First DIRT Ride On My Inexpensive DR650: Do I Love It? 

Such a fun day of riding with you guys. Great bike Ben!

Awesome. Love riding that part of the world too. If I ever decide I need a backup to my DRZ400, the DR is absolutely on the short list!

The DR will run up to 100mph and doesn't feel like you are hurting it. It will cruise 75 with ease and you can blast past a semi truck at 90 with ease. It's a gravel road monster! It is way more stable than a KLR or XLR at 70 on gravel roads. Those are both twitchy. I actually passed my friend on his Honda 450 motocross bike on a dirt road. Granted, I had fresh Kenda K270 tires, and his tires were worn, but I had 100 pounds more bike. He was getting too sideways coming out of corners, and I was doing nice drifts. It's a bit of a tank on singletrack, but will do some moderate stuff ok. If you need to cover some fast freeway, and then do gravel roads, the DR is hard to beat. Put on a better seat and bigger tank, and you are golden. And I found the K270, while not being aggressive enough for gnarly singletrack, is a very good gravel road tire, and cheap. The IRC GP1 is similar with a bit lower side knobs that work better on the street, but the K270 is better on dirt. The knobs squirm a bit on pavement when cornering but they don't let go, they just flex. I'm currently thinking about a CRF300L and doing the suspension for a slightly lighter weight explorer bike. Those things get 70mpg. The DR is super easy to do oil changes, and the valves take about an hour, with no shims to buy. The DR is the bike I would take if doing an around the world trip.

I was thinking of getting a DR, but local gasgas dealers have discounted the 2023 es700 to under 10k. Now I'm torn.

what is the red crf???