It’s only been a few weeks, but the chill of autumn is in the air. Mornings have gotten cold, too cold for me to ride the KLR to work with no wind protection. Since my Honda PC800 hasn’t sold yet, I expect I’ll start commuting on that until temps dip below freezing. I don’t like the idea of ice and two wheels, so I’ll switch back to the Subaru at that point.
I’ve been doing a lot of dirt riding on the KLR lately. I even dual-registered it for the street and for the trails, which I made a video about as well as wrote about for RideApart. I did fun trail ride at Pisgah State Park, but a huge smudge on the lens made my video from there pretty lousy, so I won’t be posting it. I’ll just have to go back and try it again. Darn.
Plus, thanks to a friend, I’m getting some more dirt-oriented tires for the KLR. Best of all, they’re free, since she hates them. I’ll likely go for some big-block knobby type tires next year, but until then I’ll play with these and see how much of an improvement they make in the dirt. The Kendas (with no model number printed on them) I have now work okay, but are more street oriented, and they slip around a bit in mud and sand, so I’m looking forward to seeing how the knobbier tires work. I’m sacrificing some street performance, but I expect to be doing more commuting on the PC800 in the cold mornings, so that’s fine.
Finally, I managed to put the finishing touch on the bike’s appearance: a World War II style white star on either side of the gas tank. I saw this look in my head almost as soon as I saw the bike for the first time, and it looks as good as I’d hoped. People already mistake my KLR for the Hayes M1030M1, the military version with a special diesel engine, so I’m just rolling with it. I like it, and because it’s all spray paint, I can easily touch it up if needed.
Justin Hughes 