Why I Switched Back To A 2 Stroke After Years Of Riding A 4 Stroke.. | KTM 250XCW First Thoughts

[Music] [Music] so I've spent about two weeks riding this bike put well over 15 hours on it and it's time to give you my first initial thoughts and what I think of this machine I absolutely love this thing for the type of riding that I like to do the slow technical stuff the log crossing is the hill climbs going through creeks and all the low speed stuff this is the machine for the job I was a little bit on the fence of going with the 250 I really wanted to find a 300 but I got the chance to ride a few 300s and I prefer this bike I've noticed and some other people have told me as well that these things just feel lighter I think there's only a 9 or 10 pound difference between this and the 300 but it just feels lighter the way the engine is the way it moves the way the power is delivered it's not a huge difference but what I'm trying to say is I do not regret going with the 250 at all and I absolutely love the power that this bike has now on to the next topic what made me want to switch back to a two-stroke from the four-stroke I've been riding 4 strokes for a while I always had this perception that 4 strokes just loved better and they had better lower end and that was true for the most part back in the day a lot of the race bikes the 250s the 125s you had to be on the pipe you had to get up in the higher rpms in order to get the power out of them but these modern-day two strokes are a completely different animal now KTM has been doing it for a while and even Kawasaki at the KTX 200 they're very similar to what this is today but these are just super refined I mean from the ground up the suspension is amazing the PDS setup in the rear is super nice I'm not experienced enough to notice a difference like coming from a linkage but it's just nice having that peace of mind that you don't have anything down there to worry about and the suspension feels dialed on this bike I love it this 2018 is counterbalanced and I didn't think it made that big of a difference at first Alexa's brother DJ he just got a beta 300 and we swapped bikes when he got it just for a little bit and I didn't notice huge difference but if you're going out riding all days you will notice difference absolutely I got the chance to ride multiple two strokes back-to-back shout to slow he has a sure ko 300 DJ with the beta 300 and hopping back onto those 250 I did not want to get off of the 250 anymore this thing is nice it's smooth the counter balancer does make a huge difference with the vibrations the electric start man this thing has been awesome to have like I said earlier the redesign the starting system sits up underneath so it's not just strapped on to the side like an afterthought and it's a lot more reliable this way and you don't have to worry about it but the lugging power of these bikes is what sold me and I will never go back as far as a trail bike first and second gear especially on the xcw are super low and you have to try to stall this bike like you can creep you can crawl and not even have to worry about the clutch and I found that the sweet spot is second and third gear second for the hill climbs you put this thing in second and you can lug this thing up just about anything it's an absolute cheater bike that's what I call it man this thing is a cheater bike I've done things on this bike and I couldn't have imagined doing on the 450 L or 250 L another point is the weight these things are super lightweight in comparison to most four-strokes and what I've come from in combination with the lugging power the hydraulic clutch is a game changer this thing is buttery smooth and it just makes you want to practice clutch work and be on the clutch all day long and it's not gonna fatigue you so everything that I've said so far has been positive do I have any negative feedback on this bike maybe just little nitpick things the headlight is absolute garbage but you don't really buy these things for the headlight I'm gonna do an LED upgrade at some point the kickstand sits super tall which can be good and bad and cross my fingers I haven't had any issues with it or any other bolts coming loose because I know a few people had issues with that I love the airbox design it's got the quick-release side panel here so you don't need any tools to get into the airbox you just rip that off and service your filter here or you got some nice grass in there but that's a that I didn't think I would really need but now that I have it I wouldn't want it any other way maybe another little nitpick would be these side panels here they get filthy honestly no real complaints this thing is awesome I think about it at night like this is one bike that keeps me up I'm like man I cannot wait to hop back on this thing ride it increase my skills and that's the biggest thing for me and the biggest excitement that I have right now is finally being on a bike that's more capable than me and I can push myself grow as a rider so this is the 2018 and it is the last year for the carbureted models all of the new ones are TPI fuel-injected so why didn't I get a TPI honestly the deal was just right on this bike I wouldn't have been opposed to getting a TPI I have heard of a few select people having oil pump failures with the TPI bikes but it didn't really scare me away you just have to replace the oil pump I think it's every 100 hours of those bikes to maintain a peace of mind and just make sure you're running clean fuel through it and there are benefits to having the carburetors I mean tunability I can tune this thing however I want to and I know how to do it carburetors are very simple and thankfully this bike was jetted properly as a JD jet kit installed because the factory Jets weren't cutting it this guy that had it before me struggled to get a jetted right but this thing is dialed so no complaints I was worried about that maintenance wise the key to keeping these two strokes healthy is just to have clean air filters change the transmission fluid every once in a while I'm not gonna go super overkill with that but the air filter is the biggest thing running a good quality premix I'm running the AMSOIL Dominator and this bike at fifty to one no complaints so far it's a great oil and I've heard great things from other people that have written with it for a while the recommended interval for a top and rebuild on one of these things is around 100 hours but that's for like higher rpm use and for the most part I'm just lugging this thing on the trail so I think I might try to stretch it to around 130 maybe even 150 hours I'm not sure and I was thinking about doing the 300 kit someday just when it came time to rebuild just swap the 300 kit on there that just consists of a cylinder ECU pissed obviously but the way this 250 is they're performing so far and the nature of this bike I love it I think I'm gonna stick with the 250 the way that I've been riding we will probably reach rebuild time by the end of this season I was hoping to make it til next season but no worries top end isn't that big a deal and honestly it's better to be safe than sorry and just go ahead and rebuild it let me know what you guys think do you think I should try to stretch it out to around 150 hours or just go ahead and bite the bullet and do it at a hundred hours I think a lot of people are over killed their top ends but you know what that's just peace of mind well that's gonna wrap up my first initial thoughts on the KTM 250 xcw let me know what you think down in the comments below are you excited to see this bike what do you think are some things that I should do to it I want to get radiator guards and potentially a fan kit I came close to overheating it on this technical section where I got stuck on a hill so we might need to do the fan kit if you're excited as I am make sure you hit that like button plenty of content dropping on this bike very soon this is my first modern two-stroke so I'll let you know my experiences along the way so make sure you have those notifications on subscribe if you're new and until tomorrow's video we got a bad of a month left of these daily uploads I'll see you then [Music]

Channel: Adventure Daily

Views: 69,837

Rating: 4.8960652 out of 5

Keywords: KTM, KTM 250XCW, 250, XCW, XC, EXC, 2 stroke, two stroke, trail bike, dirt bike, enduro, adv, dual sport, street legal, moto, trail riding, hill climb, national forest, ohio, ohio trails, ohio youtuber, adventure riding, atv, exploration, hill climbs, dirt bike hill climb, 250cc, new bike, buying my dream bike, bike reveal, facebook marketplace, craigslist, 2018 KTM, TPI, Huqsvarna, TE250, TE300, 300XCW, 300cc, 300, adventuring, review, 4 stroke, four stroke, comparison, vs, 2 stroke vs 4 stroke

Id: zirPr4x-Ct4

Length: 9min 10sec (550 seconds)

Published: Mon Jun 15 2020