Ron’s Wrap

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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Back in July 1994, when Roger DeCoster was in charge of Dirt Bike Magazine’s testing department, he got a rare opportunity. He got to test the very bike that Bob Hannah raced in 1979. It was the OW40, which was reputed to be one of the…
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Team France dominated the 2023 MX of Nations in Ernee, France this weekend.  The team of  Romain Febvre, Maxime Renaux and Tom Vialle earned top scores in both the Open and MX2 classes. It might have been a clean sweep, with Febvre winning…
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We finally got a chance to ride the electric Stark Varg here in California this week. Last year we were invited to a global press launch in Barcelona, Spain to ride a pre-production version. The trip fell apart at the last minute because…
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Sometimes, when a new model is important enough, the introduction can last weeks. We first saw photos of the 2024 Yamaha YZ250F on July 26. Then, on September 24th we saw it in person on the floor of the L.A. Coliseum in advance of the SMX…
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It’s been a while since we’ve had a new adventure bike in the shop, but Suzuki has recently released the all-new V-Strom 800DE, which is the most intriguing bike in the ADV world right now. Suzuki hasn’t had a new off-road product in a very…
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The 2024 model valve has been opened and new bikes are flowing into the Dirt Bike shop at regular intervals. This week we got our first ride on the 2024 Husqvarna FC450. This is a bike that we already love. Husqvarna race bikes still…
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It’s fun to look back and realize that shootouts have always been tough. Back in the December 2000 issue of Dirt Bike, we had a six-bike 125 shootout and evidently had a hard time getting anyone to agree on anything. All we knew was that…
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I went to Sherco’s 2024 dealer meeting in San Antonio, Texas this week and got to hang out with guys like Gary Hazel, Pat Smage, Cooper Abbott and Cody Webb. It was a great opportunity to check out the 2024 models. Then, I got to ride the…
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Rodney Smith drove down from up north this week to drop off a 2024 Beta 200RR for us to try. I was a big fan of 200cc two-strokes back in the day. Who wasn’t? They were left behind over the years. I believe that it was simply hard to…
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We just got our first chance to ride the 2024 KTM 300SX. We knew what we were getting into; we had a fair amount of time on our 2023 version and it never stopped impressing us. Prior to last year, KTM had never produced the 300SX for the…
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The 2024 test bikes are starting to roll in. Last week we got ahold of the Husqvarna TE150, which is all-new this year. It has a new chassis, new motor, new electronic powervalve and a new throttle body fuel injection system. If you look…
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GasGas presented its new lineup in different fashion for 2024. Instead of revealing the new models to the press at a private event, the company opened its doors to the public. The affair was called the GasGas Spice It Up Festival and was…
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This week we returned to our roots. It was all about riding small-bore dual-sport bikes. We have the Honda CRF300L and the Kawasaki KLX300. The main appeal to both bikes is price; they each sell for around $5500. Both are made in Thailand…
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We now have our first official 2024 motocross bike in the garage. It’s the KTM 450SX-F and we already love it. That’s a little odd because this is an unchanged bike for 2024, and we didn’t especially love it last year. Not at first, anyway.…
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The Beta Xtrainer is a weird, crazy bike that everyone loves. The problem is that there’s nothing else quite like it--Beta should sell this bike in sets of two. That way you always have someone to ride with. The short description is that…
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The Honda CRF450X is the most successful off-road racer in the west. It has won the SCORE Baja 1000 16 times, the Baja 500 12 times and the 24 Hours of Glen Helen 11 times. And yet, it isn’t an especially fast motorcycle. In fact, in stock…
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