Haha, ya, for sure! Good point! Dont get me wrong, I don't park myself in the passing lane in top gear at WOT struggling to get up hills. I just meant to illustrate that with the KLX's limited power output, even lower final gearing won't eliminate the need for a downshift now and again.

 

Highway speed here is 65, with a lot of 55 zones in the super populated areas. My 14/47 handled it fine, so 13/42 will be a tad bit better.
Given the seasonal up tick in work, I decided against the Iron Butt try for now. I've been too tired...lots of heavy pallets have been moved and unloaded at work, then I come home to snow shoveling. The upside is I am strong enough again to easily heave the bike back upright, even when it's planted in the snow.
The lack of studs in my rear tire has me taking a "snow day" from work. Now I need to go shovel 8" of snow.
New Shinko 705's shipped today(street tires for 2nd set of wheels to be used on the trip and commuting) and new (unscratched by Winter sand and salt being squeegeed off) goggles on the way. Yes, I will be riding in my MX helmet. I can't live without the visor anymore. Aerodynamics be damned!
Looking forward to shorts weather!

 

What size combo did you go with? 120 front & 140 rear?
If you are putting a rear on the front, don't forget to reverse the rotation...

 

My "other wheels" are S wheels, so I got a 90/90-21 and a 120/80-18. I would have gone wider on both, but the front sizes available limited my choices. And I like how it steers now, so I opted for a close to stock size on the rear.
And thanks for the rotation reminder, my rear is for the front or rear.
I wanted two sets of S wheels so I could save my knobbies for when I need them, since I ride to work everyday I thought I'd try out the 705's. Hoping I won't be going through as many tires this way. I pull my knobbies because they are no longer good off-road, but I could get a couple thousand more road miles out of them.
We'll see.