For this build, I wanted to lightly modify the bike to be better on-road, better off-road, and easy on the eyes. I didn’t have lofty dreams of doing a ground-up build, as I didn’t have the time or interest with too many projects waiting to be done. I grabbed a stock DR650 and got stuck into the mechanical upkeep first. Valve clearances adjusted, forks rebuilt, brakes rebuilt, braided lines added, heavy duty clutch plates swapped in, fresh fluids and a solid chunk of much needed grease across all the bits was all done fairly quickly. The rear trailwing tyre proved to be sketchy off-road, and was replaced with MT60s for better confidence both on and off road. The carbs were tuned with a heavily tapered needle, fresh jets, cut slide spring and some idle adjustments. The airbox was given a second equal sized intake next to the original, and a Kelpi Shorty DR650 slip-on exhaust system was fitted up to make the bike as pokey as it could be with the stock motor internals.

From here I began working on the bodywork, which was fairly easy. I liked the Deus Ex Machina style of super simplified DR650s and hit up Cam to see if he’d be open to using the old mould to make me up a fiberglass tail unit. With that on the way, I chopped the subframe and created a unique style of tail tidy and rear lighting to tie in with it. The seat was given better quality foam and reupholstered with a suede topper for slide-free comfort riding for many years to come. I played around with silver leaf and silver flake as a base (the headlight cowl is the only remainder of the silver leaf that stayed) and then gave it a mix of Apple and Blue Steel candy to really give it some pop.

The stock tank and heeadlight cowl made the bodywork a breeze, but extra touches were given with gold cerakote on the brake calipers and some fasteners, and gold leaf being added to the forks and exhaust heat guard. The engine was stripped and given a pretty basic polish to bring it back to a decent finish, with the frame touched up and the oil cooler given some high temp ceramic in dark silver.

The front end on the DR650 is fairly light from stock, so improving on that became a key motivation, and I started throwing Kelpi bits and pieces at it all in a mad rush. Carbon fibre fat bars with CNC’d risers quickly added to the lightning flickability of the bike, with mirrors, supermoto fender and indicators all shaving off precious grams for the end result. Chuck a lithium battery in, with a lightweight exhaust system, chopped subframe and lightweight bodywork, and suddenly you’re under 150kg and ready to shred anything you point the bike at. To anyone who’s got themselves a DR650, feel free to reach out if you have any questions about modifying it. They’re generally a great base for modification, and crazier things by far have been done to them than this Urban Working Dog.

In terms of making the unicorn a reality, I realised the DRZ400E is better for what I’m after, and only loses out slightly to the DR650 in terms of highway riding and low end torque. I’ll be keeping my Steezy Deeza and moving this girl on, but I’ve learnt a lot building it and found it to be heaps of fun around town and in the sticks. Suspension, tuning and choice of tyres are the biggest factors to fixing this bike up, no matter what you have in store for it.