Anyone ride dirt with their Enduro? Jumps?

[truthfriend7]

I have an 05 roketa 200 enduro. I love it! I ride the street a lot. Recently I've taken it on some dirt trials and MAN what a blast! I've ridden it twice and the last time was doing some small jumps, but I've notice that the plastic pieces are falling apart and the chain tension to keeps loosening (it has a 42 rear sprocket). I have no money for a new bike, and would love to keep playing around in the dirt. But, can these bikes really take that? I don't mind dealing with broken plastic here & there, but mechanically has anyone had trouble? What's your recommendation?

I'm taking a break until I hear from you all on this one.

[mebigdave]

I use my 2006 Shineray to commute 130Km a day and on the weekends, take it off road! Mainly trail riding... I do feel like the bike is not going to last very long if I continue using it on some of the faster dirt road stuff as the dirt roads that I'm riding are very rutted!

I think the engine will last but don't think that jumping will help the matter any. I now ride off road on Saturday and fix on Sunday then commute Monday through Thursday.

I'll post a pic of the bike so that you can see it's not falling apart... Well not really!

[Jim]

Mine does great off road in my opinion, but I think jumping is a different matter...

[culcune]

The enduros, vs the pure dirt bikes, were never really meant for major dirt riding, IMO. If you really want it to stay together, and don't have money to buy a new one, don't jump it, and take it easy on dirt roads...again my opinion, but erring on the side of caution.

[TeamCheap]

The best thing to help it stay together is replace those engine mount bolts or else you will have trouble.(IMO)
If you notice these bikes use the engine to complete the lower front frame section and therefore it is very important to have the engine PROPERLY secured and the stock bolts just are not up to it.
Just tightening up the stock bolts will not do, you have to make sure the bolts fit properly and most are the wrong size allowing the engine to shift and thereby allowing the bolts to be sheared off.

I ride my dual-sport pretty hard out on the trail (I'm 250lbs) and that is where it is mostly ridden and I have ridden it over many whooped out sections of trails with no problems.Whooped out trails tend to beat the daylights out of you but can be fun in short runs but here they seem to go on for hundreds of feet at a time.The whoops are about the only place I can leave my wife behind on her quad or if the trail is very tight she cant keep up.
I've ridden mine so hard that at times I can hear/feel the suspension bottom out so yeah I've used all it has to give (plus I'm a fatty :lol: ) so it can take the abuse but not without some mods and a careful/watchful eye on things.
I'm thinking of changing out the axle bolts as well as the swingarm bolt just for piece of mind though.

Our bikes started snapping/shearing the engine mount bolts very early on and would have caused MAJOR damage if I hadnt changed the bolts over to standard size grade 8 bolts.

My wifes bike had a very loose chain and as I went to adjust it I noticed the lower rear engine bolt was gone which was a major reason for the chain lossening up very fast on her.If it had gotten much looser it could have piled into the engine case causing major damage and most likely a very bad accident for her.

[culcune]

'Teamcheap', you should mention that you are more the exception than the rule. You have taken your bikes down, and built them back up, and have some more insight than the rest of us. Your bike can handle the rougher stuff, because of what you did to it--mine couldn't really handle paved roads!

[TeamCheap]

I popped my first engine bolt just ridding it on paved roads and some fire roads, that is how I found out about those bolts at first but I never knew just how bad they were until I started to take them out for the engine swap and WOW they are just wrong.

The only things I really did were to replace the engine mount bolts, that helped the frame structurally overall and then I moved all the electrical stuff mounted on the outside of the frame inward to make the bike narrower overall which makes it much more comfortable to ride standing up as I do when offroading.
(no more side panels digging into my legs)

Oh yeah I have done a few other things but only......
front fender
front universal headlight
goofy homemade nylon unbreakable side panels :wink:
aluminum handle bars because I wanted REAL barkbusters :lol:
A cheapo after market exhuast (xr200 fitment) that really boosted performance(the aluminum chinese 250cc exhuast should be better/cheaper)
A K&N air filter that works much better than the leaking stock airbox

EDIT
forgot I changed the mirrors to fold-away type

[culcune]

Oh, is that all!!!??? :lol: :lol:

[katoranger]

The engine bolts are probably the biggest issue to overcome and replacing them made a big difference for me also.

I lost the bottom bolt someplace in the north Atlanta burbs. I hadn't ridden any real trails yet then. Just street.

I replaced the bolts before heading off away from home and haven't had to tightened them since. Took me about 2 hours to get them all in place.

I think the newer models coming with the full frame frame under the engine will be better.

I don't jump it either.

Allen

[Jim]

I've ridden my gy5 pretty hard off road too, and that motor mount bolt was the only issue... Just keep up with the maintenance, make sure all bolts are tight, and chain is adjusted....