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trip planning and excruciating details start today! It all started with this idea that I should buy a motorcycle. As if the idea of trying to spend all my free time (to the dismay of most of my closest friends) on a mountain bike wasn't enough, I thought it might be time to buy a motorized one too. Gas is too expensive, I drive an SUV, and I constantly need something new to work on, work for, customize, nitpick, pull apart, rebuild, over analyze, plan ahead for, look back on and dream about. I started asking people that had bikes what they liked and what they didn't. Turns out my parents old neighbor who was in the Pee-Wee herman fan club in 1982 now is a motorcycle freak with 4-5 nice italian and bavarian bikes. I thought I needed the big bad BMW GS adventurer. I wanted to be able to work on my own bike and I wanted to be able to pay the thing off relatively quickly. BMW was completely out of the question. I wanted to ride on the highway and on dirt/gravel roads. I wanted to attach my mountain bike to the side of the thing and go all over the place with my camping stuff strapped to every little nook and cranny. He suggested the Kawasaki KLR and it has been all down hill from there.

I shopped for about 6 months getting prices and learning about it. I finally made the decision about a month ago and bought a 2003 from a guy out in Issaquah washington, just out I-90 from Seattle. Ok, so at first glance you're like uhh...yeah.
Thats not a Harley? Correct but what it is, is a very utilitarian,
piece of machinery that can carry me on the highway, up dirt roads, down trails, and back again! Now, I think thats cool. Especially at 50 miles per gallon. sorry there is not much chrome on it.





Ok, so now I have this thing. What the heck am I going to do with it? I'm gonna ride, but before all that I had to decide where I was going to ride. Since I have 3 weeks off after I finish my temporary job I decided I should try to take most of the time to go out ride a motorcycle and hang out outside. First problem. You better make sure the bike is ready to ride a few weeks all over the place away from home. Better start modifiying. AHHHH...this what I was waiting for!

The guy I bought it from did a few modifications so I will list them here: New hand guards from Acerbis, Galfer braides steel brake lines, breakaway shifter rear break levers and skid plate from MSR, and the ever famous "doohickey" replacement.

Of course I had to do a bunch of stuff myself. in order to get this thing into ideal shape for a little trip.

First thing is first. I tore the top off the engine and did a valve job. Two exhaust valves and one intake valve were totally off, which may have contributed to the occasional backfiring I was experiencing on decceleration.





Second. I wanted to get a bit more power out of the engine so I decided I should re-jet the carb and get an aftermarket exhauset and Air filter. I bought the Dynojet kit and intalled the stage one kit. In addition I bought the Staintune exhaust and K&N air filter. This whole power thing and the idea that I might be able to get more horse power from the engine is totally debatable and more than likely I will not create any more power and problaby will just create more problems for me down the line. However, since I am a complete junky for all things "upgrade" I also decided to dive into the project just to see if I could actually do it. The carb rejetting required a bit of drilling inside and outside the carb which obviously I cant ever take back, which I hated, but did any way. Here are some pictures:
I should mention at this point that it appears here that I just decided to do all these things and went ahead and did them. the truth is I probably spent 20 hours reading the internet and manual to figure it all out, went to about 4 different shops spending probalby 6 hours driving for parts and parts and parts. Then did one thing, drove the bike around for a few days, felt really really giddy that I had made it work and took it all apart again to do the next thing. I should also mention that absolutely none these things could have gone smoothly without the help of Shane and Kelly Lowe which helped me by letting me use the killer shop and tooles of Flylo which is their design and build company they run from home. Of course shane is there when I am like "uh, do you have a tool that can do this?", or "dude, i am totally stuck, can you hold this thing while I drill this little piece". He's always comming through with the extra hand, cutting oil, pneumatic rachets, cheater levers, over the phone sprocket tooth counting...good guy.

next: the front end was diving down considerably on heavy braking. I would like this spongyness if I was riding all off road but for mostly road riding I want the front end a little firmer. I replaced the stock springs with Progressive fork springs for the KLR. Much better now.

It never ends: I've been reading reports that if you use saddle bags and or carry a heavy load that the very weak bolts attaching the main frame to the rear sub frame have fractured. I removed the stock bolts,drilled through the entire frame and replaced the bolts with a 12mm completely through bolt, I'll show you the picture soon.

I replaced the stock exhaust with a nice one from Staintune. As I said before it probably doesn't matter but it sounds a lot better. to me it just sounds much richer and bold. I can't really feel more power...but it looks cool...did I say it looks cool yet?