Bike Tests

We’ve said it many times: Motocross bikes make poor trail bikes. That’s why we haven’t jumped on the bandwagon to heap praise on “closed-course, competition off-road bikes” such as the Honda CRF450RX, the Yamaha YZ450FX and the KTM 450XC-F.…
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The KTM 300 two-stroke is considered the greatest off-road bike of our time. This is the story of how it came about.
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Back in 1973 the Honda CR250M Elsinore set the motocross world on fire. We were there, and here's what we said about it in June, 1973. At one time or another, you've sat around with your friends and jabbered about the mythical…
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The Honda CR250 two-stroke escalated Japan's obsession with motocross in the '70s, and then dominated the sport in the '80s. Even though it's gone, its impact is still being felt.
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The 2020 Beta 500RR-S is not a bike for commuting to work. It’s not a dirt-road adventure bike. It’s not for riding around the college campus or going to lunch. You can certainly do all those things, but if we lived in a world where the…
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The KTM 450SX-F Factory Edition has been an annual tradition since 2012. That was the year that everything turned around for the Austrian maker; the year that KTM went from being a sideshow in the Supercross circus to a headliner. At the…
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Building a YZ250 for Mike Brown
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For 2020 Husqvarna is all in with its use of TPI fuel injection on off-road bikes, which now includes the TX300 off-road racer. It only came on Husky’s trail bikes last year, and the TX is considered a fully committed race bike.…
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A first person report on the 2020 Husqvarna 701 Enduro and its role as the adventure/dual-sport crossover
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Since the introduction of the Beta 300RR back in 2013, the bike has proven to be an excellent choice for extreme enduro racers and casual trail riders alike.
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A 1995 Kawasaki KX500 2-stroke meets a KX450F four-stroke in a Mojave hillclimb challenge
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Back in the early '70s, the world was a different place. The Honda CR125 helped change it into what it is today.
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Yamaha's 2020 YZ125X off-road two-stroke is an inexpensive investment in the future
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The Honda CR250R has got to be one of the most popular early-to-mid-2000s two-stroke machines to rebuild in history. One reason is that Honda sold a ton, and the other reason is the bikes all seem to be aging very well. We found what looked…
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The Honda XR600R is still so common, it's hard to believe it's been out of production for 19 years.
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The XCF-W is back! After three years of trail riders being limited to either a fully adorned street-legal dual-sport machine, or a lightly modified fully ballistic motocrosser, KTM has brought back a dedicated dirt bike designed for the…
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The 2020 Honda CRF450RX is not a trail bike, it’s not a play bike and it’s barely even an off-road bike. This is an off-road race bike, pure and simple.  If you want something for cruising the trails and fireroads, Honda has the 2020…
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The Husqvarna FE350S is one of only two dual-sport bikes in the 2020 Husky line. There's a 350 and a 501. The 450 and 250 are gone, but as it runs out, the 350 has both of those bikes covered. If there was one dual-sport bike that could do…
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Riding the last Twin-cylinder bike to ever enter the Paris-Dakar Rally
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When Roger tested all the 500cc two-strokes and the one four-stroke of 1995, here's what he had to say
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