2022 Honda CRF250R TESTED - Motocross Action Magazine

[Music] so [Music] [Music] [Applause] [Music] hmm [Music] what's going on guys motocross action is here we're in oregon at the mountain view mx park testing the 2022 honda crf250 this bike is all new from the ground up it's coming with pirelli tires this year it's got the single muffler instead of the dual exhaust it had last year this bike they claim is a lot stronger on power and that's something that we're really interested in the mxa wrecking crew we've loved the handling that the crf250 has had over the last few years but we've been really looking for some more power coming out of the corners so we can hang with the rest of the models so i'm excited to see what this bike is like on the track stay tuned to this video as we break down all the details on this new model [Music] the 2022 honda crf250 is all new from the ground up as we have mentioned this bike looks exactly like the 450 we got last year in 2021 and that kind of broke the internet it was a huge update for honda when they switched from the old 2020 chassis and switched over to the 2021 model it was a big update it was a big shock for our industry and something that was really exciting for all the test riders to get our hands on now the 250 has got all of the same updates basically it has the same exact frame and subframe as the crf450 got last year now they just bolted the 250 engine into it they also made a bunch of updates to it so this basically looks like a mini 450. a few updates to the engine it has a more rigid camshaft holder also a press fit intake camshaft sprocket and an increased oil flow all throughout the engine the piston the connecting rod and rocker arms are all modified as well the clutch has a stronger basket this year to improve durability and it went up from an eight disc clutch to a nine disc clutch with more oil going to the clutch as well so they're trying to keep the clutch cool trying to make it stronger because the crf250 is known for being a bike that you really have to ride the clutch now they're trying to add more bottom end power to this model and also make that clutch stronger so it didn't get the hydraulic clutch the crf450 got last year so a lot of people were wondering it still has the same cable clutch and i'm not complaining about it it was it was good for us didn't get the dunlop mx33 tires as the pirelli mx32 tires as well so looking at the crf 250 their big focus for 2022 was to improve the engine make it lighter faster stronger those are kind of the three tag lines that they wanted to work on with this bike it's definitely impressive what they did to it so it looks like the crf450 it has the same chassis as that one has a completely new engine and it has a much lighter weight honda claims that this bike dropped eight pounds off of last year they claim it weighs 229 pounds with 1.7 gallons of fuel in it so we're interested to put it on the mxa scales when we get it back to southern california to see where it ranks up against some of the austrian models i think if you if you subtract that fuel it could definitely be really close to where the ktm models are at so looking forward to getting it on the scales so following the crf450 the wheelbase is actually 10 millimeters shorter the rake is actually .02 more relaxed sag it out a little bit more seat height is also 10 millimeters lower at the rear the plastics are a lot slimmer and it went from 12 bolts to put all the body work on down to eight bolts so they're trying to trim weight and also just make it easier to get into the air box getting into the air box it also has that same exact upside down air filter that the crf450 got last year this increases air in the air box and just makes more room for air to be there more capacity and also just helps with power as well the whole intake was updated due to the new air box so this bike looks like the 450 on the outside it's a lot like the 450 on the inside last year we liked the crf 250 but we really wanted to see a better engine come out of it it handled well but it was so slow coming out of corners it felt you really had to clutch it you really had to carry momentum and do a lot of modifications to get it to run well so it was a great bike for novices and medium mid-level riders the average rider but for pros and for faster guys or for really anybody who was wanting to race you needed more power out of the 2021 crf 250 so honda they went back to the drawing board and we're really excited about this new bike we have it up here at the mountain view motocross park in oregon we're not testing it at our normal dirt dyno we call glen helen our dirt dyno because we're always testing bikes there i know exactly how each model feels going down the long straightaway going into talladega up the steep hills and so it's a great place for us to test so testing this bike on a brand new track did make it a little more challenging for me to exactly figure out what the bike is doing but this track is great it's been a lot of fun the track is covered in wood chips and it's got kind of washougal-like dirt underneath it so it's loamy on top and then hard and slick on the bottom but it's a beautiful place an awesome day to spend two days of riding on the crf 250 so i'm thankful that honda is allowing us to have two full days on this bike before we get it back down to southern [Music] california all right now let's dive into what you really came to hear how did mxa like the bike after two days of riding it we put a lot of hours on this bike almost four hours of riding in the last two days so we put a lot of time on it i'm tired and sore my hands are a little bit tore up so it was a long and fun two days of riding and we really learned as much as we possibly could about this bike jumping into the first topic i want to talk about the weight on the track this bike feels super nimble and a lot thinner than last year because it doesn't have that dual exhaust coming out of the rear like i had before now it's just one straight exhaust man this thing is a lot lighter on the track so super nimble to move around last year and really every year that the hondas come out they've always been super easy to throw around in the air and so for me the first time i started riding before mxa and becoming a test rider for the magazine i jumped on a honda and i was just throwing huge whips and i couldn't believe it well honda bikes they're great they're super nimble and the air and they're great for whipping so if you want a bike you can whip on you should definitely check into a honda cause it's definitely a lot easier to whip on one of these models then it might be on a yamaha ktm kawasaki some of the other models so this bike still has that same characteristic that i felt on the 2021 where it's nimble and easy to move around in the air now it's eight pounds lighter is what they're claiming so it's even lighter and even easier so diving into the weight i was very impressed with how much they were able to chop off of this bike the biggest point as i've already mentioned is the engine that's what we really came here to see is the engine going to make the biggest difference and when you're looking at a 250 model and you're racing the 250 class the engine is the most important aspect of the bike where when you get into the 450 class you really have to worry about the chassis and suspension a lot more because they're heavier they're going faster the engines are producing a lot more torque there's a lot more rotating mass inside of the engine that makes it harder to corner and the bike wants to stand up when you're coming out of it so you really have to focus more on suspension when you're doing a bigger bike like a 450 but when you get into the 250 models you really want to focus on having a stronger engine crf250 i was very impressed with the engine today and yesterday riding this bike it's a lot stronger off the bottom end crf250 last year sluggish off the bottom end and did really well on the top end but because it was so sluggish coming out of corners a lot of test riders didn't notice how fast it was because it was so hard to get into the rpms where the bike really made its good horsepower so i'm very impressed with what honda has done to the bottom end of this bike it comes with three maps it comes with the standard map comes with a mellow map and comes with an aggressive map so map one is standard with one blinking light map two mellow two blinking lights and map three is the aggressive one it blinks three different times for me i love the aggressive map but i did really also like the adjustability it had from going from stock to mellow to aggressive there's a wide range of power i'm pretty much always running the aggressive map when i jump on a 250 because i want the most power the bike has but i was very impressed with just the difference there was between stock and aggressive and mellow and aggressive is a is a wide range and uh today the track was slick so i did drop it down into the mellow and it was impressive it's something that if i was racing on the track this morning and it was that slick i might stick with the mellow map for for a race on a slick conditions or if they just water the track right before my motto it could definitely help you get a little more traction coming out of the corner so it sounds like a yamaha yz250f a lot of people were saying that and i i agree with it um it definitely sounds a lot different it's not my favorite sounding 250 but at the end of the day i'm i'm more interested in going fast and i'm not so worried about looks or sound so i'll kind of put that one on the back seat coming out of the corners this bike's a lot stronger and i'm really excited to get it back down to southern california to compare it with our yz250f our ktm250f and the rest of our 250 models to see how it stacks up against the rest of them another update that honda did to the 250 engine was the transmission so they messed around with the gear ratios trying to get second gear to run a little bit longer and third gear to run a little bit longer so they kind of mess with with the ratios i thought that i was going to be able to ride second and third a little bit longer because of the changes that they made but i was impressed that i was actually shifting a lot with this bike so normally with a bike that doesn't have a lot of power you're really riding second gear out of the corners you're riding third gear for a long time trying to get as much power as you can out of the bike but today and yesterday i felt like i was shifting a lot i was actually hitting third gear in some of the corners i was able to pull it out and and hit the jumps coming out of the corners in third so that is a huge testament to how much stronger this bike is if i was here on the 2021 model which i wish honda would have brought that model for us to test back to back with the spike they've they've done that in years past if i had last year's model i don't think i would have been making the corners as well in third gear i feel like i would have been lugging down and really having to clutch shift down into second to get out of the corners where with this bike and the updates that they made to this engine i was able to run second i was able to run third a lot easier and sooner than than i would on another model also i was in fourth gear a lot more than i expected as well and that just is another testament to how strong this bike is how strong the engine is and how strong it is off the bottom end i was shifting a lot and i wished that honda had an extra sprocket that i could change maybe go down a tooth on the rear end so that i could stay in second and third gear a little bit longer instead i was actually shifting up the fourth quite often and shifting down twice coming into the corners to get back into second so something that i was really impressed with that it was able to pull second third and fourth strongly but i do wish i could have done a little bit more testing and i'm excited to get it back to california to throw some different parts on it and see what the spy can really could do [Music] [Music] let's get into the chassis and the suspension on the crf250 this bike comes stock with 4.8 newton-meter fork springs and also a 50 newton meter shock spring so it is on the lighter side for me i weigh 170 i'm a little bit heavy for this model a little bit heavy for its target spring rate audience i'm also a pro level test rider where they definitely tailored the settings on this bike to maybe an average rider or novice rider but i was impressed with how it worked on the track started out with the sag at 105 millimeters which is pretty standard for us going across the board on most of our models we also ran the forks with five millimeters showing above the triple clamps and keep in mind these forks were also updated from last year they got the same 450 forks that are 10 millimeters longer so with that honda is trying to lower the rear end raise the front end a little bit add some stability on the track i was mostly interested to see how the 250 engine would work because that's just the biggest thing that i was interested in and the biggest selling point for this new model but when i thought about the suspension and how the bike handled i was struggling to find some traction with the front end so to fix that we realized that i was going a little bit too far into the stroke and the suspension was a little bit too soft and that was causing me to lose my front end a little bit i tried messing with the air pressure on the pirelli mx32 tires air pressure on those is actually interesting they recommend 14 psi in the front and 13 psi in the rear reason being is that the the carcass and the design of their rubber compound that they have and the tread pattern and just the the base of the front tire it's softer so if you don't run that 14 psi it's going to roll over a lot easier it's going to wear a lot faster and you're not going to get the traction that you need after messing with the psi i went back to what they recommend 14 in the front 13 in the rear back to the suspension i i kind of crossed the tires off the list i knew that that wasn't the issue for a front end traction so then we we dropped the forks down which took a little bit of weight off we went from five millimeters showing dropping the forks down to four millimeters showing so real small change but it's all about finding balance with the bike and that's what we were trying to do so we dropped those forks down that helped a little bit i had a little more traction because i wasn't going so deep into the forks and i know it sounds crazy only one millimeter change at the fork it doesn't sound like much and it doesn't seem like it would make a difference but when you're riding these bikes and comparing them it actually does and i hope you guys give it a try on your bikes at home messing with the four kite because it definitely changes how the bike reacts on the track so we dropped it down one millimeter and then we also went three clicks stiffer on compression three clicks in on the forks that helped helped it hold up a little bit more and then at that point i was happy with how the front end was feeling but i did feel like i was sagging a little bit in the rear we went one sixth of a turn the showa suspension guys were here they had their hands on in the project helping me find the correct setting that i wanted we went 1 6 of a turn in on the high speed to help my rear end stick up a little bit higher hold up a little bit more and that was my sweet spot for today and yesterday at mountain bmx park another thing to note talking with the showa suspension guys the guys that were with us today and that have helped develop the suspension on the crf250 for this year are also the guys that are at showa suspension at the supercross races with the factory teams working on their suspension as well so these guys really know their stuff they made sure to me i i wanted to make a big change on suspension they said hey honda's are especially sensitive to changes so we only made a few clicks and i was actually really impressed with uh just the small amount of changes that we did how much of they affected us on the track so that's one thing to keep in mind if you have a honda at home or if you're thinking about buying one try just just making small adjustments and see if you can notice it on the track back to the pirelli mx32 tires i do have to mention that it has a 100 90 19 tire on the rear rim so a 100 width is a little bit skinnier than most most 250s run with a 110 rear tire and 450s mostly run with a 120 rear tire so the 100 is definitely skinnier than what most guys ride with and looking at stock photos from honda a lot of people were noticing that this tire looks a lot skinnier than what we're used to seeing and it's true it is definitely skinnier although this is the first year that honda's put pirelli tires on their shear f250 model it should be noted that last year they had dunlop mx33 tires the tires were actually a 100 width on the rear as well the sizes for brands vary so if you have a bridgestone a dunlop a hoosier a pirelli the different sizes they don't really translate from brand to brand the pirelli 100 rear might be skinnier than a dunlop 100 rear you know a hoosier front tire might be wider than a dunlop front tire so they all vary and that's something you should keep in mind when you're buying tires a couple other points to know it comes with the renthal fat bars up front it also has the adjustable bar mount so you can move your handlebars forward backwards and you've got a few different positions you can play with there as for the rims it still has the did black rims it comes with it also has a 1350 sprocket ratio as well this bike retails for eight thousand ninety nine dollars and it's going to be available in mid-august so something new honda made sure not to release information about this bike until really the last second flew us up here to ride it to get this video out to you guys and now it's going to be available in only a week or two at the dealers so if you guys are watching this video now and you're interested in buying this bike you probably should go put your uh put your name in at the dealership because they're going quickly all motorcycles are going quickly nowadays so it's a good time to be in the motorcycle industry it's a great time to be an mxa test trainer so we got to spend two days at a beautiful track here in oregon riding this brand new model thanks to hondas for having us out here and i'm excited to compare this bike with the ktm the yamaha and the rest of our bikes down in southern california when we get home [Music] thank you guys for watching as always check out motocross action mag for the latest news we've got race results product tests bike tests and more and also subscribe to our youtube channel to stay up to date with our latest videos we have some cool guys out here trey canard the hrc factory honda test rider was here he we got some video clips with him jett lawrence and hunter lawrence were also out here riding with us as well we got some cool videos with them so check us out on youtube subscribe to our channels we got a lot of content coming there thanks for tuning in that's all see you next time

Channel: motocross action magazine

Views: 105,869

Rating: 4.9142246 out of 5

Keywords: race, test, wil, nuts, honda, crf, crf250, crf250r, dirt, dirt bike, jump, berm, blown, explode, whip, moto, motocross, supercross, professional, amateur, racing, testing, review, opinion, new, 2022, model, horsepower, engine, parts, products, detail, details, suspension, offroad, outdoors, track, course, obstacle

Id: ezbV4ojZ-24

Length: 19min 6sec (1146 seconds)

Published: Thu Aug 05 2021