XR650R Baja 1x Dream Bike Build (Intro)

XR650R Baja 1x Dream Bike Build
(Intro)

No race has more links to the XR650R than the Score Baja series in Mexico.  Every year hundreds of crazy desert racers hit the dust to experience all that is the Baja.  'Dust to Glory' is a documentary which gives the viewer an insight into the hardcore desert racing fraternity, and also the legend that is Johnny Campbell.  Johnny raced the XR650R in the early part of the naughties until Honda pulled it from their range to introduce the CRF450X.

Johnny's XR was built by Bob Bell and his crew at Precision Concepts and was not too far removed from the stock bike (to the naked eye).  In reality they made some key mods to the engine, suspension, intake, braking and exhaust.  The stock bike makes around 43hp to the rear wheel, whilst the 1x (the number of the Honda A team bike) bike made a whopping 67hp.  The setup was specific to the wide-open riding of the Baja race.
I am not going to go into too much detail as there is plenty on Precision Concepts website that explains the mods, but basically the 1x bike was the ultimate XR650R.  It was lean and focused, and also amazingly good looking!


My dream would be to afford to buy an original bike from the race team or from someone who already has, but that is unlikely to happen any time soon.  Even if I had the cash, where do you look for one?  Living in Australia doesn't help either.  There will be a lucky few in the USA who got their hands on the actual thing, and I will forever be envious of them.  If I were them I would also hang onto the bike for dear life!  One down side though is they are essentially museum pieces now, and riding them would be a crime in my opinion.  Where is the fun in having a race bike sat in the garage?!

So you may be wondering what I am getting at, but I want to build a Replica 1x Baja XR650R.

Replica's are hard to build when replicating a 'works' bike as most of the components are a one-off for the race, and the 1x bike is no different.  I am going to be realistic about this build and will have to make do with some closely matched components, as well as a few legal bits to make the thing ridable here in Australia (ie. lights, chain guard, indicators, speedo etc.).

The parts list is long and expensive, but the idea is to create as close to original as possible and in turn creating a simply unique XR for Australia and most of the World.  Modifying bikes/cars never makes you money, so I don't expect to increase the bikes value much but that's not the ultimate idea here.  This build will be done over as long as a year or two as I gather the parts which are harder to find, but keep an eye on my blog and I will keep you up-to-date with my findings and progress!

Long live the King of Baja!!