New GasGas EC250 owner (help me identify year)

[BlueLghtning]

Last weekend Sarah and I were invited out to Highland Park Resort by a friend of ours that we did the TAT with earlier this year. He knew neither one of us had proper dirt bikes, but he said he had plenty for us to ride. Him and his son came out and between the 3 of us, we shared a 2001 GasGas 250 and a 1993 Husky 250 & 360. For Sarah, he brought this bike he calls the H4S which is really an older Honda CR80 Expert (Big wheel) with a transplanted Honda 125cc engine. So basically you get a very small and light weight bike with awesome suspension and a very docile and easy to ride 4 stroke motor. Sarah was in heaven and for the first time really showed a true interest in continuing to dirt ride. He also had a KX100 there, but I never could convince her to try the 2 stroke motor. She was very happy on the docile 4 stroke and stuck to it all day. We both had a blast and decided we needed a little reward for our tight budget we've been running. We discussed it and decided a cheap set of dirt bikes to keep us busy over the winter would do the trick, so today we went on the hunt. I definitely don't need anything super nice, so I was just after a cheap 2 stroke to satisfy me and I would be happy.

In the past I've owned an '01 KTM 300exc, '01 520 exc, '99 KDX220 (all of 2 hrs before the motor blew), 2 different KLX650R's and a DRZ400E. I do currently have a 1st gen KLR650 in the garage and I've had it at HP, but its no fun there and too big and way too heavy. I'm hanging onto it though for our next section of the TAT next summer. OK, UT, CO coming up!

We went out looking today for both of us. We had 2 different TTR125L's and a DRZ125L's to look at for Sarah, but unfortunately 2 of them were just way too beat up and trashed even for our liking and the 3rd TTR had a transmission problem with 1st gear that we didn't want to tackle, so we still got to find her something.

I pretty much had my heart set on a 2001 GasGas 250 that was listed for a very reasonable price on the other side of Atl. If you had asked me 2 weeks ago, I would have probably not even considered a GasGas, but man GasGas did their homework and I had an awesome time on Tom's GasGas 250 last weekend. For some reason, I just clicked with the bike too, so that helped a lot to convince me. The guy had it listed as an '01, but I think after researching it, it's really a 2000 since they made some changes for '01 including clear coating the plastics to help prevent fading and adding an airbox door which mine does not have. This one had the faded plastic issue, but no biggie as the price was right.

She's not very pretty since he tried to paint over the faded red plastics with black paint and its coming through, but she runs great and that's all I care about. The fender is brand new and hence the reason its actually red. I guess if I really wanted, I could get new plastics for it. It has been set up for a 220lb guy, so that will be perfect for me! It has lots of new bearings and bushings all the way around, new tires, handle bar risers, starts easy, runs good, yada, yada.

I'm looking forward to going to play on it.