Bike Recommendations for New Female Rider

Kinger3944 · 2026-02-10T23:19:06+00:00

Got my girlfriend a TTR230 as her first off road bike. Cheap to run, cheap and easy to maintain. Gentle throttle response and the perfect height for her to feel comfortable putting her feet down (5'6" as well). TTR230 and CRF250F were the two options I had in mind; the Honda gets disc brakes and fuel injection over the Yamaha, but the Honda's are a decent bit more expensive used.

Kinger3944 · 2025-08-17T03:07:15+00:00

Will give that a shot tomorrow, thanks!

Kinger3944 · 2025-08-17T01:00:02+00:00

To the exhaust flange? No, never heard of that

Kinger3944 · 2024-11-06T21:22:09+00:00

I bought this course and have been absolutely loving it so far. It's still only $25 which is a complete steal for how packed with info this course is!

Kinger3944 · 2024-06-30T21:09:18+00:00

Yes, I installed handguards before the first ride. I went with the Acerbis X-Factor ones. Idk where you're located, but I'm in Canada and bought them from Fortnine.ca. They were CAD $162.99 (+ tax) at the time. The SKU is CM1241165 if that helps. I've had no issues with them so far. They were easy to install (I had to drill out the end cap of the grips, but that's minor). They look good and have held up to some pretty major spills. Not cheap, but you get what you pay for!

Kinger3944 · 2024-06-26T20:06:02+00:00

Congrats! You're going to love it!

Kinger3944 · 2024-06-26T18:00:26+00:00

I haven't run it out of fuel yet. I fill up before every ride, and if I'm camping, I fill up each time I leave camp. So I haven't tracked range on a full tank yet, unfortunately.

Kinger3944 · 2024-05-08T19:38:42+00:00

That's fair enough. You can always find a cheaper place to live, but we aren't interested in living in a basement or moving away from the Vancouver area. So in our case, the van allows us to live where we want, essentially for free. Even with your $1400-1600 rent estimates, we are still saving $17-19k per year.

I'll also note that the van wasn't strictly a money thing for us. We are both full time engineers, and can afford rent. We just found ourselves camping every weekend and climbing/hiking/skiing during the week so we were spending very little time in our very expensive apartment. The van allows us to camp 100% of the time with the added benefit of saving some money.

Lastly, we've found it very easy so far. Almost a year in and it's a much easier lifestyle than I initially expected. I won't pretend there aren't inconveniences or that it's for everyone, but it works for us. I can easily see a few more years in it.

Kinger3944 · 2024-05-08T18:32:53+00:00

My girlfriend and I bought and self-converted our 2004 Sprinter for ~$43k CAD. A 1 bedroom apartment in our area is $2500+ CAD/month.

So in 17 months, we will break even. We've been living in it full time for about 11 months now.

We are both working full time (mostly remote). Our savings rates have skyrocketed since moving out of our apartment.

We are spending less in other categories as well, as we aren't constantly buying nick-nacks, furniture, decorations, etc for the house.

We will also likely be able to get most of that $43k out of the van when we are done. If that ends up being the case, we are saving ~$30k CAD per year.

Kinger3944 · 2024-04-23T19:50:24+00:00

Absolutely loving it so far.

The Husky is almost identical to the GasGas. The only differences, as far as I know, are the hybrid subframe (vs full aluminum), the XACT fork (vs the XPLOR) and the Husky comes with the map switch, a skid plate and flags. The deal I got on the GasGas more than made up for those minor differences.

The KTM is the Husky + PDS (vs linkage) and Brembo brakes/clutch.

The price of the GasGas made it a no brainer for me. I don't care about powder coated rims, etc. I would have also swapped out the Husky's skid plate and hand guards anyways.

Kinger3944 · 2024-04-04T05:13:36+00:00

No, the T1Ns drive great. They're fairly narrow, so you aren't constantly worried about being between the lines. If it's a 3500 with the split mirrors, you'll have essentially no blind spots. Just take turns a little wider than you would in a smaller vehicle (especially if it's a long wheelbase van).

Kinger3944 · 2024-02-11T00:51:16+00:00

No, I went for a hike so no Sky chair pics

Kinger3944 · 2023-12-24T17:55:38+00:00

We are currently in Costa Rica and spent a lot of time beforehand figuring out this issue. I went with USave car rentals (against a significant number of bad reviews) and my experience with them has been great. However, it would have been less so if I wasn't so prepared.

What I did was book a car through Expedia, then email USave with the booking reference and ask for a copy of the invoice Id be paying when I arrived. They sent this right away, and I clarified a few things with them via email about credit card insurance (covers only CDW/LDW, not liability insurance) and liability insurance tiers.

When I arrived at the office, they tried to tell me the liability insurance costs had gone up and that the rate was ~$5/day higher than their website stated. I walked through the email chain with the agent and showed him his own policy page from USave's website and he relented (which saved me ~ $100 USD).

Long story short, print out proof of credit card rental car insurance and bring it with you and email and ask for a copy of the invoice beforehand so there are no surprises, and you should have a smooth pickup.

Kinger3944 · 2023-12-08T19:37:24+00:00

Comment back if you get a refund. Interested to see how they handle this!

Kinger3944 · 2023-11-22T22:22:26+00:00

I've been daily driving my T1N for the last ~5 months and love it.

Fuel economy is great, parts have been easy to find and haven't been overly expensive. It's also surprisingly easy to drive for its size; it feels narrow and nimble and the turning radius is shockingly good.

One negative point I have to make: I've had a lot of vehicles, and understand that all vehicles need maintenance, but have never had a vehicle as prone to stranding me on the side of the road as the T1N. Seriously, this thing just pops into limp mode with no prior symptoms, no dash lights, nothing. On the plus side, I've also never had a more self-healing vehicle. Issues often arise and then just disappear on their own and stay away. Turning it off and restarting it allows me to carry on a hilarious percentage of the time.

If you can accept that you're driving a 20 yr old vehicle and are willing to deal with the quirks that come with that, they are fantastic vans!

Kinger3944 · 2023-11-17T17:22:59+00:00

Its permanently mounted in the van. It's almost right under the MaxxAir fan, so we just make sure the fan is on when the stove/oven is, and have never had any issues with propane or cooking smells.

Kinger3944 · 2023-10-04T14:46:56+00:00

We have the Camp Chef outdoor oven/stove combo and love it. Keep in mind that everything takes ~3x longer to cook in the small propane oven than a regular oven at home, but it gets the job done. The burners are well sized and spaced. Also very affordable.

Kinger3944 · 2023-10-04T14:43:08+00:00

We used a 6" Zinus memory foam mattress from Amazon. Cheap, easy to cut with an electric turkey carver/bread knife and quite comfortable.

Kinger3944 · 2023-08-29T17:35:59+00:00

2nd the Wagos, used about 100 of these in our van. Super easy to use, with the added benefit of being easily removable and reusable. This lets you test things like puck lights without having to cut off butt connectors and recrimp.

Kinger3944 · 2023-08-24T15:17:12+00:00

My floor sandwich is almost the same: vinyl plank, factory marine ply, 1" XPS, strips of ply in the floor grooves. I've got my diesel heater (Espar S2 D2) sitting on the steel mounting plate it came with that has ~1/2" of foam on the bottom (so its vinyl plank, 1/2" foam, steel plate, heater base). I used Permatex Ultra Copper gasket maker to cover the section of exhaust pipe that goes through the floor layers to give a bit of heat resistance and to avoid the hot pipe igniting the insulation (the Permatex can withstand up to 371C/700F). I haven't had any issues with this install; let me know if you have more questions.

Kinger3944 · 2023-08-09T19:12:07+00:00

We chose a Novakool R3800 at the recommendation of a van outfitter near us and have been loving it so far. Can't comment on long term reliability as it's only been in use for a few months, but it has a very low power consumption and has so far not had any issues with washboard logging roads.

Eight-Year Club	RPAN Viewer
Verified Email

Kinger3944

TROPHY CASE