Trail Rider

SHANE DIENER FINISHES 5^TH OUT RIGHT

AT CONDO 750

Over the Easter weekend Shane Diener attended The Condo 750, which was his first event for 2008 on the KLX450.

After the long drive over to NSW on the Thursday, we set up in the pits and did the final setups on the bike. Chad from Chad’s Off Road Set Ups made the trip up to bring Shane new suspension for the event. After a quick test ride to check suspension Shane was ready. Friday night was spent reading the maps and setting them up in the map readers, as this event is full navigation, just like The Australian Safari. We use this event to help with testing the bike in readiness for the Safari, like many of the other top teams.

We started off great with Shane being second bike away and blitzing the first test, we were off to a great start. In the second test section, Shane had a huge hit from branch on the gear lever, making the bike stuck in fourth gear for the rest of the test, a distance of 95km. Shane made it into the lunch break where the service crew worked their butts off in the short 30mins we had to change what we believed to be a bent gear selector shaft.

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Zac Speed industries gave us the pleasure of testing their Menace goggles, as many trailriders have become acquainted with ZAC SPEEDS quality exotec body armour they haven’t faulted in delivering a quality goggle setup!When first donning the goggles on the trusty head gear I firstly noticed that the lens is quite large allowing for a great panoramic view is you click up to fifth through some tight stuff!!! The clarity of the lens is great also, being scratch resistant and having the tear off nipples plus the option of tinted lenses for those sunny days makes the Menace goggles a great all round performer. We had excellent results in varying light conditions and stood tall in the dust pits as well!

ZAC SPEED have designed and built a quality product here and is certainly level with the other top brands in quality and features. When testing trailrider could only fault them in one area, that being one of our test riders couldn’t get them to fit properly within the helmet.The Menace goggles are well worth looking at when up for a new pair of quality goggles and ZAC SPEED have also increased their product range to include

Jerseys, Pants and gloves to add to their already formidable line up of quality gear.

So my good mate, and website genius, Soj had a word to me after checking out the site. He had noticed that there was a lot of activity on the Forum so advised me to take it to the next level. Hence the Dirt Biker Forum has arised. All the threads, posts and user information has been taken from the old Trail Rider forum, and moved to the very impressive vBulletin forum over at http://www.dirtbiker.com.au

In recent years there seems to have been a major revival in the two stroke machine, this revival of sorts can be attributed to our European friends, in particular KTM. For a company on or over the edge of bankruptcy not so long ago they have become bench mark setters in several areas of bike design and development, especially in pushing their 2 stroke models.
So why are these 2 smokers walking out the doors in Aus?…It seems to me that the population of dirt lovers are looking for a bike that they are able to easily maintain themselves, as an alternative to the new generation 4 stroke.
The hassle of timing and valves is all forgotten, in exchange for a power valve and reed block, there is no questioning that the maintenance is easier on a 2 stroke bike, but in saying that there probably isn’t a great deal of difference in the amount of service required by the two. I think too that the benefit in power to weight and the excitement of riding a 2 banger makes for a better and more fun experience! Plus the dominance in recent years of the four strokes may entice purchases to buy 2 strokes just to be different.
The increase in 2 stroke technology in reducing vibration and increasing reliability and ride ability, in terms more forgiving and predictable power delivery have seen a return in droves of the trail minded new bike buyer.
At the moment there are several bike manufactures vying for your hard earned cash, KTM, Gasgas, Husqvarna and TM just to name a few. There is definitely a place for these animalistic machines in today’s enduro tail market.

                              

Kawasaki have bread a new champion enduro pony, the KLX450 will hit Australia mid 2007. Based largely on the MX winning kx450 the new KLX will have all the added extras for ADR compliance. The KLX will have just about an identical frame apart from a few more mounting points for addition items. The donk will be also the same but also very different, the KLX will benefit from a larger fly wheel, altered cam and will have wider gear ratios. Also to be noted is the addition of the electric starter with a kick start back up.

Kawasaki also increased fuel capacity to 8 litres, and added digital instrumentation incorporating speedo trip meter etc, the Kayaba forks that adorn the KX450 will also be on the KLX in a trail tuned form. Having a claimed dry weight of 115kg it is around the same weight as the competing enduro models

From all reports so far the new KLX is the complete enduro package, the only thing left to do after grabbing one from the dealer is to head to the hills!

For model details and more information head to Kawasaki