Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/897778
single header, they can incorporate more gradual bends to enhance ex- haust flow further. The result is a net gain of exhaust-gas-flow efficiency. Additionally, the dual exhaust sys- tem on the 2018 Honda CRF250R moves the entire system 24mm more forward, further centralizing mass and following along nicely into their "Absolute Holeshot" project mantra. You'll notice one exhaust header chamber on the right side of the 2018 Honda CRF250R. The rea- son for that is one of necessity and noise. Surely, the chamber is there to mitigate excessive decibels but, ac- cording to the Engine Project Leader from Japan, it has a positive effect on enhancing lower-end power, as well. This benefit does sacrifice a bit of top-end pull. By having two headers to manipulate in design and tuning, Honda engineers claim they can precisely dial in the right bottom-end power and sound benefit of a cham- ber without over-affecting the over-rev power delivery. Honda test riders were over- heard stating test models with two chambers, no chambers and this one-chambered production versiont were in development and ridden. The net result from their testing was the power character wasn't changed sig- nificantly by any of the configurations, so Honda went with one chamber, likely to improve sound levels. Clearly this bike has great top-end power. It rips for a long time. And clearly the dual exhaust system will be a polarizing component to the 2018 Honda CRF250R. Some of you love it and appreciate the design and style, others see it as unnecessary and excessive. The jury will be out on this one for a while! CHASSIS AND SUSPENSION Clearly the move away from a pneu- matic fork was a positive one for Honda. Their 2018 CRF450R flew to the top of our shootout rankings in large part due to the improved suspension, ease-of-use and addition of e-start. The CRF250R seems to be following suit with a much more well-received and easier to set up suspension program this year. And the e-start is just great. Bikes without it are becoming inconvenient. The 49mm "A-Kit-style" spring fork works really well. We used clickers effectively to dial in some front-end performance (it's a little soft out of the box) and it was much less compli- cated than Honda's previous air fork. The chassis as a whole is famil- iar as it's almost identical to the CRF450R. The only difference being small tweaks to the aluminum cra- dling the engine. What this means is there is much more rear tire weight bias compared to previous CRF-R's. The overall wheelbase is shorter and the front end has more of a slacker geometry. The shock is mounted lower and trail is brought back to the bike by 2mm, as well. This adds up to a more compact ride with a goal of keeping the front tire on the ground under acceleration. And it does that well. 2018 HONDA CRF250R FIRST TEST P84 One thing that hasn't changed is the Honda is still super- fun to ride.