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While prepping our bikes for the Idaho Backcountry Discovery Route last summer, my Aussie riding mate, Steve, and I couldn’t ignore that our motorcycles were built 17 years apart.
For starters, my 2003 Suzuki DR-Z400S, with 17,000 miles on the clock, looked well used, while Steve’s 2020 KTM 690 Enduro R looked spankin’ new, because it was. Looking closer at the KTM, you’ll find a host of electronic helpers: fuel injection, traction control, ABS (normal, cornering, and off-road), ride modes, LED lighting, and quick shifter. Modern, beefy suspension and a massive horsepower advantage are also helpful.
DR-Z “tech” is limited to the LCD display pod. Traction control and ABS are both analog: right wrist/left fist, and right fist and foot. “Hang on!” sums up its cornering ABS, complementing the three on-the-fly-selectable ride modes: idiot, groovin’, and old guy.
Which would handle the BDR better? Tested simplicity or modern tech and power? We set off to find out (though mainly we were out to have a good time).
From interstate to water crossing
To make the most of our available time, we trucked the bikes from SoCal to Twin Falls, Idaho in a single 850-mile day, spotting comet NEOWISE as a blur in the Idaho sky as we arrived. After unloading the bikes the next morning, the first test was not a good one for the smaller Suzuki, as we rode the fully loaded bikes onto I-84 west in the heat.
Steve ripped down the onramp, spurring the KTM’s 70-plus horses while I coaxed the Suzuki along with all of its (maybe) 35 horsepower. With the 400’s five-speed tranny in top cog, the ride was buzzy at a tire-saving 70 mph on the 80 mph freeway. Meanwhile, Steve was enjoying the KTM’s sixth gear overdrive and twin counter-balancers.
COVID-19 was surging in July, 2020, when we took this trip, so our plan was to go as feral as possible. That meant carrying most of our food for eight days, making the bikes feel like the semis that were roaring past us. We joined the BDR at Glenns Ferry, riding gravel into parched basalt hills that baked us to a crisp. The bikes skittered through the turns, traction control helping Steve pull ahead. At the crest we saw a new world of green grass and forest leading to Anderson Ranch Reservoir, where boats skimmed the blue water.
Neither motorcycle was close to stock. Steve had pimped his ride with a Rade Garage kit with stacked LED headlight, taller fairing, and rally windscreen. Rox Risers, a Tusk luggage rack, and Rade’s 1.5-gallon auxiliary tank kit — critical for the BDR — completed the mods.
My 400 was originally a magazine project to build a lightweight adventure bike, receiving a 4.2-gallon IMS tank, Sargent seat work, and Moose handguards. The side cases and fork tubes have aluminum armor, a Works Enduro skid plate protects the underbelly, and a Suzuki luggage rack carries my load. Wider foot pegs and a Renthal handlebar enhance control.
On the rock-strewn road to Trinity Lakes, the KTM’s tuned space frame, 48 mm fork, and fully adjustable rear shock certainly gave Steve a smoother ascent, but I’d prepped the Suzuki’s suspension as well as I could, and it paid off. I stayed on his tail for 25 miles, despite the 400’s smaller fork tubes, well used rear shock, and last-century frame design. Sometimes decent handling is good enough.
Finding nothing but full campgrounds at the lakes, we rode on, spotting our first feral camp several miles later. With flat ground, green grass, and a windbreak of pines, we were in heaven. A flask of liquid campout eased the pain while we cooked dinner and watched a bright NEOWISE sink below the horizon. We’ll take a comet over a crowded lake any day.
Every trip has a worst day, and ours came early. Starting off on a rutty, pine-shadowed road, the KTM had the advantage. The Suzuki’s suspension struggled, and I dropped back to take the ruts slower. At the Middle Fork of the Boise River, Steve noticed his phone was missing from its mount. Retracing our ride, he found it at camp. I wish he’d also found my tent poles, which we didn’t yet know were missing.
The next test, a wide, graded road choked with the dust of weekend traffic — trucks, bikes, RVs, ATVs, UTVs, BFDs — made us regret we’d started on a Friday. Then a GPS miscue steered us to the North Fork of the Boise over rocky, technical switchbacks. We should have known something was up when two grinning locals couldn’t wait to watch us cross the knee-deep river. Not even the KTM comes with floats, so we pushed the bikes across — before learning that the road ended just up the way. Deflated but determined, we pushed ‘em back. The KTM got points for tree climbing on the return ride when Steve missed a turn and hung the front wheel on a branch.
Back on route, we carved smooth, twisty pavement to Lowman for gas and cold beers for camp, avoiding a crowd of revelers swilling suds and grooving to live music. A few miles later we slipped quietly into a large, wild campsite along Miller Creek, sharing it with a retired couple. With no tent poles, I slept under the stars after watching the comet disappear.
New summits and $7 gas
We didn’t know it, but we needed a break. Forty miles into Sunday morning, and after Steve survived a near miss with a pickup on a curvy dirt road, we spied Deadwood Reservoir from above. Once there, we were drawn to the shaded, lakeside campgrounds. From “Let’s hang here a while,” to “Hey, I found a campsite,” took less than five minutes. The day was spent gathering firewood, swimming in the lake, and watching clouds sail by. Dinner was quesadillas over the campfire; dessert was the Milky Way.
The next day we rode past rushing rivers and cascading creeks, each one sparkling in the Idaho sun, into the backcountry town of Yellow Pine, which offered dirt streets, cell service, a café, and gas. We ate outside at the café, chatting with the locals, but foolishly failing to gas up, counting on Burgdorf Hot Springs up ahead.
After a night in Burgdorf Campground, nearly empty if you didn’t count the millions of mosquitoes, we rolled into the hot springs with tanks nudging reserve, only to find it closed due to COVID-19. A tip from a local sent us several miles the opposite direction to a store with gas, also closed. But not for long. We’d barely gotten comfortable on the porch when a young couple wheeled in on an ATV to open up. Happily forking over $7 per gallon, I added a dollar bill marked “Thanks for the gas” to their wall of personalized greenbacks.
Long, shale switchbacks guided us down grassy slopes to the Salmon River. Off-road ABS might have been nice here, as well as a slipper clutch, but the Suzuki and I don’t mind a little slip-and-slide now and then. Its clutch isn’t high tech, but is tough enough to survive the abuse I gave it on this ride. Curvy pavement follows the river downstream, its white-sand beaches attracting campers. The final haul to Elk City was fresh, serpentine tarmac through lush, mixed forest. Knobbies be damned, we apexed at will, enjoying the smooth ride before gassing up and finding a creek-side camp.
We spent the night of my birthday in another feral camp that even provided cell service, so I could read my text greetings and call home (“Yes dear, I’m in one piece.”) then celebrate with some magic Mexican liquid.
The Lolo Motorway follows a path forged by the Nez Perce tribe to hunt buffalo on the Montana plains, and was used by Lewis and Clark on their famous expedition. A group of south-to-north riders in Elk City told us that the Lolo was “a little rocky.” We beg to differ, as non-rocky sections were few and far between. Most memorable — as in hair-raising — was the steep, rocky slope hidden around an uphill corner, a thrill magnified by the long drop-off should you ricochet off the big, flat-faced sucker that was angled to launch the unwary into oblivion. We both made it with clean underwear (or so we told each other), the Suzuki’s low-end grunt dragging me through.
Returning to Twin Falls on two-lane highways took a day and half. Once again on fast pavement, the KTM’s power to pass and its comfort combo of six cogs and two counter-balancers made it the superior mount. Still, I (eventually) got by every vehicle Steve blew off. The DR-Z never wavered, and nothing vibrated loose with the high revs. Well, maybe a couple of my teeth.
Old versus new, at the end of the ride
In the end, we both agreed the other had a good mount for the ride. Neither moto broke down or took us down, and both forgave some big mistakes. We were happy we left our big BMW GSs at home, although they would have made it as well — except, perhaps, that Boise River crossing. As for which bike is better for this kind of ride, consider this comment from a KTM 690 rider we met: “That DR-Z400 is the best damn BDR bike for the money.” And with nearly 18,000 miles on it, mine is still going strong.
The real winners on the adventure were Steve and I, by having seven days of incredible BDR riding on capable machines. We’ll probably take the same bikes on our next adventure.
In fact, considering how hard it is to find a deal on a dual-sport motorcycle these days, whether new or old, you may decide, just like us, that the best machine for the job is the one you have.
