by Leon Thomas

Created on: October 19, 2008

As a motorcycle enthusiest most of my 67 years I would encourage people to explore riding a Dual Sport motorcycle. What would be the best dual sport bike for you will depend on the type of riding you intend to do.

A dual sport bike is equiped with turn signals, headlights and tires that work both on dirt and on a highway. Dual sport motorcycles let you have options like riding in the mountains on fire roads and trails and riding down a freeway. They don't do either one great, so you have to take the bitter with the sweet.

I traded in my full dress Honda Aspencade a few short years ago and purchased a dual sport bike. Not a bike most people have heard of as it is an MZ Country. It comes from Germany with a Rotax 500 single cylender engine. This is a bike that is very comfortable and you could ride many miles on a freeway without discomfort, but it also doesn't lend it's self well on tight mountain trails. The suspension is too short and steering is also too short. So this type of bike is for the person that doesn't intend on riding trails, but would like traveling on logging roads, fire roads seeing the country in the mountains but staying off the trails.

I also own a Honda 250 dual sport bike that allows you the opposite side of this dual sport coin. It functions very nice on tight trails and you can hit the highway, but you wouldn't want to travel too far because of vibration at highway speeds. It would be an awesome commuter bike if you worked 20 miles or so, plus you can put your wife on the back for some mountain roads. If the too of you don't weight too much. After all this bike only has a 250 single cylinder four stroke engine.

Last year I purchased a new dual sport bike. It is a 650 Kawasaki KLR. It has a powerful 650 single four stroke engine. It falls somewhere in between my other two bikes. Freeway riding isn't bad, you can cruise at 65mph no problem, but like the MZ it doesn't like tight trails. It is very tall and a little awkward on tight trails. My wife also hates it. She says it is very uncomfortable on the back.

To sum up what would be the best dual purpose motorcycle as you can see depends on the type of riding you will do. So you could choose from the smaller more agile 250 cc range bikes by Honda, Yamaha, Kawasaki, Suzuki or for the desert explorer to a big 1200 cc BMW adventurer. Speaking of which is an awesome bike, I just can't afford one.

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