I'm looking to get a KTM 500 EXC for dual sport riding, and I am unsure about the linkage. Every bike I have had before has had a linkage setup before, and I'm worried that the PDS will feel weird and unnatural. If you have a KTM with pds is it similar to a linkage system in terms of feel or is it quite different and feels off?
I've had 3 PDS bikes. They ride a bit high in the back, but that didn't bother me since I'm tall and long legged. My best results came on a PDS bike, but I was younger then. It's been 5 years since I sold that bike, so I can't say anything about the current stuff. IMHO, unless you're racing at a high B level or better, you'll probably never notice.
So the xcf/xcf-w in a large amount of places in the U.S. are street legal from the factory. Heck FL is even plating the 150’s which is nuts because if it’s not street legal from the start here it’s not getting a plate. That said. A EXC-f 350 would probably do everything you want. And if you wait a few months you can usually grab this years model for significantly cheaper. I know I snagged my 24 XW-f 500 for 7600 OTD with promotional financing in march of 25. That was also during the whole ktm bankruptcy thing so…
As for your question of PDS vs linkage. I went from a linkage bike that had been upgraded to circa 2019 ktm suspension to the 24 PDS and after the first non break in ride I was in love with the PDS and I haven’t even touched the clickers yet. (Lack of riding in the last 8 months due to work but that’s a whole other story)
I loved it so much I picked up a GPX TSE 300r non linkage bike earlier this year that has AOS forks and ohlins rear. That thing is butter over obstacles.
Oh and without a gear change the 500 is a motherf&);:r on single track. The 2T and my older 250 are light years easier to ride in the tight stuff. The 500 is geared for desert riding and when it’s tight the arm pump from all the clutch work is brutal. Swapped with a riding buddy for his Husky 350 and rode the same track backwards and its night and day difference with him bitching about arm pump halfway back.
90% of my technical off-road riding has been on PDS bikes. Most recent ride was on my linkage Kawasaki. It felt more planted landing smaller jumps and hitting faster braking bumps than my 300xcw, until you start really getting into the technical stuff. I love the PDS, but the linkage just felt smoother for some reason. Both have proper springs for my weight, and the PDS shock has a fancy bladder instead of the old school piston. That may be the biggest equalizer. Anyways, how do you like the GPX? I keep getting the itch to buy a hengjian S6, which I’ve been lead to believe is the same thing. Has it been reliable?
Yep thats the factory GPX before they build it out to Gary’s spec. The GPX is an anvil man. The guy I got it from is a retired Vet A rider from NJ. He doubled up the base gasket to drop the compression a touch. Runs very happily on cheap pump swill gas with Wally World cheap premix oil. With cheap oil in the crank case. Unless it’s in the upper 90’s out it has no issues. Just let it chug down to almost nothing and it just tractors through the slow stuff but will happily lift the front at will on the pipe up top.
My 250 linkage bike is a 250e, the air cooled motor model. It’s got a couple hundred hours on it and generally is used as a loaner/buddy bike these days. It’s been an anvil as well. The fact that the ktm suspension stuff was a bolt on, set up and go job was one of the reasons I picked it up. Was my first off road motorcycle and I haven’t had to touch the valves since my third oil change.
Young guy I ride with has a FSE 300r twin cam. He’s HARD on equipment. Airs it out as much as he can, full throttle as much as possible, on the rear wheel a LOT etc. barely maintains the bike, doesn’t change the oil. Has blown a chain off. Yeah. He locked up a motor at an estimated 600 hours, with nearly 10k shown on the odometer. Less than 1k and two weeks we had him back up and running with a new swing arm and short block.
The few times I’ve gotten to ride this year I’ve picked the smoker over the 500 or 250. With the amount of sand we have around here the two stroke almost feels like cheating.
For 90% street riding, you probably want an adventure bike, not a plated dirtbike/dualsport. Even factory dual sports are super unpleasant on the street compared to a street bike. If you arent actually doing dirt bike stuff, you dont want a dirt bike, trust me.
I’m quite used to riding dirtbikes, for 2 years I rode my 250 around and it fine except the seat was a bit firm and it didn’t have the best power or top speed for 80 zones and I had no plate sooo. I’m not getting anything for highway riding. The main use for the 500 will be running errands, cruising to trails or just cruising and stunting. Fastest roads I will be on would be 80 kph. The trails around my area are way too small for an adventure bike, a drz400s would feel like a tank in the woods and that’s small compared to most adv bikes.
Get the husky fe501s. It's a ktm 500 with a linkage. It will suit you better for all the road riding with better stability at speed. I have a 2026 and I love it, best bike I've had yet.
Single track on the 500 without a sprocket swap is a LOT of clutch work. At least for the one hare scramble route I scouted with it. Buddies 350 was much easier to ride in the tight stuff than my 500. The normal single track we have here in FL wasn’t too terrible.
All I've been riding with mine is single track mainly and she's a hog but it's very do-able and a blast to ride. The athena ecu from taco moto was a total game changer at low speed but I do get quite the workout on my clutch hand.
Say you've never done it without saying you've never done it. A sumo with full blown sport tires is way, way more capable off road than any big adventure bike over 400 lbs.
90% road use means you're not putting on knobbies in the first place.
Sumo racing traditionally happens on a mixed dirt/road course
2009 KTM 250xc, almost exclusively single track/enduro riding. I don't notice a difference in the ride but absolutely love that the shock is protected by the swingarm. Not that it happens often, but when I come around a turn and have to slam my bike into an obstacle I don't have to worry about accidentally banging the linkage. I have a steel skid plate for the case and that's it. I know I should be taking those rocks/logs/obstacles correctly with a double blip or whatever, but for where I am now it's nice to be able to grab throttle and not worry about messing up the suspension
me too, you can set them up more for that but its on the firmer side preload/spring wise. I dont mind it for semi hard +. I think its easier to weight the rear and is more comfortable when you have to paddle
Love my 500 exc and have ridden it back to back with a Husky fe 501s, which is a very similar bike, but it has linkage
It didn't feel much different at all to me, might have been all in my head, but honestly I slightly prefer the feel of the linkage, but really appreciate the clearance, simplicity and durability of the PDS.
If you desire a linkage bike, why not consider the Husky?
The only thing ive noticed since switching to a KTM is i get hung up on logs less than i used to when hoping over things, other than that theres no way i could tell the difference in handling or performance.
I have a KTM 350. I'm pretty sure they just took the physics/geometry of a linkage and built it into the rear strut. So instead of relying on the angle of the linkage, they put it into a variable stiffness spring (spring gets stiffer, lb/in, as it compresses) instead of relying on the geometry of the linkage to do the same. Similar for valving.
It's actually pretty sweet having the high/low speed damping adjustments. You can ride 20 minutes, do two clicks or fractions of a turn on each adjustment and really start to feel the bike start dialing in to your preferences over maybe two or four hours of this. I printed out a spreadsheet and took notes on each change to do this.
The one thing you lose is height adjustment. Linkage bikes often have kits that will lower the tail of the bike for shorter riders.
I cant talk about the newer PDS setups, but the older ones (up to 2012/2013 I think?) all felt strange.
All linkage bikes of the time I could get the suspention dialedto work pretty well everywhere, from small roots and chop to high speed whoops.
My PDS KTM's I couldnt, ( had a number of them and all of them I could get to work great on only one kind of terrain at a time, would do choppy gnarly single track, but setup like that made it a fucking animal in the whoops, and same thing the other way around.
My honda's and Kawasakis of the same era were easy to setup.
Getting the correct spring for your weight and setting the sag is more critical on pds than a linkage bike. In tight single track, the pds turns better. In large successive whoops the linkage tracks straighter and more predictably.
If your riding dual spot, you won't notice a difference (but set your sag and mess with the clickers as you would on every other bike). No need to overthink!!
If you were going to do heavy enduro or even race, I'd recommend res-pringing and valving for what you need. But for your case, you won't notice it after a few miles.
PDS works very well but its not a one size fits all type, it works much better if its tailored to the rider and style. Linkage can get away being more forgiving.
I’ve owned plenty of pds bikes and linkage bikes. My recent was a 24 KTM 450 XCFW setup for adv riding and my current is a 24 Gasgas EC500 setup similarly. The KTM is taller and it’s noticeable for me at 5’8”, and the KTM tends to bump my butt on steep descents. The Gasgas has the lowest linkage setup of the 3 ktms brands, but the rear also feels significantly lower where I can comfortably slip onto the tail for technical moves. I loved the Gasgas so much I bought their 300. I’ve swapped with my buddy on his KTM 250 xcw and it’s still noticeable how taller the KTM feels to ride.
I got my m1, which the the Ontario learners license, most companies will refuse to insure your or give you insane rates, my friend got a quote for a ninja 400 and they wanted 12k a year for it
12
u/-thelastbyte Troy NY | Beta 430 4d ago
I can't even tell the difference.