G650X – Front ABS Ring – Wheels Swap – Tyres

“To get it right – you have to have it right” – With the aging and old bikes the challenge has remained for me to find the parts on this old BMW G650 XCountry.

The good part is, the parts can be found if you are able to source the matching bikes.
I swapped the original wheel sets of 19/17″ by selling the bike and getting one of the Walter Colebatch collections with 21/18″ wheels. I prefered to have the X Country than the X Challenge due to the taller height but it does make a huge difference in your leaning confidence.

Well, later to my own learnings – I found that 19/17″ serves you a better companion if you don’t have the true off-road situations and prefer to stick to originals. Over an year of wait for someone to sell me the set, I eventually found one in Belgium.

Finally, A full set

Just a missing front ABS Ring on the Front

And a full set of the rear setup

Knowing that the wheels are sorted out and the search to find the missing ABS ring on the front wasn’t a huge challenge although my search took me to the forums and the much known fb group for XCountry. Helpful peeps – It came out that the front ABS ring is same as the much known other BMW bikes as F650/F700/C650/G650 so, it was a quick hunch through the Ebay and found one in EBay DE – the seller agreed to dispatch it right away.

Ebay donated – G650X ABS Ring Front

The next set of work item was to get the right matching pair to knock off the distance and journeys with. For me it wouldnt have taken long to keep the same pair of Mitas E08, for road going bike but the options get interesting. I shelled out an extra hundred and decided this time to order the Michelin Anakee Adventures.
The front being a 19″ – the tyre size comes in at 100/90/19 and the rear of 17″ asks for 130/80/17, an original combo over my second pair that now will be a spare to store.

The interesting pattern of 80/20 on road/off-road while the ask winters shall suffice with the tread and hopefully the summer leanings will be enjoyable around the Alpine curves.

I now wait to put it all together and have the final ride ready.

BMW G650 XCountry – Bar Raisers

Story continues…. 
I acquired the bar raisers while I have been digging them around from the people who still have parts or selling parts from their old ineherited X bikes.
On a recent trip to NL, I was lucky to find a donor and it was very interesting, landing up at someone house at the middle of night and going through their stash of X treasure. Is kind of thing, you won’t do at all in normal cases but there is nothing normal in my case ever.

I managed to grab a bit more than just the bar raisers, in this case a much desired a metal bar for the handlebar, and a sensor, if I may ever need it again, who knows, these parts become more of rare ones to find with time. I didn’t know what I was getting into when I bought this bike but this has been ever increasing investment ever since.

Wunderlich Bar Raisers

BMW old treasure

Along the process, of acquiring these parts, I also become friends with the donor, in this case the circle of friendships continue along its journey.

So as my donor(now a new friend), mentioned it to me – I may need adjustment with the routing of the throttle cable, I have not needed it but I plan to do this in future. I was able to add the bar raisers fairly without much struggle.

Photos below: fairly a simply swap, so far

Original – Before

Original height

Sideview

Opened the original one

Wünderlich Raisers in place

Another angle, the height difference

Change of height

But something that was mentioned above – the re-routing of the throttle cable is required. I realized this only, when the bar was completed turned towards the right side, this increase the throttling on its own. I didn’t experience any issues while riding since, such turns are never possible unless you are in the sad part of unavoidable crash! I leave this to the next time when I will have to completely remove the airbox. I will combine this with the next big work when all plastics needs to come off.