klr650 planned upgrades

I’m planning on “civilizing” my KLR650 just a tiny bit, since it is coming up on 1500 miles and I haven’t made it offroad at all yet.

There are two (fairly minor) issues with the stock setup, as far as I’m currently concerned:

First, I’d prefer the gearing to be just a little bit taller so I don’t have to wind it up quite as much. The engine just runs a little faster than I’d like at freeway speeds, and even driving around town it just feels slightly off. So I’m thinking about swapping out the stock 15T countershaft sprocket for a 16T. That changes the final drive from 2.87 to 2.69, and saves about 400 RPM at freeway speed, which doesn’t sound like much, but should quiet it up nicely. I found a website called gearingcommander that allows all of these calculations pretty nicely.

Another thing I’ve noticed on freeway rides is that the stock tires just don’t feel great to me. Because I haven’t ended up doing any offroad adventures yet, I’m thinking about switching to the Pirelli MT90 Scorpion S/T. They’re supposed to be a lot nicer on pavement and great in the rain, at the cost of some dirt performance, which sounds like a good tradeoff based on my riding so far.

Fine, I might also do one other little tweak, someday…