The YZ250FX Story Part 3

2015 YZ250FX

First ride first impressions. Most everybody probably starts their first ride on a new bike with the stock suspension settings, me too. But after hammering myself for a few miles in the rocks I changed the settings. First I backed the compression all the way out on the fork and shock. My theory is brand new suspension is going to be stiff for sometime so why not back it off to at least make it as comfortable as possible and as it breaks in turn the compression back in. I also slowed down the rebound a few clicks. At this juncture with only an hour on the suspension it feels like the shock and fork aren’t working together, specifically the shock. I’m not sure why yet.

Since I sold my KTM 350/390 I’ve been riding (And racing) my KTM 500EXC so getting on this new bike is a bit of an adjustment. The 500 is a 500, the weight difference and feel of the motor makes it feel and handle a whole lot different than the 250. My first feeling on the 250 was it felt light, flickable and danced around a lot. That’s not a bad thing just different than riding a 500. It made for hanging on to tight, because I’m not comfortable with what it’s going to do, or not do, but seat time will cure that.

The motor works amazingly well when you consider I’ve been riding a 350/390 for four years and a 450 and 500 for a year or so. There are big differences in power characteristics between all these bikes. But I like the power of this bike and it was surprisingly easy to keep it in the power output range. There’s a lot more RPM going on, use of the clutch and more shifting for sure. But the motor works and has enough power for me right now. Low gear is pretty useless except for crawling over something really slow, but second, third and fourth and fifth is fairly close ratios and work well. By the time you use sixth the RPM’s are up and the motor pulls well. The stock gearing 13/51 seems to be perfect for everything so far. I like hearing the exhaust but the sound of the air box is loud and annoying but hopefully I’ll get use to it and won’t hear it anymore at some point.

During the first ride (1.2 Hrs) the Rekluse worked perfect and didn’t need any adjustment. Well almost perfect engine braking was sketchy at best especially on long down hills. I turned up the idle but I’ll need to take it apart to see how it’s been setup. I’ve gotten use to engine braking and when it’s not there it makes for a tight sphincter muscle. I did crank in a little dampening on the steering damper, again not sure if it really needed it or if it just made me feel more secure because it moves around a lot more. All the other goodies I put on the bike stayed on and worked as I expected. I did notice the plastics seem very thin and scratched easily, especially when you fall over. The first was in my drive way during the first test ride after putting it all together. I was standing alongside it and forgot it was in gear and gassed it. It flopped to the ground, as I picked it up I gassed it again this time it spun around then flopped. I had to take one of the brand new hand guards off and straighten it out. At least the second fall was in the dirt, but was again my fault.

Next up was a motocross course which I did two days later. I went to MMX which is a sand track in Marysville. My hope is it will work well in that environment and I can eventually sell my KTM 450 Factory Replica and cut down on the number of bikes I own.

In between the rides I did make some changes to the bike. I raised the handle bars and  lowered the brake pedal, small but meaningful things like that. I did do some things to the suspension, based on the recommendation of Bucky of SBB (Suspension by Buck). I took 20cc’s of oil out of each fork.  I sped up the rebound by two clicks over the stock setting on the shock and also opened up the high speed dampening on the shock as well. Speeding up rebound is quite frankly something I wouldn’t normally think of doing. But Bucky’s familiarity with a stock 250F certainly helped. Bucky not only does every brand of suspension, last year he rode a 2014 Yamaha YZ250F in motocross competition and CC events. So he is very familiar with Yamaha suspension. 

On my first lap I could tell I was going to like this bike. It seemed easy to keep it in the right RPM range, kind of mind boggling when you consider I’ve been riding a 450 and 500. It feels very light, easy to turn in fact that’s one of the first things I noticed, I was carrying more speed into and out of corners. With the 450 I’m definitely more of an outside line point and shoot kind of rider. This thing works inside or outside.

Even though I’ve backed the compression all the way out on the fork and shock it’s still stiff feeling and I never did bottom it. Admittedly I do not clear all the jumps which could actually mean in some ways I’m landing harder than if I was clearing them all. (Falling out of the sky on some of those jumps can be terrorizing)  The suspension will be the thing that will take the longest to get use to and dial in. So far the bike hasn’t done anything chassis wise to scare the hell out of me. It moves around a lot, the 450 and 500 feel much more planted. But I like the feeling that I can flick it around and it will take some time to figure that all out. And by the way everything Bucky had me do did help the suspension (We actually opened the rebound on the shock a few more clicks) and when it’s finally broken in It may turn out to be ok as is or I might want to have it revalved.

I put 1.3 hours on it at the MX course for a total of 2.5 hours. It’s now time to check nuts, bolts, spokes, change the oil and recheck the Rekluse. (I still need some engine braking)

I’ll ride it for a while, keep tweaking it and report back on my experiences.

Doug 21J