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20 0 1 Yamaha YZ2 50
Et l l~
Pro bab ly th e o ne a re a t ha t kept
the YZ250 from winning our sh ootout
last year was its m o t o r. Tho ugh
strong, the 2000 powerpla nt la c ke d
the over -rev that many of our test rid ers sa id they ju st could n't live without. Well , that's not a probl em an ymore .
Changes to th e cylinder's scaveng ing port, cylinde r head (higher com pression ) , crankshaft, and e xh a us t
pipe , have done wonders to th e YZ's
motor. Whether or not the YZ a ctually
ga ined horsepower overall is hard to
say when you 're on th e track , but it
doesn 't rea lly matter a nyway because
th e YZ already ha d plenty of power.
However, there's no qu e stion that the
mot or rev s out long e r tha n it used to .
And t ha t's a good thing. But what's
e ve n better is that no thing wa s sa cri fi c e d in th e wa y of b ottom -end ,
m id range or top -end power to get
that muc h -desired over-rev, m a king
thi s o ne o f the best 250 c c motors
we've rid de n so fa r thi s year (' 0 1) ,
m a yb e eve n b e better th a n th e
Honda 's . We ha ve not ridd en the two
b ike s b a ck to back yet , but we will
s ho rtly wh en we officially be g in o ur
200 1 2 50cc sh ootout.
By K IT P A LM E R
P HOT OS BY B LA K E C O NN E R
fter rid ing the 200 1 S uzu k i
RM250 , Ho n d a CR2 50 and
_ Kawasaki KX250 , bikes that
are a ll ex t re m e ly good , we were
a lmost hoping that the la st '0 1 J a pa n ese -bu ilt 250cc MXer on our list to
ride , the new Yamaha YZ250 , exhibited some k ind of b ig flaw, glitch o r
fault. Not be cause we wanted to pick
on Yamaha or anything like that, but
b e c a u s e we wanted t o t a lk about
so mething other than how good it is.
After all, you are probably just as tired
of rea d ing about how good a ll these
bik e s are as we a re of writing about
how go od they are. But Yamaha let us
down ; they built another outs ta ndi ng
250cc motocrosser.
This is, however, hardly a s ur pr ise.
Th e 2000 YZ was a lrea dy one of the
top b ike s of th e year a nd came within
a ca rbo n fibe r of winning o ur 250 cc
shootout, so when we saw that Ya maha m ad e o nly refinements - but m an y
of them - to the '0 I , we figure d the
b ike could n ot ha v e g o t te n a ny
worse, only bette r. As it turned o ut,
we fig ured right.
fjJ
I:l
40
S EPTEMB ER 13, 2000'
cue
I
e
nevvs
The new
Yamaha
VZ2!50 has
one of
the most
"usable" motors
we've ri dden so far.
It's also a good Jumper.
