bag. The soft bags contained 10 extra litres of gas (more about that later). No issues. I barely knew the stuff was there.

Fuel Range:

The klx tank holds a miniscule 7.7 litres (2 U.S. gallons) including the reserve. There is no fuel gauge. At highway speeds, loaded down as I was, the entire range of a tank of gas was about 140 km. (85 miles). This is kind of crazy. I had a 5 litre container of gas in each soft bag and had to use them repeatedly which is messy and annoying. There is an after market larger tank available but I believe it only adds an extra US gallon which would not be all that helpful practically speaking.

Of course, at lower speeds the range is much greater. The engine is remarkably fuel efficient, but it still needs to eat.

Wind:

I added a windscreen made by Turbocity which worked very well. In fact, out of ten bikes I've owned I had the quietest ride of all on the klx in terms of wind noise inside my modular helment. The screen does make the front wheel less solidly planted at speed due to sensitivity to any cross breeze but I got used to that quickly.

Comfort:

I added heated grips and used them constantly. No electrial issues. I had a plug in for a heated vest and never did use it but my research tells me that it would not have been possible to use the grips and the vest at the same time.

When I first saw the dirt bike type seat I instantly decided that it had to go. But as I rode around breaking the engine in I was astonished that it really was not bad at all and did not replace it. That was a mistake. Not bad at all for a hour or two turns into something of an ordeal for longer hours day after day. I used an Airhawk pad with an extra layer of corrugated foam in it and that definitely helped. But there's no substitute for width.

The ergonomics were fine for me at 5'10". I tried a DRZ 400 and everything seemed to be in the wrong place while the klx was the opposite.

The seat is high at 35 inches. I lowered it slightly by moving the fork clamps, softening the suspension and, of course, adding all the baggage. But the Airhawk and foam raised it right back up again. I've always dislked tall bikes but the lightness of the bike largely compensated and I never felt insecure.

Off Pavement:

This is basically a dirt bike with lights so you would expect stellar performance on dirt/gravel. My experience was oddly mixed and I've concluded that there are so many variables to this equation that it's difficult to generalize.

I could certainly blast along on some gravel portions and the geometry lent itself to standing up easily. And yet I was shocked by one stretch that I expected to sail through only to find that the front end was behaving worse than that of the street bike I'd left at home. Clearly it had to do with the interaction between the size of the knobs and the size of the stones that made up this particular patch.

On a rainy, muddy day on the Top of the World Highway the going was slow and cautious. My lack of confidence here seemed to relate to the slipperiness of the road surface with which the dirt bike genes of the klx did not seem to help much at all. And three Goldwings were on this road at the same time and seemed to be moving as fast as I was (what the ...?). On the other hand, one of them went down due to the mud. On another stretch of gravel we seemed to be progressing at a good pace but a BMW RT 1100 on street tires was travelling far faster.

There are so many potential variations in bike geometry, centre of gravity, tires, tire pressue, road surface, dry vs. wet etc. and of course the rider's skills or risk taking propensity. It's difficult to predict how a particular combination of variables will work out. I was reading a claim that a Harley fitted with Ural side car tires on it was better suited for gnarly dirt roads in Africa than a GSA and, for a particular rider, I tend to believe that this sort of clam can be correct. It all depends.

Reliability:

Not a single problem. But it is a new Japanese bike.

Conclusion - klx250s:

Change the seat (easily done), solve the fuel issue (not that easily done)
and you have a perfectly good d/s touring bike. And it's fun.

At one stop I was looking at a GSA and a Super Tenere, both fully kitted out, and the comparison with the klx was so striking given that they really all do the same thing. All that money and weight just seemed so manifestly unnecessay. Yet if I owned one of those large machines I'd probably see it differently.

Hope this is useful.

Norm