Transmoto Tested: 2022 KTM 250, 350, 450 & 500EXC-F

here we are let's just say north west of brisbane at a at a secret location testing some sorry doing a ktm ride day 22 2022 model kdm four-stroke exes yeah yep fun awesome location amazing location yeah probably the biggest news i guess with these 2022 bikes is the suspension so um straight off the press release jeff for two words firmer and sportier he knows all the technical stuff i don't read i might just write them but um we know we're in queensland because there's a cane tote over there i don't know if you saw it but i didn't yeah it's just hopping away yeah you know he reads all the stuff i don't but but i certainly love riding them and and yeah i've got a current 21 model um 350 so i'm familiar with them it's got a few other bikes too but i was impressed the suspension uh was the best i've tried out of you know going through all the years i've had ktms and different bikes for years now and uh but yeah it's impressive i've been impressed in the past too and some of them but they seem to change a bit so i don't know if they've fixed things it's to me it's more than you know the preload i i guess it's set up for an average guy and i'm pretty average so it felt good you know i really like that um yeah it was perfect condition so i guess we got to point that out and then bikes feel great too in great conditions and but yeah it was just a fun day and every bike i enjoyed it was good yeah well i guess you know like you said i like reading some of the data so i think they've done something we've got a polished spring to reduce the oil contamination yeah they've done done something i think on the uh on the rebound damping circuit like some of the internal componentry there yeah um yeah and something else yeah i think something in the mid valve so to me it did feel a little bit firmer um yeah because i think a couple of years ago they went down two spring rates you know from 2019 to 2020 offset that with more valving but that was great for the extreme guys who wanted to preload it but for some of the faster stuff on the big downhill stuff and i think you probably experienced that too with your 350 yeah 21. a little bit soft in the front yeah it was really many ways it was hard to fault the suspension you know i mean today you mean yeah today yeah i i thought it was the best that i've tried for a while you know in in these things and um track was great it's not you know it's amazing tracking as far as it's got some really good fast stuff it's got a grass track it's a bit choppy here and there it's it's got definitely got a good bit of tight stuff with some rut so great test ground and yeah just the bike feels really balanced they all felt pretty balanced it's amazing how the motor makes different things stand out good or bad you know so um but if we're just still talking about suspension overall they were all really good i think my favorite in suspension was the 250 and the 500 but yeah it's kind of weird it's amazing how much difference that piston makes it's just interesting um yeah well we're talking about it before and according to the specs we really need to sort of double check this so it's gone to a you know four six meter uh spring across the whole range which is interesting and and the same uh 63 69 shock springs so you know even the specs are saying they've got the same valving but let's you know from your experience you'll like it yeah they felt quite different yeah yeah yeah they did but again it probably just shows how much effect that um inertia and crank and piston has on the way everything works it's just crazy how much heavier a 500 feels than a 250 you know and there's there's like one and a half kilos from the lightest that's because it's just insane but you would you would think bigger guy a stronger guy gets a 500 more horsepower more engine braking throwing weight forward you were yeah the engine specs and again i'll have to confirm this that the suspension specs i would would have to be beefier to offset that right yeah yeah yeah and it kind of felt like that out there right in terms of the bigger the bike went the firmer it felt it certainly didn't feel like they were all the same so it definitely doesn't feel like that um the first bike i rode was the 250 and and and i was the most impressed with that like just felt great yeah it felt really good yeah um and then as i went through the conditions were changing a little bit it was still really good at the end but it was drier a bit more skatey a bit choppier and things but yeah i don't know um yeah it's it's you know they're all good but it's amazing how different they feel yeah for me the the 250 i think i didn't climb out of a rut some of these tight stuff in the bush all day you know i felt like a better eye than i am because it just sat in a rut yeah it kept me in a rut you know as the front wheel wasn't climbing out it was yeah i knew where i was in the seat you know because the power's really controllable but yeah the suspension certainly felt yeah well the nimbleness of the 250 allows you to do crazy things you know compared to the one and a half kilos more of a crazy inertia of an engine but yeah the 250 was amazing nimble um and i don't know if you want to get off the suspension but you know i rode that first and i thought wow this is really great fun bike i don't normally ride a 250 so i had a lot of funnels going what a great track everything was good and then a couple of times you feel like um you know gee clutch it a bit more you learn to ride it if you're not used to it you learn to get on the gas more and clutch a bit more on a 250 it doesn't take you that long but at first you're just wishing a few times only a few times for me anyway um to want to liven it up and let's get going a bit more and obviously you go to a 350 and it's already there yeah so i kind of went yeah i went wow you know i went i actually went from a 250 to the 450 and i to be honest i'm not re you know i didn't really like the last 450 that much that i rode um it felt really heavy i don't know why it was probably a bit to do with the power wasn't exciting and livening the bike up but this one these feel a bit different and i'm pretty familiar with the 350 power and i've done stuff to mine but this 350 seem to go a bit better too and what do you see the difference between the 450 and the 500 you know obviously the 350 and the 500 the big sellers in the in the fourth track range what is the 350 and the 500 yeah but i'm just asking you know because the 4500 very close how how do you see the difference in cash yeah well the way i rode it i rode the 450 second and i went well i didn't think this was the greatest thing ever when i last rode one which is maybe two years ago now or no it's only probably a year ago so anyway um i went wow this is a good bike and i really did like it and then i jumped on the 350 and i went yeah that's why i bought one because they're pretty a good all-round sort of a thing um yeah and it made sense it all made sense that you know like that one's got a little bit too much or whatever that the 450 i liked it better than the last one it was more alive it was it was hard to fault in many many ways i went yeah this thing's bloody good and then then i jumped on the 500 last and last time i wrote a 500 i actually raced one in america and gncc's not not that long ago just did a few and it was felt really you know heavy it was good i can see why amazing riders like milner and sanders can you know they're just they're so fit you know it's more physical of course but they can just run higher gears and keep the speed you can be so smooth on that bike it's incredible so yeah today i was just sort of in the at the end of the day i was i was happy i've got a 350 but i was really loving the 500 yeah yeah i love the 500. can we just go back to the smaller capacities a little bit we're talking about it a lot over lunch we've talked about a lot over the last couple of years um you know the typically the sort of 250 and 354 strokes have come out of europe where it's a lot snottier and it seems like they do a lot more stopwatch testing and the mapping as a result is much smoother linear yeah you know but you can get it much much better here i know you've had some aftermarket maps yeah he said to me today that i think the stock faith 350 might not have quite that jump because i feel like it was 15 but it's almost there right so they've chosen to i feel like they've done something you know yeah certainly the 350 was great um you know i might do something to it if i bought that thing but um yeah it's uh the last one i said the guy's jokingly feels a bit like it's tied to a tree whereas this one doesn't you know so they've got lemon i don't know maybe they've tweaked these bloody things you know i don't know but let's say they haven't they're good um the powers the power's really good on all of them i loved it um and the 500 was something that's really made me start thinking you know so you're buying a few of your own bikes these days which gives you a great independence which i love so now i've got my little cheap sheets down here so if you go from 250 350 4500 we're talking about from 14.5 to 16 and a half so that goes 14 and a half for 250 15 and a half give or take this is a recommended retail for the 350 you know 15 8 for the 450 and then you're paying 16 for 2 grand is a fairly big differential for bikes other than you know as you say pissed and smaller piston obviously but from a capacity and point of view it's quite a big differential isn't it yeah i mean okay it might it might be more than a person but it's only a crankshaft as well but anyway um i don't know yeah i didn't know that so there you go there's quite a difference but um i think you've got this choice out there where you know like if you ride a lot of tight stuff and uh you get lazy on the bigger bikes and then if you jump on a 250 like i did at the start it's it's like reliving it's exciting your times again and you have to work it and there's something really cool about trying to thrash a bike and really let's get it going and you're clutching and you're feeling excited about riding it and i got that when i first jumped on it um and you know you can learn something you know guys who are only used to 250s they fly on them because they really know how to ride them and all that and you can learn all that but if you let's say you feel like you're in a rut or something these are all good to ride of course you know but you just got to suit what you know i mean some guys it's like back in the cr 500 days all these guys just wanted to have 500 because they just got so much power you know and i can see why the 500 would be popular then because it's got heaps of power but it's a it's an amazing bike for smoothness the 450 is more aggressive you know it's not crazy it's still very torquey and it's fine but the 500 is just you know i don't even know why they put first and second gear in it you just save some weight take those out and you can take off in third you can do it's a really versatile long power it doesn't seem to vibrate it's yeah they've done a good job well i'd say sort of just listening to what all the other journalists were saying today um you know i think the 350 the best of both worlds is probably probably the all-round favorite i'm going to say it and i think you know and i don't think i've ever said this before i had more fun today on the 250 as i get older you know dancing on the blood yeah yeah it's great and exciting and fun but after a while you jack of it you know but i love the thing today the combination of the agility the fact it could sit in rats it would pull gears like pulled third gear up any hill like yeah you like even if you had a moment got not stuck but you know lost a bit of speed in the middle so that was a really massively impressive yeah yeah it was a very impressive bike it's it's uh flamed out a couple of times on me i don't know why maybe none of the other bikes did that you know but um but i know exactly what you mean you know i had a lot of fun on it and it's it's so nimble that that makes puts a smile on your face it's like as you say you can come into a rut from a different angle and you just lay it over and it doesn't push itself out of the rod it just hooks in and you can flick it around you can go i'm going to clip that tree and you just go like that you can't you know it gets more and more limited in when you get to the bigger engines you know but yeah it's a great bike yeah but hey a lot of fun today mate you know yeah through the three uh four-stroke um from kdm great to be back having the opportunity to ride these things um you know i guess i will say that it'd be pretty cool to get on those two strokes really interesting now that uh you know even even not including kdm's mini range they sell as many two strokes now um across the board as they do four strokes so um that's that's next on the smallest board jeff while we're up in here in queensland yeah i think sounds good deal deal deal

Channel: Transmoto

Views: 8,446

Rating: 4.8507462 out of 5

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Id: KV1yVzV7SVk

Length: 12min 45sec (765 seconds)

Published: Tue Sep 14 2021