What is a Dirt Bike or Enduro?
The name Enduro comes from mixing two words: endurance and the Spanish word for hard = duro.

First, what makes a dirt bike different than a street bike?
The most obvious distinctions of an off-road bike are the tires, suspension, and seating position. Off-road bikes tires have very big knobbies. They also have long suspensions making the motorcycle sit up much higher with a big space between the tires and the fenders. While a street bike has a low seating position that sometimes makes it uncomfortable to ride, a dirt bike seating position is upright with a comfortable knee angle. Although when you ride an Enduro, most of the off-road riding is done standing up on the foot pegs while the rider holds the bike firmly with his knees and directs it with the handlebar!

The first Enduros were created in the early 60′s by simple modifications to street motorcycles by raising the exhaust pipe and using knobby tires. Some knobbies were carved by cutting more treads into the tire with a sharp or hot knife. Ironically as more and more streets were getting paved the Enduros became more popular. My assumption is when Gottlieb Daimler (founder of Mercedes) built his Reitwagen (riding wagon), the very first motorcycle, there was no pavement. So the first bike must have been an dirt bike or Enduro by default.

Enduros have a similar suspension geometry as a motor cross bike, but the engine performance characteristics are designed to run smoother, and with less RPM. This offers a more comfortable power-band and a longer engine lifespan for short-term performances. Two great examples are the Honda XR400R, 1997-2003 (she’s still alive) versus the Honda CRF450X 2005– 2010, which is actually the replacement for the XR. The XR has a very low RPM engine with a long engine stroke, and the CRF has a higher revving engine with a small piston and a very short engine stroke (engine stroke = distance piston travels from the bottom of the cylinder to the top). The XR is known for its endurance, and the CRF is known for its shorter lifespan and much stronger engine–I guess that is what is popular now–a flashy high performance bike that needs much more attention than its predecessor.

In 1975, the Japanese introduced the Yamaha 500 Enduro. This concept bike is probably the best known by the general public. In 1977, it was the first large-scale production machine that won the 1st two editions of the Rally Paris-Dakar which made sales skyrocket. Suddenly, owning an Enduro was the new cool thing. Modern competition Enduros, and the related motor cross machines, are special interest motorcycles only bought by a small group of people. The requirements for such a bike are among the toughest for motorized vehicles: hill-climbs, river crossings, deep mud, deep sand (sometimes the engines suck in sand), hot and very cold operating conditions–these are just some of the obstacles to overcome. These and the small scale production made dirt bikes are relatively expensive compared to a flashy street bike which seems to have so much more equipment included…but of course, they aren’t as much fun in my opinion.

Today, in addition to the usual Travel Enduros, many manufacturers offer specially adapted competition sport bikes. In Europe, some smaller companies have a big market share producing the KTM 525 EXC, KTM 450 and 400, the Husqvarna TE 510, and also the Spanish manufacturer Gas-Gas has the hard-Enduro EC 300. BMW entered the hard-Enduro market with a BMW 450X. In the U.S. off-road market, Honda has its CRF 450 X, Suzuki has the DRZ 450 and so does Yamaha with the WR 450 and Kawasaki with KLX 450 and KTM is well present and winning races left and right. These Hard-Enduro machines are not really suitable for road driving, but perform like a motocross bike (comes from moto, the Spanish word for motorcycle and not motorcross)–eating and spitting the dirt and loving it. In relation to our motorcycle enduro vacations you may want to know that Our guests will be grinning from ear to ear because they get to use the hard-Enduros on endless off-road trails while our guides mount-up on the XR 400s.

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