What Is High Mileage (and Hours) For a Used Dirt Bike?

Determining how many miles are on a dirt bike isn’t as hard as you might think. Thanks to aftermarket hour meters, we can get an idea of how many miles are typically put on a bike each year, how many miles certain dirt bikes typically last, and how many miles is too many. So, just what is high mileage for a dirt bike?

A dirt bike runs on average 3,000 miles per year. 15,000 – 20,000 miles is typically considered “high mileage” for a dirt bike. If you convert that to hours, anything from 200 – 300 hours is considered a lot of hours on a dirt bike.

Hours VS. Miles On a Dirt Bike

When you install an hour meter on your dirt bike to measure the mileage, you need to do some calculations. The difference between hours and miles needs to be discussed first. Hours on the meter tell you the number of hours the engine was running.

If you’re in the market for an hour meter, I put together this list: The Best Hour Meter For a Dirt Bike? (I like These Wireless Options). Hopefully, this helps!

An hour meter starts counting when you start the dirt bike’s engine, even if it does not ride any distance. According to experts, to determine the miles of an engine that stands idling, you can use the 25-mile standard to determine its mileage.

Otherwise, you can take the number of hours indicated on the hour meter and multiply it by 60 to get an estimate. So if you have 600 hours on the meter, the bike will have run for more or less 36,000 miles.

While an hour meter will determine the total hours the engine has run, it will not give you an estimate of the mileage that the engine has covered.

Hours To Miles?

To get the total miles of a dirt bike, you can multiply hours by 60. But this is just an estimation of the physical miles the dirt bike has run, and you don’t really know the speed it has run.

For example, 50 hours is about 3,000 miles. 50×60 = 3,000

If the previous owner used an hour meter with the highest RPMs like the Tusk Tach/Hour Meter (click to view on Amazon), you could estimate more accurately. In this case, you can determine the mileage by taking the recorded RPMs to see the engine’s speed and using an average of that.

A dirt bike never really stands idling for long, so you can use the 60-mile average to determine the miles.

How Many Hours Are a Lot On a Dirt Bike?

Some people believe that if a dirt bike indicates that the engine worked for more than 350 hours, it is high mileage. A dirt bike runs on average 3,000 miles per year, so you can quickly determine how old the bike is.

But that is just an estimation; you do not know at what stage the hour meter was installed on the dirt bike.

• Was the meter installed when the bike was bought?
• Did the previous owner wait a bit before installing it?

Anything more than 20,000 miles on a dirt bike is considered high mileage, and you should be carefully considered when buying it.

Another factor should also be considered when it comes to the mileage of a used dirt bike…

In what conditions was it used, did it spend many hours on dunes, or was it used on rocky cliffs? Because of that, a general rule is that a dirt bike with 15,000 to 20,000 miles on it is high mileage.

If you convert that to hours, anything from 250 hours to 330 hours is considered many hours on a dirt bike. You should then also keep the other factors in mind, such as whether the previous owner used it on rough and harsh terrain or not.

If a dirt bike comes with as many as 500 hours on the meter, it has about 30,000 miles on the engine. That is a lot of miles for a dirt bike and should be avoided even if you can pick it up for a bargain.

What Are Low Hours On a Dirt Bike?

When you are out there shopping for a used dirt bike, you should consider everything already mentioned about mileage and hours. A used dirt bike with as little as 50 hours has around 3000 miles and can likely be considered one year old.

That is if you take the law of averages and the advice from experts into consideration when it comes to dirt bikes. If you buy a used dirt bike from someone who kept a record of everything, you may safely buy it.

In this case, you should also consider installing an hour meter on the bike, even if it is just an entry-level meter. The NKTECH Hour Meter (click to view on Amazon) comes with excellent features and has quite an affordable price tag attached.

Anything less than 3000 miles is low for a dirt bike, so the engine should be relatively new and not used a lot. But, the question is whether the hour meter was installed at the time of purchase or not.

Most people will install an hour meter when they buy a dirt bike so they can keep track of maintenance schedules. An hour meter can also help to remind you when it is time to perform maintenance on the dirt bike.

What to Look For

Before you buy any used dirt bike, first assess the overall physical condition of the bike, which will tell you how well the previous owner treated it.

This way, you can easily see if the bike was primarily used on harsh terrain and whether it took quite a beating.

Always ask for maintenance records to see how up-to-date it is, which will also help see how the bike was cared for.