ChinaV's Galaxy XTR250 & TGR250!

[ChinaV]

Not to hijack this but i have not seen an update from Franki(or I missed it). Have you heard how the bike is holding up?

I did receive a couple emails from Franki and he is currently in Cambodia. He said the bike is working fine and he will post some info as soon as he returns from the big tour.

[ChinaV]

In a couple weeks, Felix, myself, and one of our new members here, twowheelsRTW, will head to Yunnan and Sichuan on XTR's. I had asked about the "adventure edition" of the XTR when I originally purchased my bike, unfortunately that project is still not completed and only franki gets the good stuff....so I decided to go it alone and make my own.

First thing I did was head over to Galaxy to request (beg) for any of the parts that were on the bike franki has, nothing available. They did have one adventure edition bike that was being sent to the Canton fair, so I grabbed a couple pics for inspiration.





Joining me was the famous Pfaelzer, or Mr. JH600 as I call him. If you're not familiar, read his thread here. That guy knows how to farkle.



The good people at Galaxy (John, Lydia & Tiger) were quite happy to relieve us of some cash. Pfaelzer grabbed an XTR for a friend, and I purchased one for twowheelsRTW. Thanks to everyone at the factory for the good deal and preparing the bikes quickly.

So... here I sit, with three XTR's in the garage and 14 days left to turn them into touring machines. I'm not going to go step by step, but I will try to share the parts, time and cost involved in the project. I have pointed it out before that the XTR is a great dirt bike, it just needs a little help making it a good streetbike as well.

First thing on my list was sorting out the gearing which is not easy. The bike comes stock with 13 teeth in the front, 41 teeth in the rear and a 520 chain. Pass 75kph and things get painful. To fix this, one would usually add a tooth up front or subtract some teeth in the rear.

Front Sprocket: Adding a tooth not really possible without grinding away a good portion of your sprocket cover. It's also difficult to find a good 520/14 tooth with splines that fit nice and tight on the output shaft.

Rear Sprocket: Galaxy has some super sexy hubs that don't appear to match the bolt pattern of any manufacturer I could find. If someone knows different, please share with us. I have tried the 39 tooth and it helps a little, but it's still painful over 80kph. My requests for 37 and 35 tooth sprockets from Galaxy were ignored because "that's not what we buy". Maybe they should think about it, as some people would prefer taller gearing for street use.

So then I thought, why not convert to 428 chain? If I buy a good quality 428 chain in Hong Kong, it will easily outlast even the best offerings from any of the local manufacturers in China that have 520 chain. Many days later, I finally pieced this together.

Here is a photo showing the 520/14 (Back) 428/17 (Middle) 520/13 (Front)



This is how you convert to 428:

Front sprocket: Get a 17 tooth, you can find this in almost any parts market in China as 428 is popular and a lot of engines using the Honda design have the same splines on the output shaft.

Rear Sprocket: Galaxy also sells 125cc dirt bike,s and they come with 428 chain. Get a 48 or 49 tooth from Galaxy or whomever sells the parts in your region.

Chain: Tough to find a good 428 chain in China, so I ordered some D.I.D. 428V Professional Series O-Ring Chains from Sanwa in Hong Kong. They stock 144 links, which is good because you will need about 140 to make this work.

So there you have it, drivetrain sorted out for about $75.00 USD. With proper maintenance, should last a good long time and the lighter weight should help the 233cc engine. 90-100kph is smooth as silk, and the bike still has plenty of power to pull at lower speeds. Top speed via GPS is 120kph.

More to come...

Cheers!
ChinaV

[Pfaelzer]

Hi ChinaV,

thanks for finally making me famous.... We will pick-up the new XTR tomorrow. Next week to Fuzhou. Guess my friend up there will ride it around first and decide then if he needs your chain set-up. I'll send this thread-link to him.

Thanks, AW.

[Franki]

ChinaV,

Show us your new work on the Wonderful pennier case and frame. I am sure many will be interested.

Cheers,

Franki

[ChinaV]

Ok, the luggage....

Luggage is one of those thing that can stir up some serious debate among motorcyclists. Just like cruisers vs sport-bikes, everyone has an opinion on why one may be better than the other. Personally, I don't care what you ride or what you store your stuff in, as long as you're out there enjoying it and posting the adventures on MCM. I will share a bit of personal experience with a couple different options I have tried, maybe it will help some of you decide how you want to carry your wife's shoes on the next big adventure.

My first "adventure bike" back in 1989. Heading out on a twenty thousand mile, three month tour of the USA. I used soft luggage on that trip and it performed beautifully.



Soft luggage is much less expensive than hard, and usually doesn't require any fancy mounting hardware. This is nice, as you can easily transfer it to a new bike without having to shell out more money. Same luggage...different bike.



Soft luggage, what I like:
Easy and economical to purchase.
Lightweight and holds vast amounts of stuff.
Universal mounting.
Can take serious amounts of vibration and pounding roads, rarely falls off.

Soft luggage, what I don't like:
Usually needs rain covers.
No locks to keep your stuff safe.
Time consuming to mount and unmount every day.

Hard luggage is what a lot of people are talking about these days. There seems to be two big arguments raging out there. Plastic vs Aluminum and Top vs Side entry.

Aluminum:
I have not owned aluminum top mounts yet, although I have ridden and camped with several people that have Touratech and the BMW boxes. Franki makes aluminum boxes and Pfaelzer mentioned finding some other ones here in China that were not quite as good as the ones he purchased from Franki. Importing a set from Europe or America will cost you almost as much as the boxes because the shipping volume is so high. I don't know the price of the aluminum boxes here in China, but I'm guessing they are above $500 USD, and that does not include the mounting system. I can see the benefits of top loading when you're out camping, you don't need to pull all your gear out just to grab the camp stove. But if you're staying in hotels, I think side loading cases are just as easy, as most people use insert bags with both styles.

Here is a beautiful setup made by Franki and fully detailed in Pfaelzer's JH600 thread. (picture stolen from AW)



Aluminum, what I like:
Looks awesome.
Easy packing.
Good strength to weight ratio.
Lockable

Aluminum, what I don't like:
Tends to cover your stuff in black soot unless you use insert bags.
Very bulky.
Bends under heavy impact.
Expensive & difficult to obtain in China.
Mounting systems are complicated and expensive.

Plastic:
Most OEM luggage is plastic because it's easy to mold and the unit cost is quite low. It also lets designers get creative with shape and style, thus making things look a bit nicer. I have used BMW plastic panniers and I just bought a Concours in the US which comes from the factory with plastic luggage. They look pretty good and usually hold up well through low speed crashes and tip-overs.



Remember, not all plastic is created equal. The shiny painted stuff is usually very brittle and will crack easy. The textured stuff isn't as pretty, but it's more flexible so it will withstand some serious abuse.

When I purchased my V-Strom, I wanted to get some fancy luggage, but there was no way I could justify the freight charges from Europe or America. I started thinking of options, and one thing I kept coming across in various online forums was Caribou and Pelican luggage. People were adapting these to a wide variety of bikes, and they had become so popular, even big name luggage companies were offering rack kits for mounting the cases. What really got me interested was the fact that many people claimed they were much more rugged than aluminum. I discussed this with Supersignet and he remembered seeing some in the Guangzhou photography market. So off we went to have look.

We discovered a brand of box called "Wonderful" (Wandefu) http://www.gd-wandefu.com/ that sells a huge variety of boxes all over China and abroad. The quality is world class and the prices are about $125 USD per box depending on the size. These were exactly what I was looking for, so I ordered a set of SW-Motech racks from the US and purchased a set of boxes for my V-Strom. You can read the whole story on stromtrooper.com





Plastic, what I like:
Inexpensive and easy to find in China.
Very Tough
Lockable
Many sizes, shapes and colors.

Plastic, what I don't like:
A little bulky.
Mounting systems are complicated.
The rugged stuff is a bit heavy.

What's all that have to do with my Galaxy XTR250? Well, I need luggage for an upcoming trip and I wanted to see if I could make something similar to what I have on my V-Strom. I got it working, now I just need to make the mounting brackets look nice as I used giant chunks of aluminum block during the design stage.

Here is the bike with Wonderful PC-4618 cases mounted.



The mounting system I made does not come off easily, but it is very strong. I'm standing on the cases, not the brackets. That's 71 kilos, with flip flops.



I started with basic drawings.



And then used styrofoam for the early concepts.



I Learned a lot, but still have some more cutting and polishing to do before I show all of the details of the system. When I'm done, it will be an "open source" project that anyone can use for their Galaxy or maybe adapt to some of the other Chinese motos. You will be shocked at how cheap this whole system was... ballpark figure for everything is less than $350.00 USD.

Cheers!
ChinaV

[kingdm54]

I want to thank you all now for doing all the R&D for us folks that have not bought this bike yet. When I get ready to put mine together this summer i will not have to work as had lol..You guys rock and I hope someday I get a chance to meet and ride with some of you.

Darren.

[Franki]

That is great report ChinaV. Keep them coming.

When are you going to Yunnan? May be our XTRs can bump into your XTR?

[Pfaelzer]

HI ChinaV,

great report on luggage and I agree, each system has advantages and disadvantages. One question: The Wonderful PC-4618, are these the same than you are having on the V-Strom? They look a bit bigger on the picture. If not, which model number are those?

Greetings, AW.

[euphonius]

If I remember correctly, ChinaV told me he used different size boxes on the Weeeee. width and length are the same, but a deeper box on the left side, and shallower on the right to accommodate the tail pipe. the overall width is symmetrical.

smart approach!

[moilami]

Awesome thread again in this forum, you guys rule big time. I like very much of this DIY approach to motorbiking.

I have paid the pre-ordering fee (grammar?) of my XTR 250f 1st of February to a Finnish importer, and I am still waiting for the bike. The last news of the bike is that it is in the ship on the way to Finland. Hird's thread freaked me, but thanks to your engineering spirit I have regained hope and will try to adapt the same spirit, working on for solutions instead of falling to misery.

You guys have true enduro motorbiking attitude and set an example for the rest of us to follow. Thanks of that.