What mods to take GS offroad?

[Lorenzo]

I am caressing the idea of taking the GS to a trip, which, for the conformation of the land, I am planning to visit, might take me to traverse vast stretches of dirt track.
Why the GS? Because I've bonded to this bike, and I've confidence on it's reliability.

So, what would you "engineer" for this task?

Do you reckon it's feasible?

Offroad forks? which one, wheels/tyres ...

Thanks

P.S. all mods should be reversible.

[tkent02]

Define offroad. Rocks and roots with a lot of steep loose mud, deep sand, far away from any assistance or just some gravel roads?

If it's the first I'd get a different bike, even a small GS is way too heavy. If it's rough enough for you to need different forks it's in this category.
A lot of big old air cooled dual sports are every bit as reliable if they are maintained correctly. My choice would be a DR350 or 650 but there are many others just as good.

If it's just gravel roads it's fine as is, GSes are much better at gravel roads then newer motorcycles, the steering geometry is more or less like a big dual sport. Some of the new street bikes will just fall over at the mere mention of gravel. If it's a few thousand miles of gravel you might want some better tires if yours are not very good. Might want to think about making some kind of bash plate, not for bashing the engine on rocks but more of a deflector so flying gravel doesn't crack any cases or anything. Maybe a bit of armor over the ignition and stator covers for when you tip over too.

With a shafty, don't spin the rear wheel on washboards, the on and off torque that develops can break the bevel gear. This from the guy I bought my 1100G from, he broke two of them that way.

[Lorenzo]

Of course, I could stick to tarmac but, wont I be missing some?

[Steve]

If that's the kind of riding you want to do, you might not want a GS.

It might handle most of that, with the exception of riding up the creek, but it won't be easy.

.

[Lorenzo]

Yes, and will have to be done with top-case and side panniers, after an approach of more or less 2500Km/1500mi

[JEEPRUSTY]

A gs 450 may be light enough to be used in actual offroad conditions. But the cost of doing mods would get you a nice purpose built dirt bike.

[Lorenzo]

Yes, I was thinking of scramblerizing a twin (vee/inline); that would make a nimble(?) bike with few mods (shocks, forks, high sweeping exhaust, wheels), but it's tough for me to justify another bike, even on the grounds of sheer storage space.

[JEEPRUSTY]

the only v twin suzuki I know of is a RG 250 Gamma
it would be an awesome thing to morph one into a dirt bike.

[Lorenzo]

DO NOT PROVOKE!!
i could pit a sqare four of the aforementioned...

And, I can tell you, is pretty confortable, both in the way of stress to the wrists and actual sitting position.

Hard hitting on the pockets though, with a mere 7Km/L (drove on the pipes)

P.S. you forgot the Intruder, Marauder, Volusia

[tkent02]

Well if that's all you've got...

I have ridden both a Honda 750 and a GS550 in water up to the gas tank with no issues. For about a mile on the Honda, shorter but deeper with stronger current and done it several times in the case of the 550. Taken my first GS550 on far rockier roads than those with zero damage. Jumped it a little, slid it around corners on gravel, wheelied it over a lot of obstacles..... Which takes a bit of doing on a heavy bike with zero low end torque and street tires.
Even dented the frame on a rock which only by luck missed the engine.
All in all a good time was had by everyone involved....

I got away with a lot back when I was young and foolish, but doing either one of these things out in remote areas far from any assistance should you need it would be foolhardy at best, most likely very expensive, and quite possibly very dangerous.

Any old dual sport would do all of these things easily enough that it would actually be enjoyable more often than miserable, and the smaller the dual sport the more the scale would tip to enjoyable.

You can bond with any old motorcycle, keep the GS around and in one piece for what it was intended for.

[Ecklund]

With so many relatively inexpensive and very competent dual-sport or off-road bikes its easy to forget how motorcycles were designed and used from the 1910s through the 1950s.

As an example take a look at the ISDT history. They figured out knobby-like tires fairly early but most had low swept exhaust until the late 30s.

In the late 70s BMW made some limited mods to their rode bike that made it reasonably off-road capable.

A number of militaries used road bikes with limited mods for use during WWII; many with sidecars. Fairly heavy rigs.

A GS twin would be a good choice to do a 'scrambler' type bike. Light and good riding position for off-road riding.

For the money you would spend to create a 'scrambler' type GS, you could buy a pretty good dual-sport or dedicated off-road bike that would be significantly superior off-road to the modified GS. But the 'scrambler' thing seems to be a desired 'look' all on its own. And of course modding a bike isn't typically about economic value.

Simply changing out the tires for dual-sport type tires would increase the GS' off-road capability substantially.

[hampshirehog]

I've been thinking of doing a GS500 for a while - even bought one last year to make a start but ended up selling it to a mate who needed a cheap commuter in a hurry. For an example take a look at:

http://advrider.com/index.php?threads/gs500-dual-sport-project.738523/

[salty_monk]

It's the BMW's that get stuck...



BAJAZUKI:





Mods:

"Sacrificial" - read "less rare" gas tank
80/20 tires on a spare wheel set
A pipe I didn't care too much about getting chipped etc (Swapped my Yoshi to this one for the trip) - I would have fabricated a guard for it if we were doing bigger bumps so it couldn't get flattened.
Handguards (a stronger set of bars may have been useful too but I didn't bother - those are bikemaster Daytona's)
Bar risers - so you can reach the bars while standing up
A headlight guard and fairing - you don't really need this.
Some 3 point crash guards.

We did a bit of sand & gravel. Nothing too extreme.

[John Park]

A gs 450 may be light enough to be used in actual offroad conditions. But the cost of doing mods would get you a nice purpose built dirt bike.

The original GS400 was scary on anything but pavement, and somewhat scary even then. I have a feeling that the original design may have had a 19" front wheel, as friend of mine did that to his and it made the gravel road experience a lot calmer. The later frames had a better top tube gusseting and handled better all around, without the spookiness of the original. A 19" front wheel fits fine as long as you take the fender too.

The 'new and improved' 17" front wheels are only somewhat less stupid for the street than the 16" ones they replaced - but that's just my opinion. But that's just for smooth pavement; don't even think about riding one on gravel. There's a good reason why a V Strom has a bigger front wheel than an SV650. The steep steering angles may be part of the problem, but they seem to go with the package.

I had a GS400 and a GS850 in Baja and the big guy would just wallow through sand and gravel like a big dirt bike while the 400 was always trying to fall over. My 450T is nervous but acceptable on gravel but I have a 19" ready to put on if the need arises. A large diameter narrow tire will plow through loose crap with far more stability than a small diameter wide tire. Of course, it's all relative to wheelbase and the rear tire size and a whole bunch of dynamic voodoo that analysis wouldn't simplify.

In short, I think it's enough of a challenge to get a 450 to deal with dirt and gravel roads; 'actual off road' is way beyond my imagination.

[dorkburger]

Ive done some packed dirt / loose gravel on the heavy, 16" front wheeled 1150 with no problems. All done slowly however with maybe a max speed of 25-30 mph.