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-   -   Ownership Review | KTM Adventure 250 (https://www.team-bhp.com/forum/motorbikes/256060-ownership-review-ktm-adventure-250-a-8.html)

33,000+ kms in 2 years is great riding (I remember your comment on my first post which said you'd taken delivery of your bike exactly one year before mine). My bike will turn one year old on 25th and I've managed only about 14,000 kms. Got the Hyperrider saddle stays installed over the weekend:

Yeah, I got the bike delivered on 25th Jan and it will complete two years in a couple of days. The 33000+ Km is more done in a year or so as I was in China/Vietnam for almost a year in between. I hope to cover much more distance on the 250 if work allows me to do so. Also, 14000 km in one year is not bad at all.

How are the hyperrider accessories holding up and has the quality improved?

Since your number plate is a HSRP, how did you install the number plate protector? Have you done it during the installation stage itself or later?

I will assume that this question is directed towards me. I had installed the number plate protector in the ADV 250 from the start itself but it can be also done later like I have done in the Hornet 160. In that later stage, the original rivets need to be removed and it needs to be reassembled with new rivets or with nuts and bolts.

Just upgraded to KTM adventure 390 SW rear suspension (part no. JG122073) and Apollo tramplr XR 140/70-R17 (rear only). And the character of the bike has completely changed to the extent that I would say that these upgrades should be on top priority. Be it adventure 250/390 standard versions, the SW suspension is a must on the list, since the standard suspension used to give jerks on bad roads. And the stock MRF tyre on 250 adv was not confidence-inspiring in certain situations. The tyre change to Apollo tramplr XR is worth every penny and it has given a new character to the bike along with the rear suspension.

So after doing 4000 KM+ on Reise tourR out of which 400km+ will be on random trails, I can confidently say that these are great tyre up to the point that I can recommend people to switch to these from the start and not wait for MRF meteors to wear out which anyway will take a long time due to their hard compound.

The reason I did not go for Maxxis Maxxplore or Apollo Tramplr is that they only come in 140/70 17 size which will lead to lesser side wall height and slightly shorter gearing. But these are again good tyres if one is okay with playing around with the tyre size.

Exactly, and one shouldn't wait for the MRF meteors to wear out (especially the rear one). Thanks for your confident input as I was looking for recommendation for the front tyre as Tramplr XR has no suitable tyre size for KTM adventure. Though with an upsize rear tyre with lesser side wall height, I am in awe of the performance of the Tramplr XR after coming from the MRF meteor. And combining it with the SW adjustable rear suspension (mentioning it again since I am quite impressed), it has become the comfortable tourer. Just test ride the SW model to experience the rear suspension and if you tour a lot on your bike, it may be useful to you.

Yes I have test rode the SW model as well as others who have put the adjustable rear suspension on normal ADV. I will use get the adjustable one incase my rear goes kaput again.

But I have no problem with the stiffer sportier feel of the stock suspension and have done multiple 1000km+ roads and 200km+ trails in a single day rides without any pain/problems anywhere.

I will recommend the adjustable suspension to all who all who prefers a little bit of comfort side.

Got a set of Hella trumpet horns installed with a relay on Friday. Intended use is to warn heavier vehicles on the highways when they suddenly swerve into my lane. Works well for that. This is the first electrical "accessory/mod" on this bike.

16,700 odd kms now, and had the chain sprocket set and rear wheel bearing changed. Did a 400kms ride yesterday and noticed some sound coming from the bike post which I took it to the SVC today. Bill was approx Rs. 4,000. Want to change the front sprocket to 15T but KTM didn't have it in stock. Will look elsewhere.

4th service is coming up in May and I'll probably get some fog lights installed before that (fellow riders keep complaining that I'm barely noticeable in their mirrors on the highways).

Which rear sprocket is that? It looks different from the stock one and feels like would be heavier due to lesser number of cut-outs.

Part no. JY551240 from KTM's own bin. I believe it's from the Duke 250

Another day another service!

So the seventh service was done at 40082 km. It would have been done a couple of weeks ago if not for work travels.



As planned stuck to Pakelo oil which holds its smoothness till around 5km. After that, the engine hints towards oil change. Let's see for how long it lasts the second time.

Now I have started to get more into trail riding and this is the condition of the air filter at the time of service.



This filter was changed 3000 km before and this is the previous filter.



I plan to get the Way2Speed filter once they launch it for KTM. This is one of the few filters in the market that don't require re-oiling after cleaning and can be cleaned via pressurized air.

Now coming to a major expense i.e the clutch plates. The mechanic in the first 10 meters of test riding the vehicle said that the clutch plates were gone. The clutch slips in the initial RPM and then engages. As soon as the mechanic said my friend who had rode my bike while returning from the breakfast ride confirmed the same. This went unnoticed by me due to the slow nature of wear and me attributing the loss of pickup in lower gear due to the slightly longer gearing because of the 45 teeth rear sprocket.

The mechanic got a dominant clutch assembly as KTM sells each component of the clutch assembly which tends to get more expensive compared to the whole clutch assembly sold by Bajaj.



I wondered why KTM sells individual parts instead of the whole clutch assembly. Even the service manual confirms the same. This led to me checking individual components to see if they needed replacement. The service manual is for Adventure 390 and I am assuming the same parameters apply to the 250 also.



The specification for the spring-free length is to be greater or equal to 50mm. All of them are in the 46.7 mm range justifying their replacement.







The next item will be the pressure discs. One of them had discoloration due to excessive heat and a couple of others had scoring marks.







One of the friction plates seemed to have uneven wear which is not so clearly seen in the picture.





So overall replacing the whole clutch assembly makes sense as figuring out which components are worn out is a tedious task.

The next service item is changing the cone set and upgrading the aux lights. This will probably get done in the next month or so.

Here are some random pics of the bike at random places.

Do you mean Dominar assembly?

Cheers, Doc

Yes. Damn Autocorrect!

But looking at the current rate my 250 ADV will have all "dominant" 390 ADV/Dominar parts soon :D. It already runs 45 teeth rear sprocket and clutch assembly.

I am very satisfied with the highway performance of the HJG KZ-30 lights. However, due to the headlight being fixed on the ADV the spread from the H4 led projector bulb is not enough to cover the corner in twisties. This led to the wild hunt for the best possible second set of spread aux lights to aid the KZ-30 in hyper-spot mode.

There is this excellent video by Diode Dynamics explaining the major LED optics.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HfRWoWJhcfM
From this video, one can see that forward-facing reflectors are not the best in terms of throw. They have a lot of light bleeds and don't have a sharp cut-off line. The answer to having a proper spread is to have projector optics.

Now ideally I would have wanted to light which has both spread and spot functions in one package. It is the HJG-16 model (231209 as per their Alibaba page)
https://www.alibaba.com/product-deta...67387728i2XuGI

This is the low beam spread pattern taken from the above website.



And here is the spot beam.



Here are some videos showing its real-world performance:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FfndezG4ECs&t=3s

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AxfZ7porQLA

But the problem seems to be that this model does not seem to be in stock anywhere. I even contacted the Chinese people to help out. But it looks like HJG only produces whatever sells and as there might not be enough demand for this one they don't plan to make this further.

The other option is the HJG-124 model.

https://www.alibaba.com/product-deta...67387728i2XuGI

But the low beam pattern brightness tapers off at the corner edges.



And the high beam spot is more of a spread rather than a spot.



This behavior can also be seen in the real-world video here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Th3v1kzrlQ&t=366s

Hence decided to continue the search for the HJG-16 model. After a deeper dive, I was able to find something similar optics namely the HJG-21 model

https://sarkkart.com/shop-2/riding-g...er-collection/

This model is also on the HJG Alibaba website with a rated power of 36 watts:
https://www.alibaba.com/product-deta...6808609a8SDFO5

From a deeper dive, I was able to find a video where both HJG-16 and 22 models are shown.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lu1M-xK10p8

This confirmed that the low-beam optics are the same albeit with lower power. The high beam spot has slightly different optics and is much weaker compared to the HJG-16 model.

Anyway as this was the only option available I decided to place the order and upon receiving checked its power consumption. It consumes around 17.25 Watts if the low beam is on and if both low+high beams are turned on simultaneously then around 22 Watts.



This means these could be turned on using the Maddog harness which is already installed. The total power consumption will be 30+30+22+22=104 Watts. ( If the KZ-30 consumes 30 watts. It could be lower than that). The Maddog harness has a 10amp fuse so it should be able to do 120 watts. So this is exactly what I did. Here is how it looks post-installation.





Now coming to performance, this is how the H4 led projector bulb looks in total dark conditions.



One can see the frame edges are not illuminated very well.



This is how it looks with only the aux lights on and the headlight switched off.



The frame edges are illuminated much better with a proper cut-off line. The KZ-30 is also on and in spot mode.

Finally, this is how it looks when the headlight as well aux lights are on.



Now the next steps will be to head twisties in the night to check these out thoroughly and make any changes that are required.



During the last service, it was apparent that the cone set needed replacement. It was not done during the service due to lack of time. Finally got the time to get it done. The condition of the bearing was very bad and it's a good thing I did not push the replacement further.








After the clutch placement replacement, I noticed the clutch pull lever had become harder which could be due to newer springs. But I was getting the feeling that the clutch cable had also gone bad. When the cone set was being worked upon the damage to the cable as well the motouren neck brace was noticed and the clutch cable was promptly replaced.








The clutch lever torsion spring has also broken which was also replaced.




After fitting the new clutch cable the clutch cable pull has become much lighter. But I remember the 250 clutch pull to be even more lighter. I plan to do a pull test on another 250 as well as get the exact 250 clutch spring part numbers to see if they are the same as 390 or not.