Ron’s Wrap

Two weeks ago, Yamaha organized a trip to the Ampro testing grounds in Union, South Carolina to show off the new YZ450FX. That sucked up all the attention, but we also got to ride the 2024 Yamaha YZ250X two-stroke off road bike. It was…
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With all the excitement surrounding the new Beta 450RX motocross bike, you would think that Beta is a brand new company that just figured out how to make motorcycles. While a shocked motocross/Supercross media is trying to figure out how to…
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It’s been a wild week and it’s getting even wilder. Last week I rode the Kove MX250 for the first time. Then I was in South Carolina where I rode the new Yamaha YZ450FX as well as the unchanged YZ125X and YZ250X. Then I rode the opening…
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We just completed our 2024 125 two-stroke shootout and it was a head scratcher. Two years ago we compared the then-new 2022 Yamaha YZ125 with the GasGas MC125. The GasGas was faster, lighter and handled almost as well as the Yamaha. They…
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Ten years ago, Honda got back into rally racing with a secret project called the Honda CRF450 Rally. It started off as a heavily modified CRF450X, but soon had a DOHC motor and a chassis that was unlike anything in the Honda line-up of the…
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KTM invited us out to Glen Helen Raceway this week for our introduction to the 2024 450SX-F Factory Edition. Unfortunately, when we got there it was raining--only at Glen Helen, nowhere else. The track was a swamp. We pickled up the bike…
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The whole idea of the dual-sport bike is a fairly recent invention. Back in the dimly lit past, all motorcycles had to deal with street and dirt. Most of America wasn’t even paved. Eventually, bikes got more specialized, making the concept…
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This month we’ve been collecting all the current dual-sport bikes to prepare for the March print edition of Dirt Bike Magazine, which will be devoted entirely to dual-sport and adventure bikes. Of all of them, the 2024 Husqvarna FE350S is…
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Rodney Smith personally delivered our 2024 Beta 500RS a couple of weeks ago. You gotta love it when a five-time GNCC champion drops by, hands you the keys to one of the greatest dual-sport bikes on earth and just says “Have fun.”…
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For about two weeks, we’ve been riding the wheels off a Kove Rally and we love it. This is more than a dual-sport bike cast in the image of a rally bike--it’s a legitimate machine that you could take straight to a real rally. Two of them…
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We’ve had the Moto Morini X-Cape in the shop for a few weeks now. It’s a bike that needs a destination; you can’t just go out on a lunch ride with something like this. It deserves a real adventure, something like a LaPaz run or at least a…
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Electric bikes aren’t just something in the distant future anymore. They’re here and we’ve been having a lot of fun with them. I’m kinda tired of apologizing to the angry over-my-dead-body crowd. Get over it. The guys at KC Powersports in…
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We have an SWM in the house! If you’re old enough, you might remember that SWM was once a big name in the trials world, actually winning the world championship in 1981. The present day company has little to no relationship with that one,…
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The 2024 450 Shootout is wrapping up. This year, the main challenge was to see where the new Kawasaki KX450 and GasGas MC450F fit in--all the other bikes are unchanged since our 2023 450 Shootout. We even knew what to expect with the GasGas…
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We have only two days of testing on the 2024 Kawasaki KX450 so far, but they have been two very long days. The first was at Kawasaki's official introduction, and the second was with all the other 450 motocross bikes for the first day of our…
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Mark Berg of Central Powersports Distributing drove out from Texas last week and left us with a wild, diverse group of test bikes for upcoming issues. There was an electric trials bike, two Italian dual-sports and a few Spanish two-strokes.…
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Day two saw the US Trophy team solidify its lead in the 97th running of the ISDE in Argentina. Dante Oliveira, Taylor Robert, Cole Martinez and Johnny Girroir have consistently been near the top of the standings in each test. The standout…
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Last week I got to ride the 2024 Honda Transalp 750 for the first time. Honda invited me to ride the bike on the PA Wilds BDR-X route. In case you don't already know about Backroads Discovery Routes, this is the perfect means to make epic…
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The 2024 Yamaha YZ450F arrived this week and it was immediately abducted by Pete Murray, who rode the 2023 YZ450 all last year. He did well on it, winning another Vet Championship as well as a couple of wooden bears at Mammoth. We put the…
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Mark Berg of Central Powersports Distributing did a marathon drive from Texas to Southern California to bring us a number of bikes for testing in upcoming issues. Mark is the U.S. distributor for Rieju, Electric Motion, SWM and most…
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