So You Want a Yamaha WR250R... (Best Dual Sport)

so you want a wr250r it's a video no one but the most educated handsome and cultured riders will watch congratulations you're one special cookie or maybe you were just thinking i dunk on the bike because i'm a fast boy well you'd be wrong i love the wr250r so much that i've been dreaming about it behind my desert sled's back for the last few years now yep we've got a supercharged naked a brand new never-before-seen cruiser and a new triple from triumph in the shop right now along with a loner r18 and a tuono v4 1100 factory and the one bike i'm the most excited about is a 249cc thumper that makes less power than a ninja 400. did i fall and bunk my noodle did i get abducted by kyles and waterboarded with monster energy drinks or is it possible that a dual sport is one of the most fun kinds of bikes that you can spend money on seriously guys if there's only one thing you take away from this video is the dual sports have way more to offer than you might think whether you're a die hard street rossi or a leather daddy cruiser boy you owe it to yourself to pick up a dual sport and today we're gonna give the wr250r the whole so you want a blank bike treatment we'll talk history competition common problems and hopefully by the end of this video you'll be a little bit more excited to hop on a dual sport and specifically the best one the wr since we're talking about the wr250 today i should remind you that we're giving away six thousand dollars in cold hard cashy money so you can go out and run out and buy your own wr or a different bike if you don't have a big brain we've also got a brand spanking new triumph trident a zh2 with a full brox performance treatment a rebel 1100 and an rs660 get yourself entered to win any of those prizes by clicking the link down below going to yammynub.com and signing up you'll get instant access to the discord server which is a community of over 3 000 riders hanging out and questing for the answer to the eternal question of ninja 400 or r3 one day they will find that answer if you don't want to participate in all the fun stuff you can just go to yammynewmerch.com or every dollar you spend on merch as an entry to win a bike oh yeah and we're making our way to one million subs in the turbo boosa if you're not subscribed then it's your fault you haven't seen it yet just saying you should really clip subscribe my dude okay so history well pretty much every dual sport is a porkier version of a dirt bike with turn signals and the wr is no different the wr can trace its lineage back to the wr250f dirt bike and the yz250f motocross bike since both of those machines are off-road only bikes measured in hours they only share a few components the wr250f has a 5-valve 246 cc engine to the rs 249 ccs with four valves but you do get very similar suspension components when it comes to dual sports yamaha was late to the game first dropping the wr250r in 2008 alongside with a super moto variant in the wr250x it's single is putting down a respectable 30 horsepower and 17 foot-pounds of torque and if you're a quote-unquote veteran you're thinking that's dumb or slow there's no way that a bike that small could be fun but actually it's right in line with the other dual sports in the segment and it weighs a lot less than the competition at 285 pounds wet and ready to ride when you consider the derp bikes start in the mid to low 200s for weight you're not that much heavier most of the extra weight in the wr comes from a reinforced frame for street duty when you look at the frame rails underneath the seat you see a chunky square aluminum frame that looks more like what you'd find on a sport bike as opposed to the tube steel frame of the wr250f of course you've also got extra components like a massive tail tidy floppy turn signals extra bulk on handlebars for the indicators as well as connecting electronics and while you could shed some of that extra weight you're already a stone's throw away from a dirt bike weight so there's really no big need i think it weighs just fine in my opinion the wr-250r made waves when it first hit the street since for three reasons the first and most obvious is fuel injection look hardcore dirt bike boys keep saying that carburetors are the only way to go that they're more dependable and that only sissies use fuel injection but that's smacks of stockholm syndrome to me the number of times i've heard of guys out on trails and the mountains needed to pull over and swap jets because the air thinned out too much mid-ride they had to swap out a whole new carburetor just get an extra horsepower or two but imagine a world in which you just ride your motorcycle and you can go from sea level to the top of the mountain and the bike does all the adjustments for you and doesn't need to be choked like there's no tomorrow to get it start in the cold that's the wr250r it just works yes it's not putting down as much power as the competition but it's just way easier to live with trust me my dudes go fuel injection the second main boon for the wr is its sixth gear on most dual sports you're working with only five which means that you have to ride the bike on the highway it's absolutely miserable at speeds over 55 or 60 miles per hour the fifth gear is basically just an overdrive so there's no passing power and it's not tall enough to keep the bike from shaking itself to pieces on the wr not only have you got an extra gear in the box but it's got much wider ratios which is actually where the wr nomenclature comes from meaning that each gear has more headroom to work with you know how on a lot of bikes they shift one one gear to the next and you get maybe 1 000 rpm reduction engine speed on the wr you get a lot more meaning less vibration at high speed because the engine is not rung out all the time unfortunately it is not all sunshine and rainbows for the wr it is a very slow motorcycle shocker i know but its measured top speed is 82 miles an hour which means that on faster roads the bike will be gasping for air so while you can ride the bike out to the trails on a highway if it's more than a few miles you'll either want to tow it or modify your handlebars to help out with any excess vibes you're going to get cruising at 70 miles per hour yes the engine is less vibey than something like a drz but it's still a 249cc thumper however because it has those six gears and a low weight it still feels punchy and fun to ride right up to about 55 miles per hour you'll be working the gearbox and you can rev the absolute nuts right off the wr and it just keeps on humming another problem with the wr is that it's got a sky-high 36.6 inch seat height if you're a shorter rider you can forget about flat footing this bike you'll be lucky if you can even get a tippy toe on the ground but because it's a lightweight single cylinder motorcycle you can easily lean this thing over at traffic lights and get that foot down yeah the bike might be pitched to the side a bit but it's so light that you're not even gonna notice while its suspension is fully adjustable it's not nearly as soft from the factory as the drz and even with spike sitting on the bike the wr didn't really squat too much even your old papa yam can only get one foot down on the ground so it's safe to say that this bike is prohibitively tall if you're in the market for a dual sport and you need to be able to get at least one foot down the ground comfortably without pitching the bike over you should check out bikes like the xt250 which has a seat height over five inches shorter and lovers of the xt series say they're just as fun too as a brief side note the dash is abusable on the wr it makes the dash on sprite's smcr look good it'll tell you how fast you're going and that's about it but hey you don't need much more than that oh and yamaha have officially ended production of the wr250rs if you want to go get one brand new you'd better go out and run one before they're gone actually i feel really lucky that i was able to snag one brand new as a side note so as a package the wr250r is a competent dual sport that is as capable off-road as it hit on but how does it stack up against the competition the first and most obvious bike to compare it to is the suzuki drz-400s the drz has a 398 cc thumper putting down 40 horse and 29 foot pounds of torque and it comes on a lot sooner in the power band but the engine is a lot lazier it's not as snappy or performance oriented as the wr but people love the tractor factor the drz when you get it tuned right you basically can't stall it out but that's assuming you can tune it right because it's an old carbed bike so you have to do all the thinking for it wet and ready to ride the drz is much heavier than the wr at 319 pounds which helps to offset the drz's extra power the drz is marginally more stable at speed because the extra junk in the trunk but it's been around for longer meaning that its aftermarket is slightly more robust but that's like saying the sportster has a slightly more robust aftermarket than a cb750 with both bikes you can do whatever you want you can slap a set of sumo wheels on it if you can you can take a rally tank and heated grips on it if you want to stripping down and make it into a weird cafe bike you can too the drz is slightly more reliable thanks to its lower compression and state of tune but you only have to do the valves on the wr every 22 000 miles for my money the wr is better than the drz but both have a reason to exist unlike the honda crf300l the crf is a 286 cc single putting down 27 horsepower and 20 foot pounds of torque and it weighs at 313 pounds so it's heavier than the wr and slower than the wr yeah sure it's got six gears and it's got fuel injection but it's kind of just like a cheap knockoff of the wr in my opinion the only thing it has going for it is its price at 52.49 brand new and the fact you can still buy it brand new this one's pure dole honda it's a hard pass just get the wr in my opinion the last japanese entrant is the kawasaki klx 300 it's a brand new offering for 2021. it's almost as cheap as the honda as 5599 it's got more under the hood with a 292 cc single putting down 33 horsepower and 21 foot-pounds of torque i think we were all kind of hoping for a bike that splits the difference between a wr and a drz but what we got is a slightly modified wr250 in my opinion six speed transmission check fuel injection check lightweight kinda it's got a claimed weight of 303 pounds but claimed weights are never a reality i'd bet this bike is closer to 310 but yam how can seven pounds matter that much you'd be surprised when it comes to off-roading every ounce counts so being heavier than the wr is a bummer also the suspension is not fully adjustable you get compression up front with rebound and compression on the rear shock again it's a bummer but i get that you have to cut some costs to keep the price down is it a perfect replacement for the wr no but it'll have to do if we ever get a wr300 or 350 comes out the elephant in the room however is the ktm 350 excf which is perhaps the most beastly lightweight single yeah there's the 500 but that's a different weight class this thing is literally just a dirt bike with lights it's 350cc singles putting down 35 horsepower and while they don't claim a torque figure ktm bumpers are very very snappy my 250 motocross bike absolutely rips it weighs in at 236 pounds without gas so with the full tank we're probably talking close to 250ish ready to ride it's got top spec suspension and brakes and it's got a massive following second only to the 500. it'll cost you 11 1999 so this one's really only for the most hardcore and discerning dual sport rider but if you do find yourself owning one of these you're basically dual sporting apex predator in reality the wr is probably the better bike for a casual rider because it's a lot cheaper and you don't need to worry about insane maintenance schedules and ktm prices and it's probably going to be just as capable but my god the 350 excf is a delicious motorcycle and i would not rule it out that i would probably buy one one day so you've decided you're gonna buy yourself a wr 250r and that is good clearly you're a cultured motorcyclist with a big old brain betwixt your ears what sort of problems can you deal with basically none the only bikes that seem to have issues are the early 2008 model years which had fuel pumps that would occasionally crap out and all you need to do is swap the pump out for a new one and you're all set the most common issue is a chain skipping issue where the chain could skip a tooth on the sprocket due to improper tension this is usually an issue with the 2008 bikes with the stock chain and sprockets most riders tend to choose their own gearing with this bike either picking lower gears for more torque or higher gearing for longer rides other than that you just need to set the suspension for your weight because from stock it's a bit stiff if you decide to send it off some jumps the wr250r is a legendary dual sport and probably the best one out there in the price bracket if you want to get a starter bike that can handle the tall seat this is your bike if you want a second motorcycle to add to the stable this is your bike if you want to start dabbling with off-road riding but you're not willing to go all the way with the dirt bike this is your bike it's a great motorcycle and it's a crying shame yamaha won't be making anymore so anyways i'm gonna be off having fun with my wr now i need to go take it out for ride anyways goodbye ah bummer for you my little squid this video is actually over but lucky for you there's plenty of other game new videos you can check out right over here what's gonna happen to them i don't know i haven't seen them but you can watch them right now

Channel: Yammie Noob

Views: 80,376

Rating: 4.9167771 out of 5

Keywords: motorcycles, yammie noob, new rider, newbie, motorcycles for beginners, yammie noob beginner bikes, yammie noob beginner, wr250r, 2020 wr250r, 2020 wr250r review, wr250r wheelie, 2020 wr250r off road, 2020 wr250r weight, 2020 wr250r specs, best dual sport motorcycle, best dual sport motorcycle 2021, best dual sport motorcycle for beginners, best dual sport motorcycle for short riders, yamaha, wr250r mods, wr250r vs drz400, wr250r vs drz400 specs, wr250r highway

Id: JlXb7M6uRY8

Length: 12min 20sec (740 seconds)

Published: Mon May 03 2021