Posts
1285
Joined
11/7/2006
Location
Shreveport, LA, USA
Edited Date/Time
1/27/2012 9:02am
The 03/04 steel framed YZ250 or the 05 aluminum frame YZ250? I remember him saying the front end pushed on the 05 or something like that. Has anyone owned both of these bikes? I had an 07 which is like the 05 but never have ridden the 03/04.
Is it worth the cost for the '04 frame to give up the later engine and suspension improvements?
In a nut shell, which yz250 is the best to go with?
I've heard the 2004+ RMs are great too....
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I did a Reed look-back on his career for an Aussie mag and here's what he said about that bike
2005- Coming into ‘05 I was determined to win the championship again. I felt like everything happened at the wrong time. I put so much effort into thinking about trying to win the title, and on top of that Yamaha had came out with new aluminum frame bike. Their claim was that it was identical to a steel frame and we had some issues. It was just a difficult year as all of our strengths were now our weaknesses. I came clean with the Yamaha guys and told them I rode a factory Suzuki and their engine smoked ours, so we needed to step it up. They were able to do that and the engine was great, but we were never able to get the chassis. Since nobody had worked with the aluminum before, we took all of our works stuff from the ’04 bike and just bolted it on the new frame expecting it to work and it didn’t.
His 04 YZ250 and his 00' KX250 GP bike were the best he ever had apparently...IIRC he said Jan De Groot had his KX250 on point.
Matthes, what did Ferry have to say about this bike?
Looking forward to DV's input as well.
People like the 06+ yz because of the suspension!
I had a 06 yz125 and ridden the 250 and never like it. Way to stiff. My 07 rm250 feels a million times better!
Pit Row
if 2 strokes stayed a few more years he had RC covered in SX, the question would be if James would have kept grenading himself...
The steelframes felt more connected to the ground, less stiff on choppy parts and I felt the hooked up better.
Steelframe= lika bmx in a good way
Aluminium= a bus in a bad way
I am not trying to take anything away from his championships, I know I haven't won any, but it was his consistency, and lack of injury that won his championships, not plain beating the pants off RC4, or JS7.
The 3rd gen cr's are quite complient compared to the earlier ones and handle really good...and they dont look beat to shit after a few rides either.
Aluinum is cheaper too
If it were me, I'd get the aluminum frame version just to have the "newest" model, if you plan on having it for a few years I just think it would be beneficial.
I rode aluminum framed bikes (CRF450s) and had big get offs all of the time. I usually got flicked off the high side. One day I came up 1' short on a basic table top I had done 100s of times, did a death bounce, landed slightly sideways on the flats, and just had a huge flick that took me weeks to recover from. That was typical of my crashes back then.
I then bought a steel framed 2 stroke (250SX) . I really believe that 75% of the handling improvement came from that steel frame (not the 2 stroke itself) because I went from not being able to get away w/ anything to riding on the ragged edge for years w/ no crashes. I literally went from a guy that struggled as a novice and crashed constantly, to an Intermediate that never crashed.
Whatever it was, between the WFO all of the time and the chassis that allowed me to get away w/ murder, riding became a hell of a lot more entertaining (and fast) for me.
I loved that bike and I am looking to get my hands on one if I can!
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