When BMW Tried to Re-Invent the Dirt Bike! - G450X 

13:00 On the 'Clutch' slipping... The actual failure is not the clutch, but a unit in the gear train called a 'Torque Limiter'. The resulting loss of drive is the same, but the actual clutch in these, and the similar Husqvarna TE449 is very robust. The failure of the Torque limiter is common to both bikes under hard use 😔 The 'spinning 3 times faster' comment also forgets that is had 3 times less load on the clutch due to the gearing advantage. The torque limiter just has two metal friction plates pressed up against one another by a dished spring plate and is designed to slip under shock loads (like under full power of whoops). In addition, the crazy BMW engineers also chose to route the blow-by gasses out of the engine via the support shaft for the TL! 😳 Once it slips enough times and get some heat into it, it's not long to a failure from there.

As an owner of a g450x I can confirm the bike is awesome, very smooth engine with tons of power. It is also very tall, you have to take the swing arm off to change the sprocket and it has a tiny tank which you cannot easily swap. Otherwise great bike.

I bought a G 450 x in 2009 . To date i have done over 1300 hours / 36000 km of hard off road riding with no problems and original clutch . Best bike ever . Lehman Brothers bank collapse leading to world wide financial crisis in 2009 did not help sales .

Two innovative euro bikes from that time.. The BMW G450X and the Husaberg (KTM) 70 degree FE390/450/570.. One designed to be good the other designed with experience. The 70 degree bikes were (and still are) very good for their time. Classic engineers, to be so convinced (I can say, as an engineer..)

Wish they had stuck with it and kept improving.

The art of story telling. Another great video. Cheers

i could be wrong here but i think the sprocket being on the swingarm pivot axis prevents the bike from having anti squat under harsh acceleration, i think many manufacturers have tried this but found the sprocket slightly infront and slightly below the pivot was best

BMW needed a lesson on how to find the "G" spot, but found "X" instead which wasn't the goldmine either, thanks for sharing a sweet story 😂🤣

Your best video ! I consider your channel to be the best at telling the story. Why you don’t have more subscribers is beyond me. Stay with it my friend, you are excellent at what you do !

I have owned one of these since 2012...and I will never sell it. I give no fucks about what a world champion says about a bike. I acknowledge that the bike was a failure for him, but does that invalidate my experience of the bike as a weekend warrior who likes to challenge himself in the rough stuff? Not in the slightest. For all the people reading this comment who are competing in the World Enduro Championship, this is not the bike for you and you should not bother reading my comments any further. My previous bike was a 4th gen WR450F (alloy frame, carb) which I had ridden a lot, so that was my benchmark. After a few weekends of riding the BMW I thought it was equal or better than the Yamaha in every area except the fork. The Marzocchis were no match for the 48mm Kayabas. The problem with the Zokes is they have a very narrow window of operation, it is hard to set them up to work well over a wide range of conditions. After much time and experimentation I came across the right combination of valving and viscosity index that got the forks working really well and I had my dream bike. The one area of the bike that really stands out to me is the rear suspension. To this day it is the plushest, most controlled rear end I've ever experienced when on the throttle over sharp, square edged bumps, despite the Ohlins shock not having a linkage. It hooks up like nothing else on bumpy hill climbs, making me look like a Riding God to my mates. The rear suspension is not a bad design. It is a different design, with different strengths and weaknesses. Conventional rear suspension uses chain tension to extend the swingarm under power, pressing the tyre into the dirt and increasing traction. But at the expense of bump compliance. The conventional rear suspension does not work so well over bumps when chain tension is working against it. If the rear tyre is in the air, she don't get much traction! But when the bumps aren't so big, the conventional rear end gets more traction and can get the power to the ground better. Horses for courses. How much worse is the BMW rear end on smooth hard packed dirt? I 'd say it's less than the difference between a new and a half worn rear tyre, so not massive but noticeable to me (I have ridden many mates bikes over the years to compare). Noobs and even some experienced riders will never notice. If you are a recreational rider and like drifting the rear end, there are no downsides to the G450X rear suspension. Just don't run it so soft she rides like a chopper. There are a lot of other things that weren't mentioned in the video. Almost every other dirt bike on the market uses a layout which is as old as the motorcycle itself and originally came about because of the carburettor. Carbs are gravity fed from the fuel tank, so the fuel tank has to be high, above the engine. The carb sits behind the cylinder head with a horizontal port joining the two. Downdraft ports are superior from an engine performance point of view, it makes more sense to have a steeply inclined port with the throttle body mounted higher. At least Yamaha understands this, other manufacturers are using layouts from the 1920s. This also allows you to have the air box above the engine, with the inlet near the head stock. One of the first things I noticed about my bike was how clean the air filter stayed compared to bikes with the airbox under the seat, inside the dust tornado stirred up by the rear wheel. The higher inlet increases wading depth too. If the airbox is where the tank used to be, we can put the tank where the airbox used to be, above the gearbox . The filler is towards the back of the seat, but most of the fuel mass is carried centrally above the gearbox, reducing polar moment of inertia, lowering cg and reducing the amount of cg change as fuel is used. The stainless main frame (sub-frame is aluminium) makes sense for a few reasons, no paint required, no corrosion, no heat treatment / stress relieving required after welding (cheaper to manufacture), unlike aluminium and cro-mo. The single radiator makes sense too: lighter, fewer hoses , more cooling area, faster and cheaper to manufacture. As usual there are dickheads in the comments parrotting shit they have no idea about. "No aftermarket fuel tanks" - Safari make two different aux fuel tanks for the G450X. "It was too expensive" - it was cheaper in Australia than the KTM, Honda and Yamaha, and had better warranty, and I remember reading on forums back in the day that it was competitively priced in other markets too. If the G450X had been a sales success, maybe other manufacturers would have been forced to improve their warranties?

I remember really wanting one of those when they were in the show rooms.

i, personally own the husqvarna 449, basically the improved version of the g450x and its just great

Notice that Triumph and Ducati are starting with motocross bikes and not trying to reinvent the wheel.

I wish BMW would give it another go! I know they learned a lot from that bike and that bike had a lot of good things about it switching a few things up they would dominate! Grew up riding motocross and now own a bmw x5 and it's impressive

Great story and delivery. Thank you

I think that BMW engineers are excellent at making bikes for engineers. I'm an engineer and I really like my F650GS. I'd also like to have a first gen S1000RR, R80G/S, K100RS, G650 xCountry and now probably also a G450X. Not because they are best at racing - I don't really care if they are. I just like the fact that they are packed so much cool technology that they feel kinda futuristic compared to other bikes from the same era while also being reliable and easy to ride. BTW I totally understand why engineers didn't want to make this bike work the same as others even if it would make it better.

You're 110% Awesome. Great storytelling, editing, & (I'm speculating) from a guy who's 2nd language is English. You deserve high praise.

A lot of interesting information that I didn't know about the BMW G450X.

Juha Salminen is a legend!

keep building your channel man! Great content

This video was great! Brought back a distant memory I almost forgot all about. And gave more information than I ever knew about the program.

Great film as always! I like your unique style👍👍

I've never ridden or owned this bike or the BMW or Husqvarna version but I've always loved the CTS system. Too bad the BMW or the Husqvarna's no longer use that system!

Excellent video! You are putting out some top shelf content! Keep up the good work!

Great video, as always!!

Incredible video! Got me hooked to the end.

Great and very informative video, heck I didn’t even know bmw 450 dirtbike existed.

Great video. Thanks for sharing the story! I'm a mechanical engineer, and it was painful to hear the relationship between riders and designers deteriorating. You CAN have new ideas. New ideas are great! Try them, test them, see what they do! Exciting! But... if the USERS don't see the benefit, or worse cannot even realize the benefit... you have to drop it. You can't afford to ignore end user feedback, and that goes infinitely moreso in a racing environment. There will always be constraints and prima donnas. But the engineering team cannot afford to have ego and personal skin in the game. At the end of the day, the best design is the one that gets the best performance WITH THE USER. For racing at least. If you need to design to a cost point, that's a slightly different story. But you still need to always be listening to user feedback, and to heck with your own ego.

As a guy that has to build and use stuff that engineers design I can imagine the blank stare when you tell them something isn't going to work or could be better. Then they say it looks good on my computer

Thanks for that very interesting and well researched video. I must ask Andreas, what it was to ride the 450. I'm curious what he has to say about this bike some long time later...

Great content! I’ve seen this bike. But never knew anything about it. Very interesting.

Damn this was a great video. I love the 400 4 stroke market but had never heard of the bimmer

Excellent video, I’ve never even heard of these. Time to start looking for some for sale hahah

Yes, I have over 20,000km/512hrs on my 2009 G450x. Just basic maintenance and basic mods this thing can be a beast! Oil change every 500-800km depending on riding. Still rides like new! Seriously... Only downside to this is you need to be a tall rider and the gas tank has lower than expected range for big rides. But that's an easy fix just carry a couple jugs. Just got back from an afternoon Gifford Nation Forest Loop near my home. It's a second bike now with a 2 stoke KDX200 to the quiver for extreme boundry trail single track. The BMW "Big Mountain Women" is still a great ride and hooks up good with good power band that's not boring. The faster you ride the better it handles! YEEEWWWW!!! Just get on the damn trail and stop over thinking this machine!!!! I've been in front and behind all KTM's, Husky's, GAS GAS and SERCO's and it keeps up just fine. 🤑

Such different approaches between the BMW engineers with the G450X & Triumph engineers with the TF250X. Hard to call it a great dirt bike if riders can't ride it like a dirt bike. Clutch modulation is so important. Sometimes reinventing the wheel doesn't pay off.

Now i want to hear about the 650 xchallenge from you. Nice Video!

Great story telling with accurate info. I was a bit worried that Triumph were going to do the same. I rode the G450X and whilst the motor had a lovely linear nature, the weird no squat ride and 'zoch suspension made it pretty bad. They later updated to KYB on the 449 I think ? but it was still a terrible frame.

I love my G450XRR! Best part is the 30L fuel tank instead of a subframe 🙌

The fact that I recognize the source of this image (ebay listing for G450x frame) at 2:37 proves that G450x owners are freaks.

You deserve many more subscribers. This was professionally presented and kept my interest. As we’re seeing in parts of the world, German (and Western) engineering surrounded by marketing hype, doesn’t match up to the reality of serious competition.

i think this can all be summed up in one saying "if it aint broke don't fix it"

Well Presented. I am glad that BMW's Top Pro saved his Career by riding a stock Kawasaki and going back with KTM and winning 4 more Championships .

I actually had one of these for a year or so. It was a cool bike with some wild concepts, but really had an identity crisis. It never felt like it excelled at anything, and our group always gravitated back to Yamahas/KTMs. edit: you covered the identity crisis part later in the video lol.

Almost bought one of these that was in a supermoto configuration. It ticked a lot of boxes but not enough for my needs.

it could have been had they pursued it, they just couldn't be arsed to continue

Had to put my glasses on to sub n 👍 and saw the 9.75 k subscribers, honestly I thought 975k . Let’s give this serious content creator a boost.

A hornet nest for sure. Great investigation and wonderfully delivered. Now, I'm no David, but when I use to own my G450 beast it brought a massive smile to my face. A beaut in sand. One could plug it or unplug it for more power Up to recently I also owned the 650 XChallenge. What a spectacular machine. CCM used the same 450 engine for the GP450.

I’ve met a guy on a 450x in a gas station in Morocco. He was having clutch issues 😂 Now it’s obvious why. Great viddy!

Great video on a cool bike. Good on BMW engineers for trying attempting to innovate. I would love to see them make another attempt with dual sporting in mind and see what they come up with.

to me the better way to make a better "anything" is build a "base model" with everything basic that worked before in a specific scenario and test it in a very challenging way to improve his own caracteristics. To make it works even better you need to compare with your "opponents", see what they made to solve problems you already have. in this "enduro" or "motocross" scene, take whatever "generic" parts you can from the aftermarket and just build the basics around it to complete the bike, every single thing that don't make diference in performance, just use generic ones from aftermarket, like seats, fuel tank, plastics, rims, everything that works even if is a generic one, put a generic one. Then, after make this "generic" motorcycle, test it in small championships that allows "custom builds". If something who works "fine" breaks, replace it with a similar one. if something just don't handle well, engineering a new one, better and stronger. If nothing happens to the bike but the bike ends worst them everybody, analise the diference between your bike and the rest of the grid and compare sections to understand performance flaws. Make sure to listen your riders inputs. if everything works fine and your bike end up in a good position in grid, ask your riders for improvement in handling and performance, but never do exactly what they are saying, if they say "this need a lot more torque", add a little bit more and try again. work in a slow pace, a improvement at a time, in the end you will have a good and capable bike, experience in competition and bike building and expertise in handle generic buildings. Now you have a start point for a brand new model with "technology" and "innovation". after a while you'll notice common problems and knowing what others make to solve them repeat this step by step every time and you will have the next "perfect dirtbike". Or settle for what you have and be Honda.

I remember when these bikes came out....I got to throw a leg over one.....great power, very good handling, and the lightness was something I could feel. I wish that they'd have stayed in the market.

Great video, would you mind to do research for HP2 Enduro of BMW and make a video about it? 😊

I know racing performance is important, and it dictates bike sales, especially when we think about BMW's rich racing history - but damn, I love the idea of a BMW dirt bike that doesn't look like a spaceship (e.g., any GS smaller than 850cc).

A decent presentation, squire.

Ever head of the CCM 450gp? Uses the same engine in another rather innovative chassis and on paper should’ve been a rally weapon but it was 10years too early. We need bikes like the 450gp and 450x now, solid, cool, do it all trail bikes rather than having a TET full of CRF300L’s or 1250GS’s😩

Pretty cool bike.

The 450 is classed in Europe as a Hard Enduro Comp Bike .But the 650 X is classified as a Dual Sport.The 650 Problem is the Aluminium stand up because it broke if you hit the ground with.

BMW uses Kymco to make all kinds of engines. Including the range extender in the i3. It's a BMW 750cc scooter engine.

They needed to do what KTM did when they ditched their own funky layouts for dirtbikes: use the standard recipe and optimize the crap out of it. Chase efficiency in the standard design, don’t try to create a whole new thing.

I bet there were engineers at BMW who thought this was a dumb idea! I wonder how many engineers BMW had to shift around until they found ones who agreed with the marketing people's ideas😄

The OTHER attempt by BMW in the off road arena was the HP2 Enduro. It was similarly innovative but unsuccessful. I'd love to see a modern lightweight 650 cc boxer engine ADV bike from BMW, with all of that low end torque and low center of gravity. Give it a 5+ gallon fuel tank and some decent engine protection. They won't do that because it'd gut their lucrative 900GS and 1300GS sales.

Well I think Triumph did their homework with their new 250 . Hit the nail on the head. Maybe BMW didn’t take enough ktms, Hondas or Yamaha s apart to be on par or better

The biggest problem of the G450X is that if you add a big tank and a windscreen, will cannibalize all sales of the R1200GS.

Wow, you’ve presented a bike that as a bike nurd of 40 years I’ve never come across. I’m triggered by the unusual and kinda dig it as an all round off roader. Like trials but generally too slow and uncomfortable, like my collar bones to much to be the fastest guy on the trails. Was sold at stainless steel frame. PS : I own a Yamaha GTS1000, justifying the strange tastes 😂

BMW needs to try and engineer another one

Not enough mention about the positives of reverse direction cranks.

I miss my hp2 Enduro

Jimmy Lewis didn't help by doing a test and declaring it the worst dirt bike ever produced.

BMW more than made up for this flop with the S1000RR. They basically destroyed the competition in the 1000cc sportbikes. I remember seeing the G450X in the showroom when I picked up my S1000RR. It looked quite good. I wish they'd stuck with building it until they could get it right.

Im curious if you use chat gpt to curate your script since youre obvioualy not native english speaker and yet the script is pretty darn good

And they failed, too expensive, too exotic, there is a reason they only sold for around three years, very few sold.😢

Damn shame he kept losing clutch with all those races almost in the bag. I would have took a dump on the bike for good measure.

Best riders at the time could not make the bike work. Tell's something about the bike.

I had Husqvana te449 which used same engine.

I bet if they made them again in today's market they would sell well....G450X Rally......

About the history of TVS Bikes

But how was it in the Starbucks parking lot tho?

They should bring them back

F*#k all the haters! I’ve got two of these and love them. Sure they have their faults but who doesn’t.

Engineers have a way of designing things that they thing are really special but provide a user experience that is lacking. There is a disconnect. Engineers are not really customer oriented or avid users themselves. Often times they need someone to tell them what to do by setting requirements in such a way their feelings aren't hurt. It is like the art of making them think it was their idea. But that is inefficient to let them go off and do something then change the requirements after you learn which direction they will run. They are not humble enough to become grounded in reality and create something for the user.

Ask David knight about BMW dirtbikes

i didnt even know BMW once had an enduro bike 😲😲

Colebatch is / should be well known for adventurizing his bmw 450 and taking it, among other places, many times on the Trans-Siberia. Much more info on his ADV thread.

04:03 That is Frank Wood, I know his son and I'm pretty sure that is his 450.

Paper rarely works in the field

ahhh 2008 altleast the S1k twins survived

Perhaps the design/ r&d team lost focus ( maybe their self importance and pride would suffer, by addmitting someone else knows better than them), with trying to include numerous inovations in one fell swoop. Didn't listen enough from guys ' on the coal face' ie :- David Knight. These are the guys they should have 'really' listened to, - moly frame/ clutch /too much wheel spin etc. We could all add our 2 cents worth ( heck, none of us want, or wish for a potential powerhouse , not to excel), but you could list all the greatinovations, along with the pros & cons of each, to determine whether or not it's worth it in the long run. Sure, fixing the chain slack ( sounds like a good thing) ,by having the primary drive sprocket , in line with the swing arm pivot, but if it's at the expense of rear tyre grip to the ground, then toss that idea. After reading ' Motowot ' comments' , I'm a bit humbled. My input is just fringe stuff, compared to others comments. I was tempted to buy one back then , but work stopped with the 09 financial crash.

Sorry David 😪

He should have bought a BMW then modded it the way he wanted, WP suspension etc......make BMW eat their words even more :D

Won't say anything about the design ideas, but David Knight wanting to change so many things says nothing about the bike. Racers are more about what they are used to than about what is actually better.

As a mx guy i bet the top riders hated it the frame is terrible and ss is maby the worst material ever for a dirt bike frame haha

What is that wired to the tree?

👍🏻👍🏻

People create, companies stifle

❤

Great video! I owned a G450X and had a lot of thinking about it, I am good at judging motorcycle dynamics from the theoretical side. My comments: 1. Chain slack is not a bug, but has to be taken as the optimal sprocket position is not in the swingarm pivot, for the so called squat/anti squat phenomenon. Later on BMW race team accepted this fact and changed this wrong feature. 2. Wrong rotating motor inverts gyroscopic forces and lets the bike react opposite to others, when taking corners etc.. Drivers like Knight are grown up with the normal behaviour and extremely trained to this. 3. I owned that bike for the reason of fuel injection, when nobody had one and the high power it had street legal in Germany. On all other bikes you were constantly in danger of high penalty in case of police control etc. 4. I especially liked the view on David Knight. Thanks again for a really good video! Erhard

This is the usual problem with engineers. All they have is theory and calculations. No practical experience. Riding a desk is worlds away from riding a motocross or endurance bike at a professional level.

hmm, before i watch i want to say this should be good, I was working for motorad when the 450x was launched and it was a great scrambler, i commuted with it too even though you shouldnt, i knew it inside and out and the best part is it was unbeatable on a track hands down, the down fall of this great bike was stupid people, one in particular was the one that was so used to riding inferior bikes that it couldnt cope with it.

Motorcycle manufacturers are weird. They dump a ton of time, money and development into racing under the dubious premise that race wins sell bikes. Consumers know that with few exceptions, the production bikes have little in common with the race bikes, and almost none of the consumers are racing anyway. We want a reliable, affordable bike that does what we want. We make suggestions and the companies ignore the customers. A ton of us would love a modern 450-600 cc ADV bike that's light enough for good off road performance, with enough power to cruise highways comfortably. It needs a large fuel capacity. An aluminum skid plate and engine protection would be good. Put the engineering into weight reduction and a good on/off road compromise geometry. There is no need for a million dollar development budget and suspending the laws of physics. The big motorcycle companies have refused to make that bike for decades because they want us to keep buying their bloated and expensive mid size and full size ADV bikes that are suitable for Starbucks adventures.

I bet BMW paid David enough for wasted time.