2020 KTM 300 XC TPI and 250 XC TPI Full Review

hey guys you're watching dirt bike Channel I'm your host Kyle Brothers and today we're doing a full review of these 2020 Katie MXC bikes yes these are the fuel-injected XC bikes stick around so as you can see I'm standing here with two of them this is the 2020 300 and that's the 2020 250 just as a side note this is one of the bikes that I'm giving away for someone for Christmas if you haven't entered to win this bike go over to the dirt bike channel comm right now and get entered to win this bike I'm giving away this one and a 20-19 250 XC so basically just the 2019 version of that but here we have the 300 version and the 250 version now why do I have both of them they're very similar but they also have some subtle differences and I love both this video is going to be very long so just let me give you a quick synopsis they did make improvements to these bikes in 2020 they drop the kick start off which I hate I hate the fact that they drop the kick start off these bikes but they did some other things to them to make them better and overall these are the best and most well-rounded take him XC bikes 250 and 300 that I have ever been around I have never been around bikes that run better than these never I've owned like 40 50 bikes and I've never had bikes that run better than these bikes are they perfect no I'm gonna start out with a few things that really bug me about the bikes but then I'm gonna get into all the things that I think that they've done right and these are phenomenal bikes if you were on the fence dude this is a good time to get off the fence and just get on because these 2020s are in credible maybe one criticism you have is that it takes me so long to get these video reviews done well that's actually by design I've got more than 50 hours on these bikes my other friends bikes that are 20 20 bikes that are just like this and it gives me a different perspective after I put all that time into it and lived with them and worked on them and done maintenance on them this isn't just me going out there and do like oh I wrote it for two hours on a demo day or whatever I'm living with these bikes I'm putting significant hours on them and then I give you a video review and that's a much better thing I think it's a much different thing that an inferior just going out there and like riding it for a couple hours and then saying here's my review on it I learn more about these bikes than most people do before they do their review so that's why it takes me a long time okay so let's get into some of the things that I didn't like I don't like the fender setup here there's no place really to grab on this there's no place to grip it and when you do grab the fender you end up kind of popping this fender material out and when you're in hard situations you end up doing that you have to reach in under here it hurts your hands and you pop the fender material now this this you know this side piece from the main fender piece you pop that out and it's super annoying the other thing is I don't love all the white on the back I think white plastic ends up looking dingy and scratched up and older than than some of the other colors and so I don't like that don't want to beat a dead horse here but I hate the fact that they've removed the kick starter yes this is something that you can add back in for maybe like 300 bucks but I hate that that's gone and I hope that that doesn't go away completely that part sucks these bikes tend to run a little bit softer on the bottom end and I think that's because they run so freakin lean for the emission standards so they're a little bit softer on the bottom end but I'll talk to you about how KTM has kind of counteracted that they also run a touch warmer than a carburetor bike because they are and talking maybe five five six seven degrees on average warmer than a car Maury that covered the bike because the fact that there's not a lot of fuel going through that motor at the low rpms I think the last thing I'm going to mention that annoys me is just they should come with force to prove spark arresters I get that this is supposed to be a closed course race bike but everyone races these things through the desert and through BLM land and through all these places where you have to have a freaking you know a spark arrested silence or you're supposed to if this was just a motocross closed course bike I can understand that these aren't motocross bikes these are going out in the wild and they do need a spark of spark arrestor we could talk about other parts that they could add on but this is something that you have to take off the bike and then put something else on so skid plates and all those other things I'm getting I'm saying they don't offer they don't give you those but this they are giving and then we still have to replace it so that needs to change this needs to have a spark arrestor in it okay let's talk about the good stuff there is a ton of stuff to love of these bikes like I said before I like these bikes better than any of the other KTM bikes I've had before them they just run so smooth once they put the counterbalance motors and these things in 2017 they became smooth and then the TPI bikes run even smoother these things are like electric smooth and even the 250 runs a little bit better I feel like the 250 shows how smooth the TPI bike is a little bit better than 300 cuz the 250 is just this smooth operator whereas the 300 has just a little bit more vibration and torque eNOS to it and so the the 250 version is just this ultra smooth motor that I absolutely love for most of my riding if I was gonna pick between the two and I can only have one of them I would take the 250 but that's it's hard for me to pick because the 300 is so awesome in you know the the more tricky stuff the slower stuff so that they're both phenomenal bikes it's splitting hairs between the two the 20/20 KTM TPI bikes start better than the 19's now I think there's a few reasons for this number one they've got better mapping and but I also think it's just because this is the third generation of TPI bike that has come out we had 2018-2019 and now 2020 and they've gotten better every year and one of the places that I noticed that the most is in the starting these things aren't as cold-blooded as my 19 is so I really enjoy that they've also changed the position of the radiators the radiators have dropped down a bit in this frame and that makes it awesome because then you can remove the the steering stop bolts if you want and then these bikes can turn so tight these are the tightest turning bikes that I have ever owned personally with those steering stops out and even when you do have the student so that helps you on switchbacks and some of those tight nasty things and the hard enduro style stuff and even with the steering stops out this bike doesn't come close to punching the radiators with the front fork so I really love the turning radius on these bikes I mentioned that they're very smooth operators and when they come from the factory all four of the 22 KTM or five of the 2020 KTM TPI bikes that have been around at least the XE models the power valve has kind of come screwed in a long ways and I ended up backing mine out a turn and a half or two turns on the 300 to liven it up the 250 wasn't as bad and every bike is a little bit different but I'd have found that the power has been kind of muted on these bikes and I do think that it is a total emission saying when they said to us in eighteen and nineteen that they didn't want us playing with the power valve because I have only notice these bikes get better for me and the riding that I like to do by turning them out just a little bit but don't just go as a blanket statement that they all have to be turned out you need to get yours and ride it and find out what it's temperament is like and how you like it and then if you want the power to hit a little harder sure adjust the power valve but don't think that you just have to do it because not every bike every bike isn't an individual and every rider is an individual and what I like you might not like so just be careful with that in 2020 they came with a new ambient air pressure sensor and if your dealer knows how to unlock the bike and set it up properly then the ambient air pressure sensor will be active and it will be adjusting for the density altitude as you climb or as you descend when I first got these two bikes it wasn't set up properly in the ambient air pressure sensor wasn't working and so I could climb up three or four thousand feet and then the bike was running worse I'd have to shut it off and then it would reset itself when I turn it back on they've got that adjusted now so I've got the I've got these things now flashed where they're actually where that ambient air pressure sensor is actually working as I'm riding which is nice and they've also come up with a couple of different updated maps so they can that's one cool thing about the TPI bikes is they can you know put out different maps and then it's almost like going to get a firmware update for your dirt bike which is pretty stinking cool let's talk about the fork for a minute there's still the KTM air fork but it's they they brand at the exact fork now and still a forty eight millimeter air fork these Forks are actually really really good and they've updated some of the valving in 2020 where this thing just feels a little bit more plush and a little bit more compliant than my 20 19 s and it's hard to put my finger on it but I do like the valving the in this better and another trick is run less pressure in these I've been running about the the manual says 139 is like the standard stock pressure but I've been running as low as like 118 and then letting it come up sit because it'll increase about 2 psi and and that way I'm running the bike at about 120 in the single track when I go out to the desert I'll run a little bit more maybe 125 126 but the less pressure I run in these Forks the more I like them the more compliant they become I also like that they gave us the little rubber bands on here to see how much travel we're using yes you should be bottoming out your suspension off of a big hit if it's not bobbing then bottoming out off of a big hit that means you're not using all of a suspension travel and you're doing yourself a disservice so you can adjust that up on the clickers just a quick tip here these bikes come with adjustable handlebar mounts so that you can spin those around so that the bike the handlebar mount the handlebars can be moved a little bit more forward when the bike comes stock it'll be a little bit closer back towards you oh there's a rider I move them forward to get them a little bit further away from me but then what that does is it makes it hard to check your air pressure right here on your air fork the way that I do the way that I overcome that is I loosen these bolts I loosen the bolts down here on the lower triple clamp and I just spin this fork tube around so that now my air chuck is right here in the back and it's pointed backwards and it's easy to get my air my air gauge on there also make sure that you check these only when you are when it's up on a stand so you want to check the air with no weight on the forks but if you spin it around makes a little bit easier to get to the quick-release connector on this fuel tank is really nice it makes it so you can take your fuel tank off with just an eight millimeter socket through because the seat will bolt down through the top of it and then you've got the radiator shrouds and then you just unconnect your quick-release right here and you can take the tank off I love that air filter box is very easy to take off this one actually needs to be cleaned here just a little bit but these are easier to take off and the seat is easy to take off with one bolt right here there you don't have to mess around with two bolts so although I don't like the fender I do like how it is easy get the seat off with one bolt something else I should mention about the air filters is these twin air filters that come basically this is standard across the entire KTM line so it's the same air filter and it's the same air filter cage inside there holds this up basically basically across all of their line for several years so it's nice that it's just one part so you can go out and buy a couple of these extras and it can work on multiple bikes of multiple models I personally really enjoy the ODI lock-on grips because they're easy to change I'm running bar ends on this one these are not stock but it's easy to change the grips and it's super fast and so I really enjoy that I know not everyone loves those some people like a little bit more cushion than the ODI grip affords you but I like them they use a really flexible compound for these fenders and the flag style hand guards the other day it was on my other bike it was on the 250 Ike took a digger to kind of lost my front wheel and I had this fender twisted all the way down and around so I can see the bottom of it sticking up like right here and I thought all that fender is toast I picked the bike up and it was it just popped back into shape and I'm not gonna replace it it's not broken there's not it barely even has like a stress mark in it and the reason why I bring that up is these fenders are extremely durable and so are the hand guards it's been a while since I've actually broken one of these hand guards I now just move my levers further in you may have seen some videos about that so I'm not breaking levers as often but literally the plastics that they're using on these walks the tightrope of flexibility and durability as good as anyone in the industry you know it's kind of hard to put my finger on exactly why but the 20/20 rear end feels more planted than the 2019 rear end specifically I'm looking at this 250 XC versus my 2019 250 XC they both had right around 25 hours on them when I was testing him back to back and this bike felt more planted on their rear end so what have they've done maybe small changes in the suspension small changes in the frame but this rear end feels a little bit more planted than the 19 does what we're back here on the rear end they put a 51 tooth sprocket on the 20 20 so historically these XC bikes have always had a fifty to three or sprocket they've got a 13 to throw out on the front which is the same but they've geared this down just slightly by adding a little bit larger rear sprocket on here I think they've done that because of the little bit softer bottom end that happens with the TPI bike and at first I didn't know if I liked it because I loved the gearing on the old bikes but it's just a subtle enough change that I haven't felt like I needed to go back and I think is it was a good change to go up one to thunder-ear for these TPI bites these 2020s have a really slim body design on them it's really easy to notice this when you compare it to like a 20-18 bike but I do think this got even a little bit more slimmer than the 20 19's and they're very very slim they're tucked in very nice so you can kind of get up in here and you can put your feet forward you know through obstacles or different things or around corners and and not feel like you're pushing them out because it is very narrow I like that and that's also possible because they dropped the radiators down here down a little bit further in the frame that helped our steering as well as to slim out the body here that's pretty cool for the first time in a long time they made some real improvements on how the pipe is shaped and how it mounts to the frame these bikes I don't know where you can how well you can see but it mounts to the frame right here which is a different way that then it mounted before and it mounts differently over on the other side as well they've tucked it up higher and then they've rolled it back more so it doesn't hit on as many things this is a really cool thing here it also has flat spots over on the other side on the expansion chamber to make it accommodate the lower radiators and then just a little bit flatter on that other side I'll roll in some shots right now where you can see that and where you can see how the mounting system of the pipe on both sides is better I mentioned earlier that these bikes run maybe 5 to 8 degrees hotter on average that seems like when the carburetor bikes so that's where this fan comes in this is not a stock part a lot of people think they should come stock but I think before they come stock with these they should come stock with skid plates and rear disc guards but I digress this fan is mandatory for me now because I'm just starting my riding has evolved where it's slower and slower and if you're riding in low rpm first gear stuff where there's no air come through the radiators you're going to boil these bikes and you're going to need a fan now if you're the type of writer that needed a fan on your carburetor bike you're also gonna need it on this one if you never needed a fan on your carburetor bike you probably might not ever need a fan on these but they do run a little bit hotter if you're if you're a first year guy all the time you might need one of these fans if you can if if a lot of your writing is in second gear and third gear you'll probably never need a radiator fan so I did a podcast on that when I was talking about these bikes a couple months ago so if you haven't listened to that you should go subscribe to my podcast but this is something that if you're a slow goer you're gonna want to install if you're a faster rider more you know second gear third gear fourth gear fifth gear you probably won't need a radiator fan the fuel economy on these bikes is pretty good I think it's a 2.25 gallon tank and I can get anywhere between 60 to 80 miles out of a tank on this depending on the ride and the train and everything that we're doing I think a lot of the reason why it gets better mileage is because it's not dumping fuel out the overflows you've got the oil reservoir up here for your for your premix you put that in I think this'll last you for like five tanks of gas basically what I do is I just run about three tanks of gas through it and then I top this off and I've never had the oil light come on I have had the fuel light come on me well actually the oil light will come on if you have the bike upside down for a little while oh yeah I'm perfect but once the oil sinks back down into the oil reservoir down here the oil light has gone off so it's basically easy to just go to the pump put your premium gas in here and then run the bike and it goes forever on an oil reservoir you could ride all week long most likely you never have to fill up run out of oil before put any parts on this bike the bike weighed in at 239 point five pounds full of fuel which means that this got three pounds heavier by adding the efi on it so they took a little bit of fuel away but it's got a fuel pump and it's got the oil reservoir and all that stuff and so the bike got heavier by three pounds but they don't feel heavier that's one of the things that I keep saying is that the weight on the scale is not exactly the weight on the trail this does not feel like a heavy bike these bikes feel just as like if not lighter than the 2019 models and that's because of geometry and the way that things work and just these TPI bikes the way that they feel they just make it feel lighter than a carbureted bike I'm pretty convinced of that in the in the testing that I've done they still come with the Brembo brakes on the rear there's amazing feel with this it's got the golfer rotors and I have no problems with these there's a lot of feel on this pay no attention to the bulletproof designs brake rotor cover this is not stock neither is the rear disc guard I think they should come stock with through discards I've already covered that but the wheels back here are totally fine you come with an eighty eighty one tire I swap these out for this was this is an eighty eighty one IX tire which is a little bit more expensive but I love that tire so that's kind of what you get on the rear end of these things of course we have a Brembo front brake which gives you amazing feel all I have to do with this is one finger just my one finger to get the feel that I want on that it's also got the Brembo hydraulic clutch over on the clutch side and these are the best clutch and brake components in the industry KTM doesn't make these but they - they do put the pinnacle of brake and clutch technology at your control on the handlebars which is nice I also really appreciate the fact that they give me an hour meter stock which tells me this bike has 23.9 hours and that's where I'm going to be giving this bike away is that 24 hours it's not something that I have to install later all bikes should come with that stock and I'm glad that KTM does that they actually pay the dealer to put that on when they're taking it out of the crate so that is a nice touch well guys if you're still watching you're one of my biggest fans and I've tried to cover as much as I could on these on these bikes I know these videos are long but that's what you're coming here for this is a $10,000 investment you may be eleven thousand dollars in these bikes by the time you get them out the door by the time I paid for both of these bikes I wrote a $22,000 check and I bought them both on the same day and I have loved these bikes as much as I've loved any other bikes haven't had any major failures they've all started for me they've both started for me every time and they both perform for me on point every single time these are probably my favorite bikes ever this 250 XC is probably my favorite bike that I've ever had so far so anyway are they perfect no they're not but man they keep making slow incremental improvements on them every year and I don't know how you get better than this I'm sure they'll try to and maybe they'll go backwards in some ways but these bikes are pretty pretty stinking amazing if you want to support me one of the best ways to do it is to get entered to win this bike by going and buying a t-shirt or a hat or a hoodie because I'm giving this one away very very soon and the 2019 berry away very soon hit the dirt bike channel home to do that also you can leave monthly domain donation amounts on PayPal PayPal is probably the best way to do it now because patreon takes so much money off the top that I'm kind of moving more towards PayPal you can do that on my web site at dirt bike channel com and yeah the sweepstakes helps support me patreon PayPal those help support me and that's those are some of the ways that you can do that you can use my links down in the description as well every little bit helps my family is in debt that are doing that so that's my video review on these 2020 KTM 250 and 300 XC bikes and that's all I got to say remember wherever you go let's leave a single track thanks guys

Channel: Dirt Bike Channel

Views: 182,561

Rating: 4.9231777 out of 5

Keywords: enduro, motocross, dirtbike, ktm 2016, ktm motorcycles, shootout, ktm, range, erzberg, graham jarvis, johnny walker, best dirtbike, 125, 200, 250, 300, 350, 400, 450, 500, 525, exc, sx, how to, 2 stroke, 4 stroke, video, review, husqvarna

Id: itIRHdFCRJM

Length: 21min 21sec (1281 seconds)

Published: Sun Dec 08 2019