As scary as 450's are, I would never downsize now to a 250 now
On a 450 I can hit doubles/table tops in say 2nd/3rd where my old 250 would be screaming in 3rd/4th just to clear it

This post was edited by TSL on May 27 2014 05:37am

I ride woods and I love the ability to ride everything a gear high and torque through it. I'm a little bit faster on a 250 but if I got in better shape that gap would close. It's easier to ride a 250 hard in the woods vs the 450 riding me. I'm trying to get the new suspension dialed in. It's already much better than it was.

Ktm makes a 350 4stroke that seems like a solid bike. Haven't rode it yet though. 450 4 stroke is definitely excessive , especially for a first bike. I like my 300xcw in the woods.

I am a pretty big guy and riding my bros CRF 450 for a couple hours fucks me up... I love it but if I didn't weigh as much I would never ride something with that much power for an all around bike. Once you get tired it becomes very dangerous haha

yup dirt bikes are the one thing that you go from saying weeeee this is fun to, why am i in the hospital in an instance

I rode at Durhamtown last weekend and we got a good 5 hours of riding in. I was riding with my best friend who I've been riding with since we were 8 years old. Naturally we are very equal since we've ridden with each other so much. He never rode trials like I did so when we got onto the new single track loop I started pulling away. He is a bit more reckless therefore a bit faster on the more open stuff. After 5 hours of pushing myself and pushing him I was sore for 3 days. That deep soreness where everything hurts, not just individual muscle groups. I started getting fatigued after about 3.5 hours. That is when a less experienced rider starts making mistakes. The first thing to go is your fine motor skills with your hands. Clutch override starts getting erratic. Throttle control isn't as smooth. Then body position gets lax. We were training for Hare Scrambles so we kept pushing through it. It was nice. I enjoy the mind over matter part.

I could ride the snot out of a 250 4 stroke all day and not have most of those problems. With the 13/52 sprocket setup and a brand new tire my KX really is a bear in the woods. I have to stay 3 steps ahead at all times or I'll blow a corner, be off the side of the trail, or leave the inside open. When I stop being cheap I'll get a GoPro for some helmet cam footage.

Ya the soreness you get from that kinda ride is intense. I remember a 5 day trip I went on when I was like 19 back in the day and got so sore on the first day from a 4 hour ride that I barely rode the next few days.

Btw that is one of the scariest feelings when you start getting lazy with the throttle or start trying to sit when you should be standing and you narrowly avoid tragedy... this is normally when I take a break and change my pants

Edit- Usually at that point I would start drinking that way I cant get back on the bike the rest of the day lol

This post was edited by Killerme99 on May 27 2014 01:21pm

Lol that's exactly right. The disconnected feeling you get where your brain can't control your arms/legs/hands is sketchy.

one of the best feelings is being out in the wide open desert or dune and just ripping threw the wash for miles

haha we used to make it a habit to ride with a group from our camp off Del Evans prkwy to the outlet centers in Barstow off the 15 freeway. It is something like 10-15 miles of solid whoops down the wash... pretty much a straight shot all the way there