I say the KX100 works out great for petite ladies who are height challenged for larger bikes. My wife is 5'4", 115lbs and only has a 29" inseam and she loves her KX100.
Let me tell you the story if you want. She's ridden the street for 6 years, but just got into the dirt last November. We had an XT225 that we dual sported and we did the TAT on it, but she really didn't have the dirt skills and really wasn't liking the bike in technical off road stuff. I wanted to see her dirt skills improve, so I took her to this off-road park, and she hated the XT there. She kept dropping it, couldn't pick it up, and the poor suspension was not confidence inspiring for her. I had a hard time convincing her to ever go back.
The next time we went though, I borrowed a friend's Honda XR80 Expert (big wheels 16/19") with a 125cc 4 stroke motor shoved in it. She absolutely loved it. The suspension was awesome, she was jumping it and loving every minute of it. Problem is that was a 1 off bike and we'd never find something like that.
In the beginning, we were searching for TTR125's & DRZ125's, as they were light enough for her to pick up and touch on, but they suffer from the same problem the XT has with poor suspension and are physically pretty small bikes. The CRF150F is bit better size wise, but the weight starts getting heavy quick and the 230's were out of the question for her size wise and start porking out at 200+ lbs. She was very persistent that the bike had to be light enough for her to pick up and have good suspension. In the beginning, she was also insisting on e-start, but that pretty much ruled out a bunch of bikes. I finally showed her 2T's were not bad at all to kick and she started being much more open to more bikes. That led us to the little KX100's and Suz RM100's since they weigh right in at 150lbs and have nice suspension. After sitting on numerous bikes, she decided that since she'd never want a big porky 4T 230, and therefore her bike she'd eventually graduate to would be a 200 2T (like the KTM200), so she needed to learn how to start to ride on a 2T now and that is what we did. She didn't want to learn on a small 125cc 4T and then have to swap over to a 200 2T which made sense.
We picked up a KX100 and it was the best decision we made. We did do a 12oz FWW, Gear it up 3 teeth in the back to 13/54 and we are running it rich to tame it down. My wife just started riding last Nov and we spent pretty much every weekend from Nov - Mar at this same off road park. It was muddy almost every time we went, but she loved it. I've now got her doing 4 Diamond trails and things are looking great. The dirt biking skills are even carrying over to her BMW F650GS that we have taken off road.
A few weeks ago, she did finally throw her leg over a KTM200 and ride it, but she didn't like the power hit and says for right now, she's going to stay with the KX100. She had been having big wheel envy since we started doing some very serious trails with ruts that were swallowing her little KX, but in the end, she said the extra weight and power weren't worth it. I have to say, she is riding the wheels of that KX now!
We have a lot of other ladies that she rides with who have been riding much longer then my wife, and almost every single one of them was forced by their SO/Husband to start on way too big of a bike (namely the KTM200) and are constantly struggling in areas where my wife just goes right through. Many of them have their bikes lowered so much, there is no suspension left and all they got is way too much motor and a bike that weighs more then they do.
The KX100 isn't for every lady, and in stock form isn't the most friendly beginner bike, but it's easier then a 125-200 and you can very well tame it down.
I was very impressed with that the FWW alone did to the bike and gearing it lower, helped make 2nd gear a tractor gear. We even have a 12T for the front, but haven't tried that yet.
|