99 KX250

[Dan_AKAL]

Found a 99 with a few mods like pipe and such.  Seems in good shape.  It's been ridden and used and has it's markings from such but appears to be a very sound machine.  Asking price is $2500, seems a little high.  Anything special I should be looking for beyond normal stuff for a six year old two stroke?  I've got some concerns about the price.

[mikesmith]

Linkage and swing arm and crank bearings are a thing to check besides the normal chain sprockets,tires,fork seals ect.The more things you find wrong the easier it is to get the asking price down.

[Rick]

Yup, but that bike on a stand and try and rock the swing arm from side-to-side/up-and-down.  Check the bottom shock bearing, as this is a weak point.  If the owner will let you, pull one side of the dog bone and remove the bottom shock bolt.  Make sure the aluminum piece holding the bearing is not all messed up.  These are expensive parts, and worth checking.  

Also try and rock the rear wheel to check rear wheel bearings.  These are cheap to replace, but might help get a little reduction on price.

Look for any repairs to radiators, as this could be a sign that the bike was raced hard.

You will just have to trust the crank bearings, as there is little that you can do to check these.

Good luck.

Rick

[Dan_AKAL]

The previous owner has put Pro Circuit shock linkage on this bike. It all seems well.  Nothing really amiss with the bearings.  Compression feels good.  Made an offer of $2200.  We'll see if he takes it.

[rhinogrrrl]

Well? Did you get the bike for $2200? That sounds like a more reasonable price to me as $2500 seemed a bit high.

[Dan_AKAL]

Well, after haggling for quite awhile it ended up at $2400.  I guess I'm really not complaining too much about the price.  It has Pro Circuit pipe, triple clamp, and swingarm linkage.  Along with a few other goodies like Renthal bars and new Renthal sprockets, and O-Ring chain as well as new Bridgestone 401's.  I couldn't find anything wrong anywhere.  Bearings all seemed well, compression seemed fine although I didn't put a gauge to it.  I'm not unhappy with the bike or the price.  Besides it seems everything is just a little bit more expensive up North.

Now is gonna be the fun part.  Getting this thing set up for the woods.  I'll ride it the way it is for awhile and then get serious about set up this winter.  I read a thread here about how one of the members set up his KX250 for the woods.  I expect I'll be taking about the same approach.

I'm hoping this bike will pay off in spades.  I'll use this to bring Cross Country racing to Alaska.  Right now about all we do here for racing is MX.  I have never cared for MX so I do a lot of the flagging and scoring at the races.  I fly south to the lower 48 every year to race HS and Enduros.  (I have a KTM 300 EXC that my sister keeps for me).  The racing sanctioning body here asked me what it would take to try some cross country racing here.  This KX250 is the first step in starting our HS series.  I expect this bike and I will nail up a lot of arrows and flags.  I'm sort of bummed that I probably won't get to do much racing but at 39 I'll probably enjoy just promoting the race as much as racing.

I'll see how things go with the 250 and there may be a 500 in my future.  I really like my KTM 300 EXC but I don't care for the KTM 250's.  I'm thinking that at 6'1" and 210 lbs I may need the extra torque of the 300 - 500.  Just have to see how the KX250 does.  I'm not displeased and I'm sure it will be a lot of fun.  Especially since this is my first experience with Kawi's.

Dan

[mikesmith]

Glad to hear you got the bike and better to bring woods racing your way.Its almost hard to believe Alaska has no woods type racing,Alaska has the best woods in the world!Ive only been there once for 3 months,back in '71 my Dad drove the Alaska highway (if you could call it a highway back then) and around the state for the summer and I can still remember how amazing it was!

[Dan_AKAL]

There is a great deal of competition up here for summer time recreation.  Summer is very short and there are lots of things to do.  Attending an MX race once or twice per month still leaves plenty of time for other pursuits.  It takes a great deal of effort to lay out and promote a hare scramble or enduro and it will occupy a lot of my time.  I don?t think that most are willing to make this investment of time.  I think that once it gets started there will be a lot of interest.  I?ve never been anywhere that there wasn?t a lot of interest.  Per capita only about 15% of the bikes sold here are MX racing so that leaves a lot of bikes that are just trail riding and not competing.  I am hoping this carries over statewide.  Also, once this gets started I?m hoping to incorporate it to snowmobiles.  We do some snow cross racing and we have very large events like the Iron Dog.  I?m a little long in the tooth and inexperienced to race from Anchorage, to Nome, and back to Fairbanks.  A local circuit to run fifty miles on the weekend would suit me greatly.  As well as a bunch of other people I have talked with.  Henceforth, I have great expectations for getting all of this started.  I know that I have to start small and this 99 KX250 is my start!

You can tell by the length of these posts that I don?t have a lot t do right now since I am at work in a remote area.  However, I?ll be back at home in a week and it will be time to start riding and doing the preliminaries for a hare scramble!

Thanks Again for all of the great input on purchasing this bike!!  You guys are great!!!

Dan

[mikesmith]

I used to know a guy James Jothero (think thats how his last name was spelled) that lived your way,ever hear of him?He had a KX500 a long time ago,but was mostly into 4x4's.