Still ugly, hopefully reliable

So I figured a good introduction to the trip would be to show off all the sweet mods and maintenance Marc and I did to the KLRs. I'll start off with a little intro for the KLRs as well as a little history. The Kawasaki KLR 650 is a bike that could best be summed up as having a look only a mother can love, luckily Marc and I are proud mothers. The KLR is classifed as a dualsport motorcycle, it's designed for on and offroad use. It's built with function in mind, probably why it's so ugly. It's got a big old gas tank which gives it around 400km of range. The 65occ engine falls somewhere in the middle of typical motorcycle size, small for hiway riding and big for offroad use. My bike is the green one, it's a 2003 model purchased used with only 500km on the ticker. Marc's is the red one, a 2004 purchased used with 5000km under it's belt. Both bikes have been to many places they had no rights to be. These include sketchy quad paths deep in the rockie mountains, water crossings up to the seat, and urban stairwells and walking paths. My bike is the less used/abused of the two. I think my bike has just over 20,000km on the odometer, Marc's is somewhere over 30,000km. Marc spent some time commuting to work on the oil rigs with his little red beast loaded to the nuts, lots of hiway miles and certantly lots of abuse. The longest trip I've pushed my green monster on was from home base(Edmonton) to Vancouver Island and back, about 2500kms. Marc and I have taken a number of weekend camping trips to the mountains where we bounce, push, and drop our bikes along the rough rocky trails. Marc's Red bike was brutally raped and beaten one night outside his condo, she was scarred but made a decent recovery. It's late here at work in a dirty old gold mine so I'll call it a night and make a new post in the next couple of days showing the mods. I promise more pictures and less words, thank god.

Later,

Scott