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I am so excited to review the 2017 Yamaha YZ250X. This bike has been a joy and pleasure to own and to ride. It is so great to have a two stroke alternative to the KTM and Husky lineup. Yamaha took a dirt bike that they were still producing for the motocross world and gave it some slight modifications to make it a really great option for off road riders. This dirt bike is great for enduro riding. This bike is great for single track riding. This bike could still do really well if you took it to a motocross track. This is bike is awesome. To date, I have not ridden a bike that is more fun that the YZ250X. It’s superb. It may not be as well rounded as my 2017 KTM 300 XC for as many things, but it’s just as fun to ride, and better in some areas.
Yamaha is doing more for the off road dirt biking world than Honda, Kawasaki, and Suzuki combined. I say this because they were the first to take KTM head on with their YZ250FX and YZ450FX. Those truly are four stroke, off road racing dirt bikes. Now, they have also given us the two stroke 250X off road racing bike. They are not sitting back on the sidelines watching KTM and Husky just eat up more and more of their dirt bike market share. They are fighting back against the Austrian Dirt bike brand and doing a good job at it. Bravo Yamaha.
There is so much to love about this dirt bike. I love that it’s so light. I love that it’s raw. The suspension is superb, and the frame of the bike keeps things really balanced. Sure, there are a few things that I’d like to change:
The clutch isn’t as good as the hydraulic clutches I’ve gotten used to. The clutch is the biggest let down for me on this bike. It’s hard to modulate the clutch and not take all the power from the rear wheel. It’s not just easy to get that little bit of power back to the wheel, because you end up taking too much all at once.
I would like it to have a little more low end power. Some of this could be remedied by simply lowering the 1st and second gears a touch. I really love where 2nd and 3rd gear is on this bike so I haven’t put a different size sprocket on it. You could also add a flywheel weight, but I haven’t done that either because I love how free revving it is in it’s stock form.
Third, I’d add electric start to the bike, if it could be added without butchering the overall feel of the bike and adding more than a couple of pounds. For the most part, I didn’t miss E-start, but there are some situations where e start is as good as gold, like when you stall it on a hillside.
Lastly, we need a bigger fuel tank on this bike. It’s only got the 2.1 gallon tank and frankly that isn’t enough. It needs to be at least a 2.6 gallon tank to be a serious off road dirt bike.
Other than those things, I think this bike is a home run and I love it. I recommend that if you are on the fence on this bike, get off the fence! It’s awesome and I think you will love it as much as I do.
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