Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

I The four c ontenders for the Cycle News 250cc Four-5troke MX Shootout crown. i- As we m entioned earlier, the Honey Lake tra ck was the ideal testing ground for co m paring motors. Th e pow er -sapp ing loam enabled all of our test riders to spend much of thei r time around the lengthy course with the throttle pegged wide op en , squeezing every bit of ju ice from the "little" four -stro ke engines. It's not very ofte n you ca n utilize m ost of what a m otocross engi ne ca n offer, but at Honey Lake you nearly could on these bikes. At first, all fou r felt very similar in th e power department. None of them felt signifi cant ly bett er or worse over the others, thou gh each bi ke had its ow n personality - exce pt for the Suzuki and Kawasaki. Th ey felt identical, of course. But the more we rode the bikes, the m ore we began to feel differences. Of the four bikes, the Hond a's m otor felt the m ost user-friend ly . It deliv ered plenty of power fro m bottom to top in a very linear fashion, while the Kawasaki/Suzuki seemed to hit a bit harder off the bottom and in the middle, b ut it tap er ed off a little on top. B ro ad best described the Hond a's powerband, while aggressive best described the Suzuki/Kawas aki's delivery. The Yamaha, on the other hand, offered a IittJebit of the best of both worlds. It hit hard off the bottom, pulled well in the m iddle and rewed out nicely on top . And the more we rode the bike, the more it felt just outright stronger than the other three. And the uphill proved it. Prett y soon , our test ride rs were beginning to comment that the Yamaha was the only bike of the four that could cons istently pull fourth gear all the way to the top of Honey Lake's notorio us hillclim b, which we dubbed "nature's dyn o." It' s a IS-second joy ride from bottom to to p, and unless you ju st had the perfect run , neither the Kawasak i, Suzuki nor the Honda co uld ma ke it to the top with out jam ming down on the shift lever at least onc e. This transiti on usually took place at the halfway po int, wh ere th e hill quite suddenly flattens out for a brief moment, launchi ng the fast riders into the air, before continuing its way up. Still, even in third gear, the Honda , Suzuk i and Kaw asaki could hang with the Yamaha - but certainly not pass it . The long up hill no t only brou ght out the best in the power departmen t but also the wo rst in the noise department. Even though all of th e bik es were bo rdering on being too loud in the first place, the Kawasak i/ Suzuk i was nearly deafening. A ll of our testers remarked ins iste d tha t th e bik es run on p um p gas that we bou gh t at a nearb y sta ti o n - as th e possi b ility of anybo d y run n i n g oxygenated f u el wou ld've made th e com parison unfair. A f t e r t wo lon g d a ys a t Ho n e y Lak e , we h au le d t h e b ik es t o o ur more fam ili ar stom p ing g rounds in San Bern ardino at Glen Helen Race way, a t rack that has just about everything : hard -pack , soft lo am , mud, ruts, berms , whoops , sq u are edges , table -tops, doubles , ti ght sec tions , wide -open secti on s, etc. You name it, Glen Helen 's got it , m ak in g it an ideal place for all -around testin g (no wonder so many superstars can be found here p ra cticing durin g the week ) . And th en we followed up our shootout on a more tig htly wound Supercross-style track at Starwest , in Perris, where th e bikes' agili ty, slow er -speed handling and low-end ac cel era tion were put to the test. As always , we t ested the bikes exactly how you 'd get them off the showroom floor, except for the slick Cycle News c u st o m g raph ics t h a t Facto ry Effex ma de for us . Only m inor jetting c ha nge s and th e stan da rd suspen si on adju stm en ts (ride he ight and " cl ickers" ) were allowe d du ring our shootout. how their ears were ringing by the time they reached th e top of the uphill on the Kawa sak i and Suzuki - less so on the Yamaha . Everyone agreed the Honda was the quietest, but not qui et enoug h. All of th e bikes need bette r mufflers. Th e hill also revealed that th e Kaw asaki and the Suzuki vib rate signifi cantl y m ore tha n the Yamaha and Honda at higher rpm. We cam e away fro m Honey Lake im pressed with all of th e bik es' engi nes, b ut th e Yamaha prov ed to us that it was the horsepower king . At Glen Helen , where user- friendly is perhaps more important tha n sheer horsepo wer, the Yam aha co ntinued to impress us. It verified that it had enough bottom-end to do th e job wh en th ings go t technical and responded im m ediately when we were ready for som e juice anywhere in the po werba nd. Th e bike pulled hard and controllably out of the tums and just plain hooked up . The other bikes were more co mpetitive with the Yamaha at Glen Helen than at Honey Lake . The more technical terrain at Glen Helen kept thin gs close r - perhaps more so with the Hond a than the Kawas aki and Suzuki. The CRF250R 's supersmooth power delivery made the Honda very easy to ride and to get aro und the Glen Helen course, where throttl e control is more critical than at Honey Lake. Th e Suzuki and Kawasaki felt good at Glen Helen , as well. We' re sp litting hairs whe n we say that th e green an d yellow bikes were slig htly harder to co ntrol, only beca use they seem to have a m ore explosive hit than the Honda and Yama ha . A t Starwest's Supe rcross -style track , all of th e b ike s performed well in the m ot or departme nt. Th e vibra tio n issue with the Kawasaki and Suzuki wasn't much of an issue at all on the Supercross track , whe re yo u rarely hold the thro ttle wide ope n for any leng th of time. When we exited a tight tum and needed bottom-end to clear the non e-to -soon double, all of the bikes responded the way they should have and got us over the jumps without fear. We all pretty much agreed that these bikes were probably the most fun at Starwest's Supercross-style track. As far as other engi ne-related items, all of the bi kes had lig ht· feel ing cl ut ches and shifted well, thou gh som e of our testers corn mented that the Yama ha mi ght' ve been a Iittie harder to shift while under an extrem e load than the others . cue I e n e _ s NOVEMBER 12, 2003 25

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