Maintenance & Technical > KX500 Original

typical gearing for a desert/trail sled?

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ShanMan:
OK, I just bought the Steahly 14 oz. flywheel weight, and the Moose reed spacer. Currently I am running stock gearing. I don't need 90+ mph capability. What kind of gearing changes (if any) would be a good match for producing the most tractable, [ick]four strokish[ick] power in order to make the bike even better at moderate speeds on tighter, more technical single track but still allow some KX500-famous open class blasting? TIA!  :P

Rick:
I am preparing for a couple of upcoming woods races, including a two-day ISDE qualifier, so have been riding in the tight trees.  Yesterday, we ran up to the higher elevations, and hit snow.  We were running on 12 inch wide trails, on side hills with as much as 500 foot drop with at least a 70 degree down hill angle. :shock:   I was running second and third gear, and run stock gearing for this type of woods riding.

The day before (Saturday), we spent 6 hours in desert blasting big sand washes, and high speed whooped out trail.  Since I am lazy, and know I have a few woods races coming up, I just left on the stock gearing (14/47), and did just fine.

In a nut shell, in my oppinion, stock gearing should work for both the desert and in the woods.  I tried a 14/49 once, and just could not keep the front end on the ground in trees.  The front end kept coming up and throwing me off balance.

My vote: stock

Rick

ShanMan:
awesome, Thank you for the reply Rick. That just means more time riding and less time wrenching..which is nice!  :D

Paul:
I use two sets of gears:

14/47 for 99% of my riding
15/45 for 1% of my racing

I use those 15/45 gears twice a year and the speed is absolutely incredible on this machine. All I can say at that speed "Hope ya gotta dampner" :lol:

sdkx500:
:oops:  :oops:

So after all the gearing talk I went and looked at mine which I havent changed since i bought it last year.  It appears I am running 14/53.  Hmmm no wonder I had such wheelie problems.  I changed the pipe, spacer, but avoided the obvious gearing.  I know on the old forum Rick gave his opinon and research on which chains and gears to purchase.  Would you repost that Rick?


Thanks

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