Archive for October 2025

I've Bought One!

2025-10-29 by Andrew Holmes

After many months of keeping my eyes peeled on TradeMe and Facebook Marketplace I've finally found and bought a dirt bike!

I found a BMW G450X on Facebook marketplace a few hours drive away. The seller had owned it for about 6 years, it had previously been registered in NZ so getting it on the road (if I wanted to!) would be easy, and it looked to be in decent condition with a bunch of spares. I phoned the seller and had a quick chat, he sounded legit so decided to drive the 2.5 hours South to see the bike.

It turns out he wasn't lying, the bike was in good condition and had 110.3 hours on the clock over 5,369km, meaning with an average speed of 48km/h it had lived most of it's life cruising gravel roads rather than hard enduro. Things felt tight, nothing was too worn, the torque limiter was holding firm and it came with a full set of replacement body work in mint condition. There was a bunch of other random spare parts in boxes (things like filters, sprockets, even a full set of replacement wheels) and the bike was completely original other than a B&B bash plate and Acerbis hand guards. A quick rip up and down the road and I was sold - a deal was struck and I loaded it onto the trailer for the drive home.

Once home and up on the paddock stand I did notice a few problems that I hadn't during the test ride - nothing serious but I thought I'd get it all sorted before riding it. It had slightly notched head stem bearings, one fork had half the required amount of oil and the suspension clickers were all over the place front and rear, the brake fluid looked a bit tired and the incorrect length chain was fitted meaning the wheel was almost touching the mud guard. I also checked the stator bolts and they were the original ones that have been known to sheer, causing all sorts of chaos so I switched those out for high tensile ones with red thread locker. While it was up in the air I fitted rim locks and (knowing I'd be doing a bunch of road miles on it) balanced both wheels. Checking the consumables like oil, brake pads, air filter etc showed them all to be relatively fresh. The final step was removing the scratched up body work, fitting the road kit (lights, horn, indicators etc) and attaching the nice plastics. The bike looks fantastic and is running well.

It's not all beer and lamington's however - the bike certainly has a few quirks that I need to work around. I've fitted a 15 tooth front sprocket for road riding which means it is a bit tall geared for the single track sections. It is also incredibly tall, making my KTM 790 Adventure seem low! I can barely get the toes of one boot down with my butt scooched off the side of the seat. Luckily it's very light so I haven't dropped it at a stand still yest, but I'm sure that day is coming. Talking of the seat, it is terrible - incredibly hard with a sharp edge. BMW acknowledged this and offered a slightly lower and more comfortable seat back in the day, but this is no longer available and no one seems to be selling them second hand either. I'll just have to keep an eye on Ebay and hope I get lucky. You don't have to sit on the plank of a seat for too long though as the 8 litre fuel tank needs refilling every 160~175km so you'll be stopping a lot while "adventure" riding on gravel and tarmac.

So there you have it - I've registered it for one month so I can ride the upcoming 2025 BMW GS Rallye and a 250km shake down ride last weekend showed that it should be doable - with padded riding shorts I was still OK after 4 hours in the seat, so with plenty of stops along the way I should be able to make it around the 360km loop without becoming a crippled wreck. After that I'll probably take the road kit back off again and just trailer it to dirt rides as fun as it is on the road my KTM is a much better commuter/weekend back road/gravel road cruiser and with a 13 tooth front sprocket the BMW would be a really fun trail bike. We'll see - watch this space!