Dual-sport: Mini edition

McQueen216 · 12-27-2022, 05:28 PM

Over at (this) thread, a sidebar discussion broke out over using tiny Chinese street bikes as a basis for dual-sport… stupidness. Rather than continue to keep it there as an under-current, I thought it worthwhile to bring it here. Stupid ideas merit sunshine.

What happens when you snatch up a… Lifan KP Mini, spend the winter playing mad scientist with it, and set out for… summer adventures on the nearest BDR? Or you stumble into a Kymco Spade, add kit to it, and decide to ride it like the scrambler it was never meant to be.

I own one fantastic, glorious street bike for all-around city life - a T100. I also have a new-to-me this year ‘73 CB350 that is going to… take a couple of years to get it to where I want it, even with the great shape it’s in now (it was a great find). I have visions of fire roads and am… maybe 15 miles from where one ends. Like others, I could try to make one of these bikes work; I could swap out one of these for something that would be ideally suited; or, I could try to find something with a low enough pain threshold that I could also add it to the stable and maintain peace in the house eg not a new ‘22 KLR.

I live at… oh… let’s call it 1’. WABDR goes to 7300? It’s one of the easiest, most gentle BDR routes out there. Idaho, Utah, Nevada, a weeeee bit of southern CA… and BLM land all over the PacNW. There’s a lot to do that starts up here, from good ideas to really dumb ideas.

And lots of other folks have done things with these bikes already - in the US and around the world. The Spade 150 has a popular counterpart outside the US, the A.I.R 150. The Honda Trail is… seen everywhere. The Grom is… popular. The Benelli TNT is a clone of the… Kawasaki? The CFMoto Papio is also a clone of… something.
If I could find a Spade for little money - I’d probably start that project now. If Venom drop-shipped a KP Mini to my door and said, we want to see you do this… I would make a carb setup work, I suppose.

What would your project entail. Where would your priorities be. What would you need to make this successful? How would you look to use it.
Stupid ideas welcome.

12-27-2022, 05:28 PM	#1
McQueen216 Join Date: Aug 2022 Posts: 217	Dual-sport: Mini edition Over at (this) thread, a sidebar discussion broke out over using tiny Chinese street bikes as a basis for dual-sport… stupidness. Rather than continue to keep it there as an under-current, I thought it worthwhile to bring it here. Stupid ideas merit sunshine. What happens when you snatch up a… Lifan KP Mini, spend the winter playing mad scientist with it, and set out for… summer adventures on the nearest BDR? Or you stumble into a Kymco Spade, add kit to it, and decide to ride it like the scrambler it was never meant to be. I own one fantastic, glorious street bike for all-around city life - a T100. I also have a new-to-me this year ‘73 CB350 that is going to… take a couple of years to get it to where I want it, even with the great shape it’s in now (it was a great find). I have visions of fire roads and am… maybe 15 miles from where one ends. Like others, I could try to make one of these bikes work; I could swap out one of these for something that would be ideally suited; or, I could try to find something with a low enough pain threshold that I could also add it to the stable and maintain peace in the house eg not a new ‘22 KLR. I live at… oh… let’s call it 1’. WABDR goes to 7300? It’s one of the easiest, most gentle BDR routes out there. Idaho, Utah, Nevada, a weeeee bit of southern CA… and BLM land all over the PacNW. There’s a lot to do that starts up here, from good ideas to really dumb ideas. And lots of other folks have done things with these bikes already - in the US and around the world. The Spade 150 has a popular counterpart outside the US, the A.I.R 150. The Honda Trail is… seen everywhere. The Grom is… popular. The Benelli TNT is a clone of the… Kawasaki? The CFMoto Papio is also a clone of… something. If I could find a Spade for little money - I’d probably start that project now. If Venom drop-shipped a KP Mini to my door and said, we want to see you do this… I would make a carb setup work, I suppose. What would your project entail. Where would your priorities be. What would you need to make this successful? How would you look to use it. Stupid ideas welcome.
	0