https://dirtbeam.com/ Dirtbeam breaks down the rigs, gear, and design choices that make off-road builds look better, work harder, and hold up beyond the pavement. en Mon, 28 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT https://dirtbeam.com/builds/rolling-hobo-ktm-690-enduro-r/ https://dirtbeam.com/builds/rolling-hobo-ktm-690-enduro-r/ Mon, 28 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT Chad Sig Build note In 2013 Jussi Hyttinen fitted his KTM 690 Enduro R with side racks chosen for the reason every packing guide gives: they hold the bags low and forward. Five years and tens of thousands of kilometres later he had moved the same bags higher and further back, because hung low they swung, rubbed the side stand and trapped his boot. The rule is right. This build shows where it stops. https://dirtbeam.com/builds/lyndon-poskitt-ktm-690-rally-basil/ https://dirtbeam.com/builds/lyndon-poskitt-ktm-690-rally-basil/ Mon, 28 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT Chad Sig Build note Most riders who want range on a single-cylinder bike start with a stock machine and bolt tanks on. Lyndon Poskitt started from a Dakar rally bike whose 32 litres were already split between two tanks beside the engine and one under the seat, and made it tour. The fuel layout is KTM's engineering. His own change was to the rear tank, which on this bike is also the subframe, so the part holding half the fuel ended up holding the luggage. https://dirtbeam.com/builds/chris-scott-xr650l-desert-riders/ https://dirtbeam.com/builds/chris-scott-xr650l-desert-riders/ Mon, 28 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT Chad Sig Build note In 2003 Chris Scott and two friends rode three Honda XR650Ls across the central Sahara to the Lost Tree in Niger and back. To get the range, each bike carried a 37-litre tank mounted high above the carburettor, and a steel rack with alloy boxes and jerricans on top. After the trip Scott put "too high and top-heavy" first on his list of dislikes, named the fix, and later wrote the loading rule it taught him. Few builders publish their own correction, and his is a clear lesson in where the weight should go on a motorcycle. https://dirtbeam.com/field-guide/adventure-motorcycle-luggage-weight/ https://dirtbeam.com/field-guide/adventure-motorcycle-luggage-weight/ Mon, 28 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT Chad Sig Field guide Carry less, then put what is left low and close to the middle of the bike. Fuel is the heaviest thing most riders add, so where the tank sits is the biggest decision. Three long-distance builds show the rule followed, broken, and bent on purpose, and the rack ratings most riders never look up. https://dirtbeam.com/builds/bearfoot-theory-sprinter-wombat/ https://dirtbeam.com/builds/bearfoot-theory-sprinter-wombat/ Thu, 24 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT Chad Sig Build note Kristen Bor bought a factory 4x4 Sprinter three times in eight years. The four-wheel drive took her one sentence: snow and rough dirt roads, so it was non-negotiable. The tires, the wheels, the springs, where the water goes and how the family would fit took three vans to get right. Read together, her build pages show where the work in a capable van actually is. https://dirtbeam.com/field-guide/awd-vs-4wd/ https://dirtbeam.com/field-guide/awd-vs-4wd/ Thu, 24 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT Chad Sig Field guide Four-wheel drive is built to be switched on for hard ground; all-wheel drive is built to decide for itself on the road. Both are now as much software as gearing, neither helps you stop, and for most people the tires under them matter more. Six van owners who chose differently show where the drivetrain actually decides it. https://dirtbeam.com/field-guide/cybertruck-vs-rivian-off-road/ https://dirtbeam.com/field-guide/cybertruck-vs-rivian-off-road/ Thu, 24 Sep 2026 12:00:00 GMT Chad Sig Field guide Neither truck has a driveshaft between its axles. The Cybertruck gives each axle a motor and makes lockers a software setting, one of them a locker that exists only in code. The quad-motor Rivian gives each wheel a motor and says it does not need lockers at all. Between them they show where off-road drivetrains are going, and what you are trusting when you buy one. https://dirtbeam.com/field-guide/flatbed-truck-camper/ https://dirtbeam.com/field-guide/flatbed-truck-camper/ Fri, 28 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT Chad Sig Field guide A flatbed tray is a payload decision before it is a storage decision: a full-size tray plus Four Wheel Campers' lightest flatbed camper is about 1,960 lb dry, over a Tundra's best-case rating before water or people. What it buys, what it costs, and where the limit is written. https://dirtbeam.com/builds/ovr-project-land-cruiser-100/ https://dirtbeam.com/builds/ovr-project-land-cruiser-100/ Thu, 27 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT Chad Sig Build note A 300,000-mile Land Cruiser under $15,000, a 150 lb tent on the roof, and two public scale tickets eleven months apart showing it over its weight rating both times. What makes this build worth reading is the response: not a stiffer spring, but taking the weight back out. https://dirtbeam.com/builds/faroutride-transit-awd-van2/ https://dirtbeam.com/builds/faroutride-transit-awd-van2/ Thu, 27 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT Chad Sig Build note Two engineers took their own advice and ordered their second Transit with 500 lb more weight rating than the first. They bought all-wheel drive in the same order. The van arrived 530 lb heavier empty, and the second build has 30 fewer pounds of payload than the one it replaced. https://dirtbeam.com/builds/trailrecon-doc-gladiator/ https://dirtbeam.com/builds/trailrecon-doc-gladiator/ Thu, 27 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT Chad Sig Build note Almost every overland build is organised around getting somewhere. Brad Kowitz spent 26 years as a Navy corpsman and built a Gladiator organised around what happens after you arrive at a bad scene. Fifteen months later he published a video saying he had it backwards. https://dirtbeam.com/builds/bound-for-nowhere-tundra-jolene/ https://dirtbeam.com/builds/bound-for-nowhere-tundra-jolene/ Thu, 27 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT Chad Sig Build note MAK and Owen had the bed cut off a barely broken-in 2023 Tundra and replaced it with an aluminium tray. The choice that explains the rest is quieter: they took the short cab over the big one to keep the camper's weight in front of the rear axle, then deleted the back seats anyway. https://dirtbeam.com/builds/take-the-truck-first-gen-tacoma/ https://dirtbeam.com/builds/take-the-truck-first-gen-tacoma/ Thu, 27 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT Chad Sig Build note Patrick of Take The Truck had a free, easy place to mount a pair of Baja Designs LP9 Pros, high on the front of his camper. He turned it down over glare in bad weather and spent an afternoon making brackets instead. A first-generation Tacoma built by someone who writes down what his decisions cost. https://dirtbeam.com/field-guide/ditch-lights/ https://dirtbeam.com/field-guide/ditch-lights/ Thu, 27 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT Chad Sig Field guide Ditch lights are cornering lights, not extra headlights, and the position everyone mounts them in is the one the lamp makers warn about. What they are for, why the hood is the problem, and the aim that fixes it. https://dirtbeam.com/field-guide/spot-beam-vs-flood-beam/ https://dirtbeam.com/field-guide/spot-beam-vs-flood-beam/ Thu, 27 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT Chad Sig Field guide The difference is beam shape, not brightness: one KC pod runs 7,912 lumens on both of its lenses, and only the pattern changes. What each pattern is for, why the reach figures printed on the box do not survive arithmetic, and why a build that does both jobs wires them separately. https://dirtbeam.com/field-guide/what-is-gvwr/ https://dirtbeam.com/field-guide/what-is-gvwr/ Thu, 27 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT Chad Sig Field guide GVWR is the most your vehicle is allowed to weigh with everything in it, and it is a number the manufacturer declares rather than one your truck earns. What you can actually carry is a subtraction nobody publishes, and the only way to learn it is a scale. https://dirtbeam.com/field-guide/how-much-weight-can-your-roof-carry/ https://dirtbeam.com/field-guide/how-much-weight-can-your-roof-carry/ Thu, 27 Aug 2026 12:00:00 GMT Chad Sig Field guide Less than the rack bolted to it, and much less than you think. Your roof has two different limits, the smaller one applies while you are driving, and a national laboratory measured what putting the load up there costs: nine percent of an SUV's fuel economy against almost nothing on a hitch.