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