Is this the future of trail riding? Is this the cheater bike that's going to turn EnduroCross upside-down? Have we been missing the boat on how to make trailbikes since the craze of long-travel suspension machines led us astray? Or have the trials guys had it all along and been holding out? Well, it was a long, treacherous road, but we got our hands on a Scorpa T-Ride and will answer these questions and more in Dirt Rider's version of "We ride another weird bike." Hey, you guys asked for it!
I'd be the first to tell you that I'm often led to and attracted by strange and awkward bikes. I've liked Huskys, Husabergs and Gas Gas's in a world of Hondas, Yamahas and KTMs. I liked four-strokes before they came back and like two-strokes before they slip away. So throw me a bone in the form of one of the strangest dirt bikes to come down the pike in a long time, and I might just go head over heels. Well, the Scorpa seems to fit right in that niche between trials and trail. It's a gap that Gas Gas tried to fill with its Pampera a while back, a concept that just didn't catch on and was never improved upon. The Pampera was more of a putt-putt trail/dual-sport bike with an expensive price tag and the performance of a CRF230F in motor and suspension. Where the T-Ride takes a 90-degree turn from this is right at birth. It's constructed with a Yamaha WR250F motor as a powerplant, tuned and geared for its different chassis. Most notable is the use of a 28mm Del 'Orto carburetor. This powerplant is shoehorned into a frame that's half trials bike, some trailbike and then a little less of everything to make the whole package compact. Somehow they found the space for a two-gallon gas tank, a battery, the airbox and the muffler that rides 100 percent under the seat and rear fender. There's enough street gear mounted to make getting a license plate possible if you live in the right state, but there's no spark arrestor so forget about riding in a lot of places without a little home fabrication.
Electric starting makes this bike genius, yet it still has the backup kickstarter for those times you forget to turn the key off. The size of the bike is a bit strange at first, especially the slimness of the machine all the way through its length. It's set up with a trials-bend and -positioned handlebar and the footpegs are up pretty high in relation to the seat-tall guys won't like the fold the sitting position puts on their knees. But the bike's seat is one of the most comfortable saddles out there today, so sitting on it is actually a charm. But when seated the bar seems high and far forward, a little off-putting but not so severe that you can't ride the bike in a crouched position. That's because it doesn't take long to figure out that this bike is built to be ridden standing up. Then the bar and footpeg positions, along with the gear shifter's location of being high and far forward (just like on a trials bike), begin to make sense. It's an arrangement that puts a lot of weight on the rear of the bike but also has the rider in a forward position. Every rider to try the T-Ride was super impressed with its climbing ability, an area trials bikes can really suffer on, especially in softer conditions.
Once you're used to the riding position you start paying attention to the motor. The Yamaha base is bumped up with low-end torque that no WR250F we've ever ridden has exhibited. A lot of this grunt comes from the smaller carb and its ability to modulate at the lower power points in the delivery. If you rev it up, the bike pulls, but it definitely doesn't make the same top-end steam of the regular dirt bike with the same motor. We'd say the jetting was good but not great; it seemed like it could use some tuning on the pump-squirt delivery to improve the pickup when riders really wanted a big hit of power. The clutch handles abuse and has the necessary control, but since most trials bikes have hydraulic clutches with buttery light pulls, we felt something was missing here. The transmission seemed a little tighter than a standard Yamaha WR. At first we expected first gear to be a lot lower than it was, and fifth wasn't a total overdrive, but once moving at a trail riding pace there were two or three gears for almost any situation. And since the shifter was a bit farther away than we're used to, not having to shift was a good thing.
The chassis is the real unique part of this bike, and it seems to be a mixed bag of tricks for sure. It has that magical quality of low seat height. This, for some riders, is the best thing that they could ever do for their confidence. Being able to flat-foot with both feet is a strange but comforting feeling for shorter folk, and the Scorpa has that. At the same time the 232-pound weight isn't all that light, and in just moving the bike around it acts a bit dense, if not downright heavy. But once you're rolling the bike becomes feathery light and you see just how agile a bike with a short wheelbase and steep fork angle can be. It's also super-light steering, largely because the stuff below the handlebar is all lighter than on a conventional bike. When you're standing all your weight goes down low through the footpegs, creating a very low center of gravity, and you have a lot of leverage on the bike.