#dirtbike

Pssst! Hey, you, Joe moto fan. Did you hear who Suzuki has hired to ride for the Yoshimura Suzuki team next year? Sounds like it’s going to be that Roczen guy from Germany and Broc Tickle in the 450 class. Boy, Suzuki had better have a solid bike for them to ride…

While this week’s Church of MO feature comes to you in the dead of summer, it’s never too early to think about what your riding plans will be come winter. For much of the country this means getting your precious bike prepped for three months (maybe longer!) in the garage while the snow piles up outside. However, it doesn’t have to be that way. Not if 2Moto Inc has anything to say about it. Its conversion kit to turn your average motocross bike into a snow-cross bike means, with this kit and some simple modifications, 2Moto is out to prove year-round riding is more than doable. The company is still around today, but our own Lucas Cooney featured the clever kit seven years ago. Here’s what he had to say.

While 16th century Italian philosopher Niccolo Machiavelli never knew the fascination that we dirtbike riders feel for modern motocross machines, his two most famous quotations sum up the 2014 Yamaha YZ250F so succinctly it’s as if he had strapped on some gear and pointed Yamaha’s practically all-new quarter-liter berm basher toward the nearest triple jump.

The 2013 Suzuki RM-Z450 boasted an assortment of technical upgrades to the engine, chassis and electrical system improving both power and handling performance. The 2014 RM-Zs, not so much. In fact, besides new radiator shrouds and yellow number plates the only performance upgrade is a reprogrammed Electronic Control Module.

Suzuki made several updates to its 2013 RM-Z250 MX machine, adding numerous technical upgrades to the engine, chassis and electrical system to improve the power delivery and enhance handling. With so many changes made last year, and given the typical development cycle of the OEMs, it’s no surprise that the 2014 RM-Z250 returned to the MX wars in virtually the same trim. In fact, besides new radiator shrouds and yellow number plates the only performance upgrade is a reprogrammed Electronic Control Module.

Many dirtbike riders tend to associate European brands with state-of-the-art Open-class off-road racing motorcycles. After all, the vast majority of KTM sales are in the off-road market, Husqvarna has been on a slow but steady climb back into prominence, and smaller yet no less dynamic companies such as trials bike giants Beta and Gas Gas have devoted a lot of time and resources into manufacturing excellent big-bore off-road bikes.

Look up the word “dominance” in the dictionary, and it wouldn’t be unfathomable to see a photo of a red Honda off-road racer streaking across Mexico’s Baja California peninsula to illustrate the definition of the word.

Good ol’ family fun is the focus behind the CRF line of trail bikes from Honda. From the CRF450X for Dad to the CRF50F for little Junior, Big Red has something for everyone. Now its latest models, the CRF125F ($2799) and CRF125F Big Wheel ($3199), aim to truly fulfill the company’s internal tagline of “having a bike for every butt.”

For 2014, Kawasaki is introducing significantly updated versions of both the KX85 and the KX100 in an effort to stay one step ahead of its rivals in the never-ending battle for mini motocross supremacy.

Yamaha’s radical, reverse cylinder head YZ450F set the world on its ear when it debuted in 2010. Sure, the ill-fated Cannondale MX400 of 1999 had already introduced the concept to the motocross world, but the difference was that the Cannondale suffered from fuel-injection issues and a lack of power whereas the Yamaha worked well right out of the box. Today, the YZs are the only Japanese motocrossers to use this major mass-centralizing design feature.

For 2014 the Kawasaki KX250F receives an array of upgrades for the new model year, while the KX450F gets a pair of slimmer stock handgrips and new graphics. We got a chance to swing a leg over both machines as part of a two-day media event at Competitive Edge MX Park in Hesperia, California.

Kawasaki’s motocross lineup is fairly fresh, so we expected only mild updates for the 2014 KX models. But the Team Green engineers were quite busy in the off-season, cramming in several revisions to the popular KX250F and some milder tweaks to the venerable 450F.