Trail Bike Adventure Magazine

BMW 450 and 800

Tuesday, 16 September 2008 23:30

Both bikes are excellent for their intended purpose, but as I sit here I'm more keen on the 800 as an adventure-tourer than I am on the 450 as an enduro bike. I didn't get enough time on either to make a good solid call, and by that I mean I would've liked to run the 800 around some of the excellent trail used for the 450. We only rode the 800s on the ashphalt and dirt road. BMW points out that that's how 90 per cent of owners will treat those bikes, and I accept that, but I must be in the remaining 10 per cent. I would've loved to press the bike a little. It felt so awesome, I'm pretty sure it would've cleaned just about everything we rode on the 450.

The 450 is very innovative, and a very difficult package to fault. It's unbelievably tractable, chugging up some fairly greasy hills and punting along some very slippery trails with incredible ease, and there's no doubt it's a great trail bike. Still, because I'm such a fussy old bastard, I'd've liked to do some of the stuff I would do on any race bike (change some tyres, do some maintenance, spend some time on a circuit of some kind messing about with suspension and so forth).

But as far as just riding the thing goes, it's pretty damn good.

You'll be able to read my impressions in issue #24.

Meanwhile, Ben Grabham has jumped ship to KTM.

There had been some whisperings that he was a possibility to change away from Honda, but because I don't spend a great deal of time with the front-runner racers I tend to miss a lot of the gossip. I was the only one on the BMW ride who seemed at all surprised. Racers changing brand is no surprise, and Ben changing brands was a very regular occurence when he was younger, but the combination of Ben and Glenn Hoffmann Racing seemed so strong I thought it might go on a while yet.

Whatever. Ben's a champion with a huge heart and I'll continue to barrack for him no matter what he rides, and I'll always be a Honda fan. I'm sure both parties will continue onwards and upwards.

Closer to home, the CRF is in the garage, leaking fuel like seven bastards. The problem seems to be with the new Quickshot, but I can't for the life of me see what's going on with it. Removing the carby means removing the subframe and shock, so I need a little time to get in there, but I dismantled it all last weekend and tried everything I can think of, and it's still leaking...gushing might be a better description. I left the original part out at Moree, so when it arrives back here I'll re-fit it and see if that cures the problem. After that there's still the jetting to be sorted.

The XR, as always, is doing the bizzo. It still has the annoying knock in the top end under acceleration, so I'm going to have to find a day to get that motor out and pull that top end off as well.

But those things will have to wait until the next DVD is done and issue #24 is locked away.

Crikey.

TF