I get the feeling that CCM initially planned on building a competition bike for various international rallies where 450cc is the maximum allowed. If I'm right that explains both the choice of engine, the high tech frame construction and the fact they will seek you a reusable transport crate come mobile workshop. Speaking with the guys at the HUBBUK they definitely seemed to be pushing the idea of ship the bike out, ride/race in the area, then pack up and ship back and didn't quite grasp the whole ride away from home and keep riding till you get back concept. At least they didn't on the Thursday, by Sunday having had ever single person there sit on their bike, compliment it and then ask how you get the petrol in when you've got luggage on the back, they seemed to have the idea that maybe they'd got more than an international rally bike on their hands and that maybe they'd created the bike many travellers have been crying out for.

They seemed truly amazed first that there was such a community of travellers and secondly at the massive welcome their bike would receive.

This would certainly explain some of the delays while they tweak the engine etc to suit the day in day out built rider and personally despite the fact I'll probably never end up buying one hugely welcome a manufacturer into the fold who seems so eager to listen and learn and not just present us with a product and day there you go this is what we and our marketeers think you lot want and need.

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It's feasible that there could be more than one model if this is how things are going within CCM.
Clews' Competition Machines may have to change the company name!

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Dave

The only titanium valved bike I have experience with is the 07 onwards WR450F. The service schedule says check valve clearances every 3rd race or 500 competition kms and inspect valves every 5th race or 1000 competition kms. That's under the most severe race conditions but if you extend that by a factor of 10 for more casual riding, that would mean removing the head for valve inspection every 10,000km.

Similarly for the G450X the valve clearances should be checked after every 20 hours of operation.

I was not aware the WR250R used titanium valves until your post. The little 250 has a couple of factors in it's favour. The valves are smaller and therefore lighter. I'm sure the cams would have less lift than the race 450s, both of these factors would mean softer valves springs and lower seat pressures, which put less stress on the valves. In addition to this Yamaha or someone else may have discovered some magical valve guide and seat materials which drastically increases valve life.

The early Honda CRF450R/X's had a lot of problems with their titanium valves with some lasting as little as 1000km, partly due to side thrust on the valves caused by poor head geometry. It was common to replace these with aftermarket stainless steel valves.

I have researched a bit about G450X stuff because just the other day I was considering converting a G450X into a cross-continent adventure bike. The G450X has a lot of things I like:
-stainless steel frame
-airbox location
-good suspension
-cheap second hand and most seem to have low km courtesy of gentleman riders
-modern 450cc engine design which has the potential to be very fuel efficient
-linkageless direct acting rear shock
-R&V Aqualine make a 12L front and 8L rear tank taking total capacity to 28L.

The big obstacle with this bike is the engine. For reference here is a cutaway diagram of the engine showing that piston, which looks similar to the piston from a formula 1 engine:


To adventurize the engine I would do the following. Costs are my very rough estimates in US dollars:
- Custom 3 ring piston to give CR of about 10.5:1 $500-$1000
- Custom stainless steel valves $1000+
- regrind standard cams with less duration but same lift $500
- Wide ratio 5 speed transmission from Albins Gears $5000
- MicroSquirt ECU $500
- Oil cooler+ tank to increase capacity to at least 4L, $500
- Rebuild engine with new bearings etc + machining + possibly new barrel - $1000-$2000?
- Dyno time $500

Things like the piston and valves are expensive because a lot of the cost goes into the component design and machine setup. If you are buying 4,6 or 8 pistons the cost is amortized over the lot, so the cost per piston is lower.

As you can see nothing is impossible, it just depends if it is worth the cost. It's a totally different proposition for an OEM who can spec the engine before it is built in quantity, in that case it would be cheaper to build than a standard G450X engine. The big question, is CCM having engines built to their specs, or buying a lot of surplus BMW engines?

Then..... Why would you ????

You'd have to have money to burn for such an exercise.

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

It's a sort of mechanical exploration. You can see the potential but it isn't quite right. People enjoy doing this to all sorts of bikes. You see plenty of Enfields that do exactly what a CB500 would do but cost three times more and are half as reliable. It's as much about getting there and the satisfaction of knowing it is as good as it can be.

As a former afflictee of the condition I can still see the attraction, but yes, the result is still never cost effective or entirely satisfactory. I am now on the path of getting up earlier and riding later rather than trying for an extra 5 HP, jerry cans or more stops rather than modified fuel tanks etc. etc.

Andy

Don't worry Andy, you'll be back to welding two fuel tanks together and reshaping camshafts with an angle grinder before you know it.

Reading Alex's post above, even if CCM have suddenly seen the light and realised that their racer in a crate idea could have a bigger market with a few (ok more than a few) mods, I'd bet real money that they won't do it.

It'll stay as a competition orientated bike full of high maintenance / short life bits - maybe at a pinch something to increase the oil capacity might be done and a few other easy bits like fuel tanks might appear if enough people ask but they won't touch the core parts of the engine and it'll stay in the sales catalogue as a competition machine ie you blow it up, you fix it - we'll sell you the parts.

If they make substantial changes and get it wrong the financial consequences could be terminal (again!). If they're going to sell it as an overland orientated road bike it they'll be pitching it more or less untested into the physically toughest market segment there is. The first few they sell with a 1yr warranty to a bunch of rtw warriors are going to come back in carrier bags 11 months later along with a copy of the sale of goods act.

Aye !!!! There's spending £1000 on exhaust, jetting and sparkles to make your bike your own and then there's spending £10,000+ messing around with higher end engineering which might not even be any better. It will probably make it less reliable. harder to fix and a pain to diagnose.

And I'm well versed on wasting money trying to improve bikes. It's almost never worth the cost. And the more you spend, the even less value you get for your money.

eg. Aftermarket exhaust. £200 with a 5% power increase.

Compare that with polishing your head and ports and swapping around valves and cams and it starts costing £1000's. And you're lucky to get 'that' much more power.

If I had more money than I could spend, i'd do it too. However, for the 99.9% of the rest of us, it just seems a bit daft and a waste of money.

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

I'd still love to see them racing the dakar or being the bike of choice for desert overland holiday companys...

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

Oh I'm sure they could get a few of them round the Dakar course with enough testing and prep - they managed it back in the late 90's with some Rotax engined bikes and it's a world they have some familiarity with. Desert trail holidays might be a good way to test / promote etc At least they'd only be in semi remote areas with some sort of mechanical backup working on a stitch in time basis.

Not sure how attractive it would be to the operators though. They'd be stuck advertising "ride to the edge of survivability on our CCMs" while everyone else was using Hondas. Many (many) years ago I worked at Silverstone circuit. The driving school there got a great deal on MG Maestros (remember them) and they featured in all the "come and drive the circuit" adverts. Brands Hatch were using BMWs. Guess where the punters went.

You could say the same thing about people who buy a brand new 1200GSA


To do this you would have to like swinging the spanners, which I do. I admit it is not for everybody. In fact it is not for 99% of people. I'm confident that if I decide to do it, it will be better, more reliable, and easier for me to fix. I take the view that if you buy a bike with warranty, you are at the mercy of the manufacturer. If you have the means to build your own bike, then you provide your own "warranty", so at least you will know what you're getting

In many ways modification of motorbikes is not as popular as it used to be, and not as popular as modifying cars. Apart from customizing, whether it's Touratech farkles or leather tassles for the Orange County crowd, not many people modify their bikes. Looks at sportsbikes, motocross and competition enduro bikes. Every year they get a little lighter, a little more power, more mass centralized, with improved suspension. There is absolutely no need to modify them because it's impossible to do a better job than the factory. The G450X was designed to be competitive at national enduro level out of the box. All the rider has to do is get the suspension set up to suit his weight and preference, and remove the restrictors that have been added to make t road legal. Stock standard 450 motocross bikes now have so much power and performance that they are too much for club racers to handle, and arguably also for many national level competitors. The same goes for 1000c supersport bikes on the track. The factory performance is so great there is no need to modify.

What about adventure bikes? Is the KLR/DR/XR/XT the pinnacle of 25 years of manufacturer development and evolution? How does BMW get shorter service life out of a final drive bearing than a chain? How about building an engine with 12:1 compression ratio and no knock sensor? Can I do better? I reckon I can.


You are 100% correct. Modifying cars/bikes is a hobby for me. And relatively cheap compared to some other people's hobbies such as boats and horses. Although I always seem to be operating on the edge of my means

I like spannering. I do it every day.. It's my job. And before my job it was my hobby.

I do loads of tinkering and prepping/tuning but I like to keep it value for money.

That's my point really..

I could never justify spending £5000 on a custom gearbox when I could spend that traveling Asia for half a year

__________________
Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

Some people can do both.

I'm not sure what the reason of selecting this engine is. Maybe they got a great deal, maybe they wanted to add the BM branding power, maybe they like to aim at performance more than ADV readiness.

I'm not across the options out there, but I'd trade in performance over other things like better gearing and other things mentioned happily I think.

I recently came across this option the other day.

FX Bikes Mountain Moto World’s Lightest Motorcycles 125lb 125cc 125mpg

It's not an ADV spec bike yet. They're developing one with 600km range, but even then it won't get the vast majority op people excited. This is not for Ruta 40, more for some dotted trail through Asia, or river bids and donkey trails in Africa. I'm at a point now that I'm starting to look for something a bit different to a now typical intercontinental adventure ride. I think more people are too hence this growing interest into smaller bikes.
But the more I started looking into the equipment they selected the more excited and I became. Using a boring old but common as shit engine in something weighing a total of 57kg can produce something exciting (apparently).

This seems to cover the spectrum from hobby to obsession. But I'm with Ted . . . I'd rather have a bit less bike and alot more time (and experiences) riding it than something closer to "driveway jewelry" that may well be either incredible engineering or incredible chrome but doesn't see alot of kms.

At least this ins't like a 600cc sportbike thread where opinions are offered regarding bikes that are all significantly better that the opinion holders. (Well, maybe it's not so different.) But it's clear that one can buy a very nice 600cc sportbike that's a choice of which flavor to you like best. Adventure and dual sport bikes . . . it's closer to the Malcolm Smith days and significant modifications are required for significant challenges.

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Orange, it's the new black.

I'd be much more interested if they planned to introduce a somewhat street-legal model. Would you know anything about that?

I've put my name down for 2, but not sure which 2.

He told me they are currently working on US street legality. Not sure on which model they do that with, but I'm sure it's a tickbox exercise that can transfer across models.

It would make sense to do this with an ADV model rather than a trail model.