which center stand?

[teamster1997]

--- In DSN_KLR650@yahoogroups.com, "rick" wrote:

> > My wife and I each have center stands on our KLR's, we bought ours > from Fred at Arrowhead Motor Sports. We don't ride the gnarly off > road stuff that some of the riders here do. But we have been in > Canada, Alaska, Mexico, Guatemala, El Salvador, Honduras and Belize in > the last two years and mostly on backroads or libre roads. I/we love > our center stands for changing tires/fixing flats, oiling chains, > changing the front sprocket to a small one for going down to Batopilas > and more. Yes, we scrape our center stands occasionally on topes south > of the border but with over 20,000 miles on both bikes, I don't have > any plans on taking them off.

I don't think the KLR was meant to be a full on dirt bike like some people try to make it. It's a cross-dresser. With a skilled rider, the KLR can do amazing things, but it is a lot of work compared to the lighter more dirt orientated bikes. I am lucky enough to have my XR650R when I want to ride the "gnarly" stuff and my other cross-dresser, the ST1100 when I want to go on long road trips or ride with the wife. I now use my KLR a lot for forest service roads and exploring in the Olympics. I used the KLR for the Shelton family dual-sport ride last July 1st and it did great but this next time I think I will use the XR650R. The KLR is a great bike and given a choice to only keep one of the three, I would keep the KLR. My 2 cents, Tim....