HELLO LATTE!
Meet my new ride, Latte.
Ever since I rode this bike 2 years ago at DC Dirt Camp, I fell in love with it immediately.
July 2021 on my super friend Marjorie’s XT250 (also before working at REVIT) at DC Dirt Camp during an Adventure Bike Class
It was lightweight, easy to ride and super comfortable. Unfortunately I don’t have any pics of me sitting down on the bike, only standing up! :) :)
IS IT TOO SMALL?
No. Absolutely not. Yes, I have almost 20 years of motorcycle experience under my belt but I am absolutely positively new to dual sport riding and I would be fooling myself to think that I could easily conquer a mid size 750cc ADV bike to learn on.
When I took the Adventure class with DC Dirt Camp, riding this bike felt fairly easy since my bike is 400lbs! So jumping on a sub 300lb bike felt super easy. Of course, learning some ADV skills was challenging but I’m so glad I had a little bike like this to try things on.
For me personally, here is my intention with a dual sport motorcycle (which GREATLY affects an individuals’ bike choice)
Short, day trips, possibly overnights with minimal highway / freeway riding (max 30 minutes if possible)
80% offroad / 20% on road focused riding (thus the need for a smaller bike overall)
Build AS MUCH confidence as possible while I increase skills
Accelerate my learning / skills so that I can master this small bike to where an upgrade is going to feel easier, less intimidating and feel more confident
Doesn’t everyone want to become super proficient and highly skilled at motorcycling sooner than later? For me that happens quickest when I’m on a bike that’s smaller, easier to manage and super comfortable.
If my experience level on the dirt were much higher, say 10+ years of dirt riding maybe, AND I wanted to do long distance, 50% onroad, 50% offroad type riding then of course a larger displacement bike would be necessary. I’ve never heard anyone say “Oh no, I don’t want to get really good at this quickly, I want it to take months / years to get better and feel confident”.
I also have a rear hitch carrier on the Jeep, so I may take it places to go riding. But I am not planning anything pavement focused unless I’m riding on the street with my Triumph to do a pavement focused ride.
So there you have it, my little 250 is going to be perfect for me and my riding needs. Always, always write down what your needs are for a new to you motorcycle, if you want to be as certain as possible that you are making the very best choice. I also know that if I need to move onto a different bike, I can easily sell Latte and get it to someone else very quickly. So I’m not worried about that.
Remember, motorcycles are like kleenex! There’s always another one waiting! They’re also like dating, you aren’t necessarily going to marry the first person you meet, right? :)
TALLNESS
But I can tell you that yes, it’s a bit tall but remember, taller and lighter. Please revisit my short tips to understand how that does work when you’re 5’2”! I also modified my boots like this ==>
That didn’t give me flat footing, but it didn’t need to because for me, I’ve been One Footing my motorcycles since the very beginning, even when I was riding a taller scooter.
The XT was my little dream dual sport bike, super capable when I did the BDR ride and I knew I had to have that bike!
I looked at many others including:
Kawasaki KLX250 and KLX300
Suzuki DR200S
Yamaha TW200
Honda CRF250 and CRF300
But it always came back to the XT250. Mostly for the fact that I already rode it, and it just felt right. You know that feeling? When you meet the love of your life, or the perfect pair of shoes or the perfect motorcycle? I also read lots of reviews of the XT250 against these other rides and the XT always won.
There are also lots of upgrades and parts available and I can’t wait to start collecting parts! But for now, it’s going to stay stock other than proper dual sport tires:
Dunlop D650 Tires on Latte
UPGRADES
The only upgrade for now are proper 50/50 tires : Dunlop D605’s .
PROTIP for PARTS SHOPPING:
When you are shopping for bike parts, you can ALWAYS visit the manufacture website because they will usually have a bike / part finder to enter your bike into their website and see what fits / is compatible!
This bike came from a local motorcycle school outsider of Denver so it had pavement focused tires and I need something just a bit knobbier that will also handle ~30 min of freeway riding to the mountains (I LOVE DENVER).
Also, tire shopping for offroad bikes are a whole thing. Sizing isn’t normal metric usually (e.g. 120/70/17) like on my street bike, so you may need to translate sizes. Grab your owners manual (or download one), LOOK UP your recommended sizes and then go from there. There are also lots of tire size translation resources on various website, but if you just scroll to the bottom of this page for the Dunlops, checkout the handy chart!
Looking at dual sport tires was super confusing for me until I found translations like this that told me what my size was in width (inches) and metric so I could understand the translations from metric to regular inches.
So that’s where I’m at for now, I’ll be posting another one soon about the gear I’m going to wear and why I chose it so stay tuned!
