Hi,
I've been looking through the posts for a while, but have only found a partial answer to my question:

I'm pretty sure I'd like a 250CC dual purpose bike for travel through Africa/Asia and street jaunts in the US. Without even starting to look at the pros and cons of the specific offerings, is there any reason I should prefer one manufacturer over the other? For example, for overlanding with cars/4wds, I understand that Africa is broadly speaking been more Land Rover territory, while Toyota Land Cruisers are more common in Asia. So at the time I looked into this it was argued that Land Rovers would be easier to fix in Africa than a Land Cruiser and vice versa. Do similar distinctions hold for 250CC machines, and do they matter? Which manufacturer has the largest retail/repair network in Africa/Asia? Are some brands easier to fix than others? Does one manufacturer have unusually short service-intervals, etc?

I know these are fairly broad distinctions, and the differences might be only marginal. But since I'm still on the market for a bike, I figure I should take them into account.

More specifically, I'm looking at a fairly standard list of suspects. In no particular order:

TTR250
Djebel 250XC
XT250
XR250L

While I like the added punch of the TTR250 and the Djebel, at least the TTR250 has street-legality issues in the US. If you had to choose for a trip to Africa, which would it be?

Thanks, fab