V-Strom Zero Mercy off-road test against the BMW Dakar

[EnduroAlexis]

Hi all,

here two videos of my recent off-road trip with a friend to the Salisbury Plains. Needless to say the V-Strom did everything the Dakar could, but wish I had had knobblies for the extra confidence.

Newmp, sorry for being me  

And now for the videos:

Part 1:


Part 2:



Enjoy,
Alexis.

[Ptarmigan]

Great vids Alexis!    

The centre stand issue is one of the reasons I haven't fitted one to my X model (which doesn't have one as standard). A similar problem I've found is in narrow ruts where the foot pegs jam and the back wheel is off the ground...but that can happen with any bike right?  

Also if you check the forum there are threads where members have fitted replacement flush fitting indicators in place of the easily broken sticky out ones.  

[Descolada]

A great, informative video. I have seen a couple of your other videos on YouTube, the one on modifications and the other where you climb inside a gun emplacement (I think anyways). Great stuff. I can't believe the speed you took that puddle at 4:22, how did your textiles bear up to that?

Des

[Newmp]

Alexis, Alexis, Alexis ... How many times have I told you to clean your bike? & Tom should know better! At some point you must come up & we'll have a ride out (if our rosters coincide) I'll ask Jane to slow down fr you ....

[Jacko]

Great vids blokes, more please.

[Hugo Magnus]

Many thanks, that was most entertaining.

[dirtlover2005]

Great vids thanks - I've got to go and have a play down there!

Cheers

DL

[Juvecu]

Great videos, Alexis I always have a smile on my mug after watching your stuff and I like that each individual video is never that long

+1 on getting the flush mount indicators, they will solve the problems you have with the front indicators breaking in a fall. Some like these on eBay will work fine.

As for the tyres, you mention several times that knobblies would be better for off road riding and I completely agree. Perhaps a tyre that's in between knobblies and a road tyre would be the perfect balance. Maybe something like the Heidenau K60 Scout would be suitable? They have a centre band that makes them run well on road and are more knobbly on the edges that should help a lot off road. See this page for details. On that picture that shows all the different K60 Scout tyres you want the far left (110/80 B19) and the far right ones (150/70 B17.) I'm planning on getting these as my next set of tyres if the Anakee 2 tyres are no longer available, these get good feedback from forum members on here.

Edit: the full part number for those two tyres I mentioned would be "Scout 110/80 B 19 M/C 59T TL" for the front and "Scout 150/70 B 17 M/C 69T TL" for the rear.

[WLR]

Hahaaa, I did some greenlaning, or attemped a bit.

Gravel is okay, even when covered in deepish water. Pure mud with no knobblies is stupid as I found out ;)

Nice vids man

[EnduroAlexis]

Hello again and thank you for the tips on the Tyres and smaller indicators, will check them out.

A knobbly/road tyre mixture is what we all dream of, maybe the K60 is the answer, lets hope it is not too expensive.

Thanks also for your comments on the videos, will be riding to South-East Europe this summer, so more video to come.

Newmp, you can clean my bike for me provided it keeps the muddy adventure look.

Have not had the foot peg and ruts issue yet on the V-Strom, but something to look forward to ? :limp:

Thank you all again  

[Juvecu]

Alexis, the Heidenau tyres I recommended appear to be well priced.

Front @ £76 delivered.
Rear @ £96 delivered.

£172 delivered sounds like a very reasonable price. Even with fitting and balancing that shouldn't be much more than £200 all in.

[Jacko]

Haven't the new rears got a continuous band of rubber around the middle section now?

[Juvecu]

There are different tread configurations for different sizes of the tyres. It's all very confusing and probably why Oponeo has the wrong picture on the site.

The ones I link are the far left (front) and far right (rear) tyres on this picture. You can see the continuous centre tread on the rear that you're talking about.

[Newmp]

Newmp, you can clean my bike for me provided it keeps the muddy adventure look

Ha, ha, you can clean mine ... I'll jet wash yours.

[EnduroAlexis]

Hi Juvecu and all,
The price for the Heidenaus seems very fair, will get those next time.

Newmp, guess what, I have my first customer for an Alexis style paint job on his bike.
He will assist me, but I will still get his written approval just in case he later has a change of heart.

It is Gordon from the Tube  

Wish me luck,
Alexis.