XS650 Adventure Bike
We were lucky enough to spend some time with Kacey Elkins of Krossover Customs on a Himalayan mountain moto trip he had won via one of our promotional trip giveaways. The trip covered an extreme 2 weeks of riding in the most versatile and amazing landscapes stretching across the Himalayan mountain regions of Nepal. During this trip we got to know Kacey and his skills as a rider and builder much better and he then went on after the trip to use those skills to make the ultimate adventure bike out of one of our favorite vintage Japanese build platforms, the Yamaha XS650. Only he set out to achieve making this like no other XS650 anyone had ever seen and we couldn't have been more excited to see it finally presented at our Old Bike Barn Crossroads bike show at the AMA vintage motorcycle days event. We had some time then to get a few shots of the build and talk with him a little more about why he chose this as his adventure build of choice.
Let's start with some info on the build make, model, year, basically what it began as.
The bike started as a 1981 Yamaha XS650 but before I got it, it was a buddy of mines and we had built a simple cafe/tracker, he rode it for a bit then stripped it to build something else, lost interest and gave me a basket case.
(Thanks Alan)
You really went above and beyond in terms of performance upgrades, would you care to list off many of the different upgrades you made in order to get this bike to the standard you were trying to achieve.
I wanted to make this bike really reliable so I didn’t do many motor mods just the usual stuff. I put the BS38 carb from a 79 model and put a Hugh’s Handbuilt CDI Kit and of course a custom exhaust. But the performance aspect in this bike was more focused on the suspension and brakes to handle the harder off-road stuff.
You joined us on a Himalayan mountain moto trip with myself and Bear founder of Motorcycle Sherpa in the beautiful country of Nepal and soon after were inspired to begin this build. What aspects of that adventure did you later bring into the build design for this bike?
I remember riding though Mustang Valley and thinking About how I could do Adventures like this in the states, but I wanted to be different then the average person. For some dumb reason I can’t make anything easy for myself. And that’s why I built a old heavy bike that has no business going off road into a Adventure bike. Riding in Nepal made me understand just how tough the bike would need to be but also I didn’t need all the bells a whistles modern ADV bikes have.
What were some of the biggest challenges you faced during this build?
Honestly I’m not sure what the biggest challenge was, that’s hard to say but probably get the suspension setup working the way I wanted.
We notice you had to fabricate many parts for this what was one of the hardest parts to fabricate?
So I wouldn’t say this part was hard but I was having trouble with the exhaust layout, it was either out to far or might hit my tire when the suspension compressed so I ended up cutting the frame to make a ring that the pipe could go though and I love the way it worked out.
You had mentioned to us before while shooting the bike about the impressive mono shock set up you chose to run on the bike. Can you tell us more about that as well as why you chose to go this route over conventional dual shocks.
The reason I went with a mono shock over the conventional dual shock setup was simply performance. There’s a reason dirt bikes went to a mono shock with a linkage setup, it just works better. I used a Honda CR250 swing arm with a new A-kit Showa rear shock setup for the wight of this bike and it works perfectly. It’s made a XS650 have 10” of suspension travel, that’s just fun to say.
The lighting choices as well as the controls worked out really well for this build can you talk a little more about those? The way you mounted the headlight was also quite impressive in terms of durability.
I’ll start with the headlight, I got amazing support on this build from Trail Tech, they hooked me up with several awesome parts like the rally headlight, GPS gage, fog lights, Kickstand and a few other things. The light is incredibly bright and just looks sick!
Well our last question where do you plan to ride this now? do you have any trips planned to really use it to its full potential?
You really went above and beyond in terms of performance upgrades, would you care to list off many of the different upgrades you made in order to get this bike to the standard you were trying to achieve.
I wanted to make this bike really reliable so I didn’t do many motor mods just the usual stuff. I put the BS38 carb from a 79 model and put a Hugh’s Handbuilt CDI Kit and of course a custom exhaust. But the performance aspect in this bike was more focused on the suspension and brakes to handle the harder off-road stuff.
You joined us on a Himalayan mountain moto trip with myself and Bear founder of Motorcycle Sherpa in the beautiful country of Nepal and soon after were inspired to begin this build. What aspects of that adventure did you later bring into the build design for this bike?
I remember riding though Mustang Valley and thinking About how I could do Adventures like this in the states, but I wanted to be different then the average person. For some dumb reason I can’t make anything easy for myself. And that’s why I built a old heavy bike that has no business going off road into a Adventure bike. Riding in Nepal made me understand just how tough the bike would need to be but also I didn’t need all the bells a whistles modern ADV bikes have.
What were some of the biggest challenges you faced during this build?
Honestly I’m not sure what the biggest challenge was, that’s hard to say but probably get the suspension setup working the way I wanted.
We notice you had to fabricate many parts for this what was one of the hardest parts to fabricate?
So I wouldn’t say this part was hard but I was having trouble with the exhaust layout, it was either out to far or might hit my tire when the suspension compressed so I ended up cutting the frame to make a ring that the pipe could go though and I love the way it worked out.
You had mentioned to us before while shooting the bike about the impressive mono shock set up you chose to run on the bike. Can you tell us more about that as well as why you chose to go this route over conventional dual shocks.
The reason I went with a mono shock over the conventional dual shock setup was simply performance. There’s a reason dirt bikes went to a mono shock with a linkage setup, it just works better. I used a Honda CR250 swing arm with a new A-kit Showa rear shock setup for the wight of this bike and it works perfectly. It’s made a XS650 have 10” of suspension travel, that’s just fun to say.
The lighting choices as well as the controls worked out really well for this build can you talk a little more about those? The way you mounted the headlight was also quite impressive in terms of durability.
I’ll start with the headlight, I got amazing support on this build from Trail Tech, they hooked me up with several awesome parts like the rally headlight, GPS gage, fog lights, Kickstand and a few other things. The light is incredibly bright and just looks sick!
The controls are from Rizoma another great company that helped me out on this build, they also got me those bad ass turn signals, handlebars, brake reservoir. Both those companies definitely helped this build in a big way.
The wheels, rims and braking components are definitely not stock Yamaha, could you talk a little more about what those are and your reasons for ditching the conventional Yamaha set up to go with this really nice performance upgrade.
I went with are Pro Wheels for the wheel setup, I basically wanted a dirt bike look and feel and I was using dirt bike suspension so the wheels worked perfect with no modifications needed. I upgraded the brakes with a big brake kit from Braking for the front and wave rotor for the rear.
Did you do any improvements to the motor and if so what?
The wheels, rims and braking components are definitely not stock Yamaha, could you talk a little more about what those are and your reasons for ditching the conventional Yamaha set up to go with this really nice performance upgrade.
I went with are Pro Wheels for the wheel setup, I basically wanted a dirt bike look and feel and I was using dirt bike suspension so the wheels worked perfect with no modifications needed. I upgraded the brakes with a big brake kit from Braking for the front and wave rotor for the rear.
Did you do any improvements to the motor and if so what?
No real motor mods just freshened everything up a bit.
The paintwork came out really sharp, did you do all the paint work for the bike as well?
My real job is custom paint work but when I paint my own builds I normally do really simple paint designs. I went with a small 70s style stripe on the tank and fender over a matte silver.
Did you take on this project all by yourself or are there any other contributors to the build that helped along the way or maybe anyone you might want to mention who made the build a little more easy or fun?
Did you take on this project all by yourself or are there any other contributors to the build that helped along the way or maybe anyone you might want to mention who made the build a little more easy or fun?
I typically do all my own work on my bikes, but I did have the the powder coating done by my Buddy Phill at 6th City Cycles, and the seat was done buy a local guy where I live but has been redone by Angie Dixon since these pics where taken and looks so much better now !
Well our last question where do you plan to ride this now? do you have any trips planned to really use it to its full potential?
The original Plan was to ride the Transatlantic Trail coast to coast with it but that did not go the way it was supposed to unfortunately. I’ve ridden it locally on some trails and plan to go back to the Tennessee section of the T.A.T to start but no dates have been set just yet as everything is up in the air as far as travel goes.
Words and Photos by Mike Vandegriff