JacobRobinson5
Member
Hello! As the title insist, this is another "Adventure Build" thread. First of all, Shoutout to vwhammer for his awesome build that y'all should check out if you haven't already. It should be labeled "NCX ADV Build Overview" but I'll double check after I post this thread.
So I guess this is where I'll begin. I bought my NC700XD right at a year ago. After just a few short months of riding it, I was really seeing the possibilities of how the NCX could be a really strong ADV bike. Three main things about the bike made me think the NC was a good candidate to attempt to build: 1) The 670cc twin was just monstrous when it came to straight up torque; 2) The suspension was great on the road and was manageable offroad; 3) The low slung engine and underseat tank let the bike carry its weight pretty low while maintaining decent ground clearance. Along with a few other factors, those three made up my mind that I had plans for this bike.
My first temporary upgrade to test out the NCX's abilities was a set of Continental TKC 80's. They were a dream offroad but, almost needless to say, I only got about 3500 miles out of them. Along with the first set of tires came a skid plate and barkbusters to help protect against trees and rocks and stuff. So up to this point we're talking really basic additions, which I wouldn't even consider a build, but it gets better. Before I go any farther, here's a quick before picture.
That's what it was like. Nearly a year later after first purchasing my bike I finally got to do some more substantial offroad mods. It was late 2016 and I was doing some digging on how to make the NC more aggressive for offroad use. I found a few different options for ground clearance, as it was my main concern, and then some more expensive options for the suspension itself. Well considering my financing department would not allow me to go crazy with souped up and swapped out suspension components I started thinking low budget build. After so much time digging and looking to find the best bang for the buck, I finally came into some extra cash and bought some cheaper additions for the bike.
The first thing I done was opted for fork extensions. I know people say they're dangerous or pointless or whatever, but on the NC they're fantastic. I bought them off VTXtreme and payed about $75 for 2 inch billet extensions. I would've went stainless steel but between hearing how the aluminum ones do just fine and the extra $40 for stainless steel I decided not to. Here's what it looked like after the extensions were installed.
After installing the extensions I had my new tires installed I bought a week prior to receiving the fork extensions. Now one person reading this will ask "Why didn't you go ahead and install your tires then put your extensions on?" and I would say that's a good question and the reason why is because a 130/80r17 will hit my radiator under full compression and I didn't need that happening. Yes the stock front tire size is a 120/70r17 but I went with the larger tire in order to mimic the tire diameter of a bike with a 19 inch wheel and went wider because why not? Now in order to get a tubeless front tire that is sized in a 130/80 I had to go with a set of Shinko 705's. I stuck with the 150/70 rear but upsized the front to bring me closer to my front tire being taller than the rear tire as I'm used to riding mx bikes, XR650's, and a V-Strom or two. With only the fork extensions and tires on the bike the front end became slower as in its willingness to lean over and straighten up but it's not bad at all. Here's the bike with the fork extensions and the new tires.
It definitely changes the look and ergonomics of the bike but I still wasn't finished with her just yet. When I ordered my fork extensions from Gadsden, Alabama, I also ordered a set of shorter rear linkages to raise the bike up 40mm (roughly an inch and a half I believe). Here's the difference:
The linkages speak for themselves. They were like 30 bucks and only took a week and a half to come in from Britain so I was very pleased with the rear links. Now before I show y'all what the finished product looks like, I just want to say that I believe I have found the way Honda should build the NC700X especially for those of us over 6 feet tall and over 200 pounds. The rear linkages stiffened up the suspension to where even though the seat height is that of the Africa Twin (my dad and I compared our bikes which I sadly didn't take a picture but will upload one later) I feel the most comfortable I've ever been on my motorcycle. I even scrubbed my peg accidentally going down a little road with funny cambered turns and realised I was doing 60+ on a raised up "adventure" bike on a 30 mph road. Luckily the road was forgiving that day and spared me from falling victim to my stupidity, aka don't ride that fast, just for future reference lol. Anyways, the bike is now raised roughly 2 inches from stock in the rear and about 3.5 inches in the front I believe, thus making the seat and ground clearance in the middle of the bike about 2.5 inches higher than stock. It may not seem like much but it makes a huge difference offroad especially when crossing creeks, fallen trees, big rocks, and for those time you don't see the hole in the road. I even jumped the railroad tracks and didn't scrape the skid plate! lol but here y'all go, the NC with everything I've put on so far.
I do have more pictures of the bike that I may post on here later and if you want to see more and I haven't posted any or haven't posted enough then I will gladly post more by request as well. I plan on adding to this thread as I build the bike a little more. I plan on coming up with a new front fender for the NC as well and so is vwhammer so definitely look to him if you're curious about changing up the stock fender. Other changes visually that will be made to the bike will most likely be exhaust, windscreen, seat, and just small cosmetic works; maybe a wrap or repaint eventually. With the suspension I haven't changed the shocks or springs any at all yet, may touch them in the future. Next step as of right now is a longer kickstand as the bike has some serious lean going on now. Well I hope y'all enjoyed the first part of my build thread and I hope to be back soon with some more content for y'all guys and gals. If anyone has questions, concerns, comments, etc. just leave them in the thread and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. I'll go ahead and put a back to back comparison of the bike from beginning to end.
Until next time, y'all ride on and stay safe.
So I guess this is where I'll begin. I bought my NC700XD right at a year ago. After just a few short months of riding it, I was really seeing the possibilities of how the NCX could be a really strong ADV bike. Three main things about the bike made me think the NC was a good candidate to attempt to build: 1) The 670cc twin was just monstrous when it came to straight up torque; 2) The suspension was great on the road and was manageable offroad; 3) The low slung engine and underseat tank let the bike carry its weight pretty low while maintaining decent ground clearance. Along with a few other factors, those three made up my mind that I had plans for this bike.
My first temporary upgrade to test out the NCX's abilities was a set of Continental TKC 80's. They were a dream offroad but, almost needless to say, I only got about 3500 miles out of them. Along with the first set of tires came a skid plate and barkbusters to help protect against trees and rocks and stuff. So up to this point we're talking really basic additions, which I wouldn't even consider a build, but it gets better. Before I go any farther, here's a quick before picture.
That's what it was like. Nearly a year later after first purchasing my bike I finally got to do some more substantial offroad mods. It was late 2016 and I was doing some digging on how to make the NC more aggressive for offroad use. I found a few different options for ground clearance, as it was my main concern, and then some more expensive options for the suspension itself. Well considering my financing department would not allow me to go crazy with souped up and swapped out suspension components I started thinking low budget build. After so much time digging and looking to find the best bang for the buck, I finally came into some extra cash and bought some cheaper additions for the bike.
The first thing I done was opted for fork extensions. I know people say they're dangerous or pointless or whatever, but on the NC they're fantastic. I bought them off VTXtreme and payed about $75 for 2 inch billet extensions. I would've went stainless steel but between hearing how the aluminum ones do just fine and the extra $40 for stainless steel I decided not to. Here's what it looked like after the extensions were installed.
After installing the extensions I had my new tires installed I bought a week prior to receiving the fork extensions. Now one person reading this will ask "Why didn't you go ahead and install your tires then put your extensions on?" and I would say that's a good question and the reason why is because a 130/80r17 will hit my radiator under full compression and I didn't need that happening. Yes the stock front tire size is a 120/70r17 but I went with the larger tire in order to mimic the tire diameter of a bike with a 19 inch wheel and went wider because why not? Now in order to get a tubeless front tire that is sized in a 130/80 I had to go with a set of Shinko 705's. I stuck with the 150/70 rear but upsized the front to bring me closer to my front tire being taller than the rear tire as I'm used to riding mx bikes, XR650's, and a V-Strom or two. With only the fork extensions and tires on the bike the front end became slower as in its willingness to lean over and straighten up but it's not bad at all. Here's the bike with the fork extensions and the new tires.
It definitely changes the look and ergonomics of the bike but I still wasn't finished with her just yet. When I ordered my fork extensions from Gadsden, Alabama, I also ordered a set of shorter rear linkages to raise the bike up 40mm (roughly an inch and a half I believe). Here's the difference:
The linkages speak for themselves. They were like 30 bucks and only took a week and a half to come in from Britain so I was very pleased with the rear links. Now before I show y'all what the finished product looks like, I just want to say that I believe I have found the way Honda should build the NC700X especially for those of us over 6 feet tall and over 200 pounds. The rear linkages stiffened up the suspension to where even though the seat height is that of the Africa Twin (my dad and I compared our bikes which I sadly didn't take a picture but will upload one later) I feel the most comfortable I've ever been on my motorcycle. I even scrubbed my peg accidentally going down a little road with funny cambered turns and realised I was doing 60+ on a raised up "adventure" bike on a 30 mph road. Luckily the road was forgiving that day and spared me from falling victim to my stupidity, aka don't ride that fast, just for future reference lol. Anyways, the bike is now raised roughly 2 inches from stock in the rear and about 3.5 inches in the front I believe, thus making the seat and ground clearance in the middle of the bike about 2.5 inches higher than stock. It may not seem like much but it makes a huge difference offroad especially when crossing creeks, fallen trees, big rocks, and for those time you don't see the hole in the road. I even jumped the railroad tracks and didn't scrape the skid plate! lol but here y'all go, the NC with everything I've put on so far.
I do have more pictures of the bike that I may post on here later and if you want to see more and I haven't posted any or haven't posted enough then I will gladly post more by request as well. I plan on adding to this thread as I build the bike a little more. I plan on coming up with a new front fender for the NC as well and so is vwhammer so definitely look to him if you're curious about changing up the stock fender. Other changes visually that will be made to the bike will most likely be exhaust, windscreen, seat, and just small cosmetic works; maybe a wrap or repaint eventually. With the suspension I haven't changed the shocks or springs any at all yet, may touch them in the future. Next step as of right now is a longer kickstand as the bike has some serious lean going on now. Well I hope y'all enjoyed the first part of my build thread and I hope to be back soon with some more content for y'all guys and gals. If anyone has questions, concerns, comments, etc. just leave them in the thread and I will try to get back to you as soon as possible. I'll go ahead and put a back to back comparison of the bike from beginning to end.
Until next time, y'all ride on and stay safe.