Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

~ TEST Honda CR250!Kawasaki KX250/Suzuki RM250lYamaha YZ250 com anson • e Photos by Kinney Jones t's time. Time for the big showdown, and the players are the four latest 250cc MXers from Japan - the Honda CR250, Kawasaki KX250, Suzuki RM250 and the Yamaha YZ250. After spending months testing each bike on an individual basis, we recently lined them all up on the starting grid and told our testers, "Have at it." We spent many hours hopping from one bike to another, taking notes, trading opinions and just plain riding the hell out of each bike..This is the only way to accurately evaluate these motorcycles because they are so evenly matched and we found ourselves nitpicking each motorcycle to death, because no one motorcycle really excelled over another; it I 6 finally came down to personal preferences such as body layout and handlebar bend, powerband, handling and suspension to determine an overall "best bike." They truly are that close. All the bikes we rode were box stock, as each manufacturer supplied us with a motorcycle that was in "showroom" condition. Below is a brief summary of each bike's four main functions - motor, suspension, handling and ergonomics - followed by our testers' opinions on each bike's overall performance. Motor All four bikes put out more than enough power for the average rider. Top 10termediate class riders, and, of course, Experts and Pros might search for more power here and there to suit their own personal needs, but, for the most part, anyone who claims that any one of these bikes isn't fast enough is either fooling themselves or just trying to psyche out his competitors. Nonetheless, the Honda is the power-to-the ground king this year, though not by much. What really makes the Honda stand out is how smoothly it delivers the power. The Yamaha seems to put out as much horsepower as the Honda, but not nearly in as smooth or controllable a manner. Actually, the Yamaha's motor bits harder off the bottom, almost too hard, as compared to the Honda's constant, linear pull. The Kawasaki's power feels very similar to the Honda's, though it doesn't pull quite as hard on top or off the bottom. This is only noticeable on more· wide-open tracks with long straights,or on horsepower-robbing loamy tracks. Other than that, the Kawasaki doesn't give anything away to the Honda. The Suzuki is in a league of its own it just feels very different than the other three. While just as powerful as the. Yamaha and Kawasaki, the motor is a lot more "revvier" than the rest. Most of its hit is from midrange on up, but it still has enough grunt off the bottom to get you out of the corners quickly. 10 plain English, the motor feels fast. Suspension Once again, all four of these bikes handle well and were hard to fault, but the general consensus was that the Kawasaki's suspension worked best as a whole. It had no glaring faults and the green machine was simply the most stable and predictable of the four bikes. The fork worked extremely well, as did the back end. The.Suzuki also tracked well and is much improved over last year's model. The biggest complaint about the Suzuki last year was its unpredictability - the bike just never reacted the same way over the same jump, rut or whoop. But that's all changed this year. The Suzuki's suspension also seems significantly softer and plusher than the other three, but, to be fair, it also had more time on it than the rest. Like the Suzuki, the Honda is much improved over last year's CR. It too is more stable and less twitchy than before, and a lot of this has to do with a better fork. The front end seems to work much better, and the back end doesn't swap nearly as bad as it did last year. The Yamaha's suspension got mixed reviews - some testers really liked the Yamaha, while others definitely did not.

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