Two For the Trail
TWO FOR THE TRAIL
Giving two motocrossers a home on the range
IF YOU WERE AN EXECUTIVE FOR A Japanese motorcycle company and wanted to see your product in action, this year's ISDE in Alp, Spain, was a good place not to be. Of the 35 American team members who went to the event, only eight rode Japanese bikes. And of the eight bikes they rode, only two were meant for enduro competition: Billy Fulmer’s Honda XR350R (a 350cc four-stroke competing against 500cc two-strokes) and Jeff Fredette’s Kawasaki KDX200 (a 200 running against 250s). The remaining Japanese motorcycles all were converted motocrossers.
The point? Unless an enduro rider is willing to contend with the scarcity of dealerships and expense of spare parts for European motorcycles, he'd better be prepared either to ride a Japanese enduro bike that’s several years old, or to build his own enduro machine.
Of the two alternatives, the do-ityourself concept seemed more appealing to us than the idea of thrashing around the woods on old and outdated machinery. What follows, then, are two separate accounts of the way in which we reshaped a couple of Japanese motocrossers into competitive enduro machines. Neither was an easy or cheap project—both entailed countless hours in labor and over $600 in parts. But in the end, both were worth the time and money.
