#dirtbike #offroad #outdoors #trail #adventure
This week, Matt Stavish of Checkpoint Off-road escaped from Siberia (well, Minnesota) to bring a RedMoto 300RX for us to try. We got to see these bikes at the EICMA show in Milan, Italy and couldn’t stop drooling. They are, basically Hondas that are modified for off-road use by the Italian Honda Importer. The bike is sold in the U.S. on an a la carte basis by Checkpoint Offroad. In other words, you go to your Honda dealer and walk out with a new CRF250RX, then you give it the RedMoto treatment yourself. Matt Stavish is a Minnesota off-road legend, with decades of ISDE and National Enduro experience. He decided the brand new 2022 Honda CRF250RX was the perfect platform to showcase RedMoto’s hardware. This was also our first experience with the ‘22 Honda CRF250RX. As it comes from the factory, it has all the same new features and updates that the CRF250R motocross bike got for 2022. That includes a new, lighter chassis and a motor that has a new head, crank, cams, clutch and piston. The airbox is completely configured, as well. The twin mufflers are gone. In its RX configuration, Honda gives it little more than different mapping, softer suspension and the usual list of off-road accoutrements like a big tank, an 18-inch rear wheel and a kickstand. Like most of the current “closed-course competition” bikes offered from dealers, it’s more motocross than off-road.
For this project, Checkpoint finished the off-road conversion that Honda started with Red Moto parts. At the core of it all is the 300 kit. This includes a cylinder, piston and gaskets to bring the displacement to 299cc. The kit is designed by RedMoto and manufactured by Athena. The EFI system was remapped as well. The cost for the kit with mapping is $1299. The beautiful titanium exhaust is made by Termignoni and has a removable quiet core. The bike also got a RedMoto 2-gallon fuel tank to replace the atrocious stocker. The suspension was modified by Checkpoint here in the U.S. The fork was built with RWE Kashima uppers, DLC lowers with MX Tech BlackJack closed cartridges. Checkpoint also has an in-line hose cooler and aluminum bar ends.Riding the bike was a blast. The bike’s power was impressive. Where the stock 250R motocross bike is mostly a top-end motor-even after the emphasis on more low end for 2022-the Red Moto 300 is a mid-range monster. Most of the usual shortcomings of big-bore kits weren’t evident; it didn’t vibrate at all, it was easy to start and it had decent overrev. We didn’t have a KTM 350 oolong for comparison, but the Red Moto is clearly much closer to that level than it is to a stock 250. The best part about the bike, however, was suspension. We rode mostly on super tight, western trails and the Checkpoint set up was perfect. It was comfortable without the excessive dive and chassis movement usually associated with enduro settings. We will have more to say about it in the April, 2022 print edition of Dirt Bike.
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6 фев 2022
