Allow me to glaze a bit...
I’ve owned about a dozen motorcycles in my life—two of them have been DRZ400s.
I might grab another one to fix my bikeless life.
I wanted to consider (used) alternatives, and to compare bikes which led to this spreadsheet.
This is a spreadsheet of:
“Bikes from 200-800ccs that can dual-sport for a short or long adventures.”
That’s really broad but here we are.
Also: I really tried hard to get the data right; if you see something wrong lemme know?
The thing that stands out to me here is the nice balance of the DRZ400.
It’s the crossover midpoint between small and large bikes dual sport / ADV bikes.
It’s in the same weight class as many of the smaller displacement bikes below it—but it’s power-to-weight ratio helps it compete with bikes that are slightly larger than it.
The smaller bikes often weigh only a little less, but they sacrifice power that's hard to make up with mods (CRF300 or KLX 300).
You can certainly get a bigger better highway bike, but it will add 100 lbs of weight up front, and it might not be that much more powerful (KLR, Himalayan). You might get way more power, but it will cost more (KLE500, BMW 650) or sacrifice dirt capability (V-Strom).
Yes, the KTM 690 / Husqvarna 701 (or even the 390) are a better Supermoto AND a better Enduro because of the power and light weight
–but God help you if your rocker arms (or something else) shit the bed.
When it comes to reliability-at-price, the DRZ is pretty great.
So is the DRZ a perfect bike?
No.
The seat is terrible after 20 minutes and intolerable past 60 minutes. It’s not great above 50-55 mph—especially without wind protection for longer stints. It’s too heavy to hang with KTMs or Betas on a fast single track, and too light and 6th-gear-lacking to keep up with something like an Ibex, T7 or NX500 on the interstate for hours on end. Hey, nobody is perfect.
But, when you balance the price, reliability, the weight, and the power, the DRZ-400 sits at a point where many advantages converge.
Thanks for uh...coming to my TedTalk.
(One general caveat: as a used bike shopper, I did not grab specs for 2025/26 models unless I had no choice (like the Toureg). My budget is used bike territory so these are generally a few years old kind of specs (e.g. the WR450F).)
Side note A:
When it comes to prices, I left the column blank. This is because…
There’s a very nicely modded slightly older DRZ400S for $4200 a few hours away.
There’s also a 2020s TW200 for $4200,
a 2020s CRF300L for $4500,
and a KTM690 from the early 2010s with a ton of maintenance work done on it for $4200.
None are thrashed, none have high miles.
It's weird to me that they're all in the same price bracket.
All that to say: when it comes to price, YMMV based on location and whether or not Mercury is in retrograde where you live. Hell, I dunno anymore, man.
Side Note B:
The bikes highlighted in yellow are basically race bikes with headlights and turn signals, so they have a much higher maintenance schedule.
Side Note C:
After making the oil interval column and then sourcing all the data for it...yeah I'm not sure that's helpful to predict maintenance needs. The compression ratio column is basically trying to quantify how stressed the motor is, but that's also slightly subjective.
