2012 XC300 Review Posted

[REVERUP]

It's a 2 stroke, mags would never say it's that good for moto.

They do however work rather well on a moto track when set up for the riders ability and weight, especially when the track is gnarly. Racing western harescrambles will have you testing your Gas Gas through a moto track on every lap. In our area we try to find that happy medium where it works in the desert, harescrambles/ moto, and Enduro.
My 11' excels in all, Thanks to a superb motor and geometry from the Gas Gas engineers, and Les the guy who does the magic setup to my suspension!

Roscoe

[CDBiker220]

Originally Posted by Clay

Matt,
Not sure I get the point of doing this. When I worked for Husaberg they did the same thing with the 450 Berg and just ripped it up one side and down the other. I'm not a big MXA fan anyway.
Clay

You should consider sending MXA a bike, maybe wait till the 2013. They seem very 2 stroke friendly atleast on their website. I know they posted the link to the 2012 GasGas on the website when the info first came out and they seam to review and discuss alot of offroad type stuff on their site atleast.

[swazi_matt]

Originally Posted by Clay

Matt,
Not sure I get the point of doing this. When I worked for Husaberg they did the same thing with the 450 Berg and just ripped it up one side and down the other. I'm not a big MXA fan anyway.
Clay

From what I have read the pfp on the forks makes it a fairly versatile bike and there are guys who like to ride some mx as well

On a side note, I subscribe to all three magazines and they seem to have the same content (not so much mxa although this month they all tested the wr450) and for a new buyer it is nice to get different opinions. This side of the world there is only one magazine and I feel the articles test results are biased towards the advertisers

[Simmo737]

Talk about advertising dollars talking the talk. In 2009 the gasser 450 won the Australasian dirt bike mag 450 enduro shoot out with reference to the submitted score cards by the testers, the mag came up with a "total ownership experience" winning criteria at the last minute giving the win equally to the yammy and ktm due to " perceived reliability and resale value". No guess whom spends the most in ad dollars at adb, and have the biggest Aussie market share. it was like dirt bike watergate, gasgas got so much free publicity amongst off road riders that their 2 strokes are just about a mainstream choice here now.

The Editor left and started his own mag vowing to tell the truth, and does, he even called the new wr450 unacceptably fat in this day and age, even after Yamaha threatened to not give them test bikes again. The new mag is now the second biggest mag and gaining, and Yamaha gave them a bike, which they now call big Bertha. In the end the truth will win.

I like how u.s mags buy there shoot out bikes so they can do what they want for as long as they want, it gives the clearest insight. Moto verde seems to be ruthless as well.

[GMP]

Half the paper in a US mag is advertisements. I don't subscribe to any big mags anymore. Is this Austraiian mag available online?

[Clay]

As soon as I told Dirt Bike that there was a bike on the way to them I suddenly started getting a lot of phone calls and emails from the ad department. The other guys (Dirt Rider, Cycle News and Trail Rider) haven't done that.

I can tell you guys there's not much of a chance that I will send a bike to MXA. Even if we sold moto bikes I don't think I would send a bike to MXA. We Southern Rednecks ( ) hold grudges and I still don't like the way they handled the Husaberg thing a couple years ago.

Speaking of Cycle News.....did you guys read the article called "What Went Wrong"? It's about all of the injuries in the 2012 SX series. The article said ..... "and the margin of error has shrunk to the size of a gnat's pecker."
I almost fell out of my chair laughing. I can't believe they said that! LOL!!

[GMP]

Clay, what about Trail Rider? They have always been a pretty strait shooting bunch of guys.

[Clay]

Originally Posted by GMP

Clay, what about Trail Rider? They have always been a pretty strait shooting bunch of guys.

I will give TR anything they want to test. I consider Paul Clipper a friend and I like Kevin Novello a lot, too. Kevin has a 300 now that he is testing. He just raced it somewhere...Deleware, I think? He seems to like it a lot from what he says.

[MJC]

Originally Posted by Clay

I will give TR anything they want to test. I consider Paul Clipper a friend and I like Kevin Novello a lot, too. Kevin has a 300 now that he is testing. He just raced it somewhere...Deleware, I think? He seems to like it a lot from what he says.

From the outside looking in it appears that Kevin is a hardcore KTM/Husaberg guy who is in Brooks's back pocket. With that said I still like the magazine though.

[Clay]

Originally Posted by MJC

From the outside looking in it appears that Kevin is a hardcore KTM/Husaberg guy who is in Brooks's back pocket. With that said I still like the magazine though.

Brooks definitely has a lot of influence in the NE but I think Kevin is pretty impartial. At least we've had some discussions that lead me to feel that way.