Ya know... I've been down this road before. I've had my fair share of Japanese MX bikes and I've NEVER ridden MX, strictly offroad. I've had a lot fewer European bikes. With 6 scooters in the garage right now, the time has come to thin the herd a little.

I currently have a steel framed '02 (last year that they were CA green stickered) YZ250 with WR trans, hydro clutch, SSS suspension, 18" wheel, 265BB, flywheel weight,etc., the list of mods is very long. I'd say it is the best setup Japanese bike I've come across. I liked the way my Gen3 CR250 handled better, but this YZ is a better overall package.

Next to that is a plated XR400. Nothing special, but it's clean, and it just plain gets the job done.

Then there is my '01 GG300. I was in the middle of a refresh last year and had since been injured so I never finished putting the engine together.

One of those has to go. Can you guess which one?







The YZ is going down the road! Is it lighter? Yes. Is it a better race bike? For the most part. Is the suspension better? Undeniably. But that GG300 engine is a thing of beauty, by far my favorite engine for offroad EVER and I'm willing to make the other tradeoffs just to keep that engine. I could imagine that the newer GG's close the gap big time with suspension/chassis improvements, but I think it says a lot that I'm keeping a 15 year old bike over one that has been updated to "current" YZ250X specs. The XR stays because, well, it's an XR with a plate!

Raced the Monkey Wrench two weekends ago, A loop, 72km of awesome cross country. Flowy loamy stuff thru the trees, rock ridges, ass-puckering downhills, wide open fire roads with de-activation ditches every 500 feet, such a huge variety of terrain. Gas stop at 52km in, wasn't on reserve yet, probably could have got 60-65km on the tank. Bike ran flawlessly, elevation was 4000-7000', temp around 18 celcius. Wasn't completely beat up tired or sore at the end, suspension is the biggest game changer for me.
Yamaha is a very cautious company, they don't make big changes........but.......everyone wishes they would make a production YZ300X, can you imagine that? I would jump all over it.