Posted: February 26, 2022

 The Project Bike

 After the Red Fiasco, came my KLX250R.

This was a project bike. I liked that it was a four stroke, so I bought it. There were tons of mods available for this bike. Larry Roeseler loved these bikes and made all kinds of kits for them.

My KLX was purple when I got it—I know… the indignity!… the unholiness!… (bringing the back of my hand to my forehead and tilting my head back)—but that didn’t deter me; I had some pretty elaborate plans for this bike. I pulled it apart in my living room, down to the last screw, and painted the chassis aluminum-gray myself, right after I had it sand-blasted.

I bought the 300cc conversion kit from Stroker (Larry Roeseler). As soon as the kit arrived, I took out the cylinder sleeve and put it in the fridge. At dawn, the next day, I took the cylinder block out and left in direct sunlight all morning. Come the time to bring the two together, I quickly lined up the frozen sleeve with the heated block and, without wasting any time, I put a wood block on top and whacked it with a mallet… and that’s how my little pony became a proper steed that thumped everything in its path.

While I was at it, I also had some weight shaved off the flywheel and had the cylinder head ported for added snappiness. I also replaced the stock, vacuum-operated carburetor with a Mikuni pumper carb, which took a little fabricating and a whole lot of cursing!

See the exhaust header on the bike? that ain't stock either; it is an oversize from Stroker. Yes, all the bells and whistles.

Please do notice the green gas tank still atop the KLX; it would soon be replaced with an oversize, see-through gas tank from Acerbis. Hundred-plus kilometer races became less of a logistical nightmare for me after that.

I also replaced the fork springs, for my weight, as well as the monoshock spring—a rather unnerving affair with improvised tools of my own making. The fork bars were inverted, but did not have a rebound adjustment knob, just the compression clickers on the bottom. I never replaced the valves because I did not think I was qualified to do it. In hindsight, I now think I should have tried.

Ultimately, it was the lack of a rebound adjustment knob on the fork bars that led to my decision to sell the bike. I actually traded the KLX for a freshly-painted and oven-baked Chevrolet Caprice that was a thing of beauty, as well, only with a bad engine. But, lucky me, I did happen to have another Chevrolet Caprice, at that time, that just happened to have an awesome V-8 engine, and a very bad body. My plan was to transplant the mighty V-8 engine into the freshly revamped body of my newly acquired Caprice. That never came to fruition though, I’m sorry to say; I lacked the tools, the space, the time, the energy, and the insanity that that whole mess would have required.

Anyway… Having exhausted every trick in the book to try and get some decent performance out of the suspension of my KLX, without any level of success, it then became clear to me that I had outgrown my little sewing machine, and that it was time for us to part ways. And as sad as it was—the thought of it—I had to face the fact that, at that point, I was riding my flying broomstick at full throttle all the time, but the suspension could not keep up. It was starting to get dangerous for me, and so I needed a more serious ride. Enter, then, the KTM EXC400…