The new ride - TTR225

[loingrader]

this is my sisters first motorcycle.  a street legal (now) dual sport yamaha.  you may be seeing it at the next ddsr rally, but ridden by my brother.  its cheap, lite, and geared down like a tractor.  its a blast.



-bret

[fringefan]

She's cute The bike I mean.
Looks like a good rig. The wife wants a bike so I have been trying to keep my eye out for a cheap light DS that a 5'4 woman can ride.

[loingrader]

this is the bike.  i was looking for cheap, low seat height, low gearing, and able to do 60mph.  the short list was klr250 sherpa (electric start vs kickin the plain klr250), yamaha xt225 (factory street legal version of the ttr), maybe a honda crf230.  this has 6 gears (so it can crawl, but get down the road ok), people say it's a heavy pig, but it is light enought for my ~115lb sister.  got it for $1300 and found it 45 miles from my house.  it should work pretty well.

-bret

[Jared]

and you can maintain the blue-and-white fleet colors!

[The Yeti]

Way cool headlights! Looks like the bike's wearin' Oakleys...

[loingrader]

took the ttr out for a 40 mile on/off road trip on saturday down by the missouri river.  it is geared LOW.  6 gears.  redlines at about 65mph.  i feel bad taking it over 50mph cause it is screaming even at that speed.  the xt225 is the factory street legal version of the ttr.  the front sprocket is 15 tooth on both, but the ttr rear is 58 tooth and the xt is a 45 tooth.  the xt is geared much better for the road, but the ttr is has beefier components that make it better for the trails (spokes, wheels, rear brake, swingarm, etc.)

i'm excited to get it out to the hills and try to find a hill that it can't climb.  it's a mountain goat.

[loingrader]

one of the fork seals was seeping a little so i changed them both out, as well as the fork oil.  took all of about an hour, with no manual.  changed the engine oil too.  the oil filters are weird, like a paper filter but with a thin mesh plastic instead of paper.  you can see right thru them, and see the contaminants that they have trapped.  another thing of interest is that the oil screen (similar to the one that you have to dismantle a klr650 engine to get at) comes out right behind the oil pan drain plug.  really handy. 

oil capacity with filter change - 1000cc. 

i also discovered that this bike has grease zerks on every pivot point of the rear suspension linkage.  why doesn't anyone else do that?  i hate tearing down suspension linkages, getting all greasy and putting them back together.  with zerks it takes all of 3 minutes to get fresh grease into the bearings.  i'm impressed.

i'm getting about 70mpg with this hawg, and a lot of the time riding it is at way high rpm's.

[Jared]

How tall is your sis?  My gf is becoming more interested in bikes and I'm not sure how to fit her.

[loingrader]

my sister is 5'6" but i'm betting someone just over 5' could ride this bike with no changes to the suspension (which could be lowered if need be).

this thing did pretty darn well out in the hills with my 185lb 6'4" brother riding it.  made everything look easy.  the bolt's for the right footpeg fell out which caused the foot brake lever to be out in the open and 2 seconds later he it a rock with it and pushed it into the case, CRACKING the engine case and causing it to seep oil.  luckily, promoyeti had some quick steel, and by borrowing tools from the group we put her back together and rode the rest of the way back to the campground.  found some new bolts in town for the foot peg, and she rode great the rest of the weekend.