Dirt Rider Magazine reviews the 2010 Honda CRF450R. Honda's 450 motocross bike gets important updates and DR tells you if they work. Check out this video review!

Dirt Rider Magazine tests the all-new 2010 Yamaha YZ450F EFI Tuning Tool. With Fuel Injection Tuning, say goodbye to jets and hard work. It's plug-and-play moto!

Hammerhead Designs
HDI Shift Lever Kit
www.hdmoto.com
650.365.3172
Just $69.95 to un-scrunch your toes and make those tricky shifts with this shift lever that's available in various lengths.

More Jimmy-Rigged!
Whip Lewis into shape and get him writing that column. "Saving pages"...now there is real value for the customer? (Please implement sarcastic tone.) As a dedicated rider (54 enlightened years old), I enjoy reading what a hotshot, thoughtful and articulate (ex-)racer has on his mind. And I relish that he does not pull punches in a milquetoast, politically correct kind of way. I still chuckle regarding all the heat he got on the ThumperTalk dirt bike submission a few years ago. So Jimmy, give us the benefits of your points of view, and maybe a laugh or two.

Keep Your Mouth Shut!
If you can't keep a secret, don't even think about trying to become a test rider. Never mind the fact that you have to sign your life away to ride many of the bikes that we test; if you give up a secret before it's ready to hatch, you risk blacklisting Dirt Rider from future embargoes with the manufacturers. Some people think it's no big deal and we are being too intense, but we take our testing extremely seriously, and that includes not talking about things until they are in print, because oftentimes the test riders don't really know the outcome of a test. Our best test riders are not only awesome at what they do, but they would have to be water-boarded before giving up the results of a shootout before the issue hits.

Iconic super-athlete who's dropped into various action sports and beaten the best, named USA Today's World's Greatest Athlete and Details Magazine's Athlete of the Year in 1998, received ESPN's ESPY Award for Action Athlete of the Year in 2001, five-time World Champion snowboarder, X Games gold medalist in Boardercross, downhill biking, Skiercross and Ultracross, won the Toyota Celebrity Grand Prix, missed a downhill mountain bike world championship title by .15 second, has his own video game Shaun Palmer's Pro Snowboarder 2, owns his own snowboard company (Palmer Snowboards) and has raced AMA supercross and motocross mains. Next? Going after gold at the 2010 Winter Olympics. Age: 40.
www.shaunpalmer.com

Amazingly this isn't the "Best Whip" at X Games. Todd Potter beat out this Inversion by Josh Grant and some other MX dudes (Ricky Carmichael and James Stewart) in the fan-voted contest. Nonetheless, Grant upside down on a two-stroke is a sweet sight.

I'll get right to the point. I have Asperger's Syndrome-a form of Autism. I am lucky in that I am what they call a high-functional and am almost un-diagnosable. I feel this gives me a responsibility to do what I can for those with Autism who are less fortunate. I also have a passion for racing, so it seemed only natural to get permission to form the Autism Speaks Racing Team and take it to the 2010 Baja 1000 to film the experience for an informational documentary for Autismspeaks.org.

Answer Racing
Alpha LE and Air Gear
www.answerracing.com
951.736.5369
The answer to all your problems, if all your problems are about what gear to get. Jersey $49.95, pant $139.95 to $154.95, glove $29.95 to $34.95.

I have been with you since issue number one, so I may qualify for geezer status. But please replace "Jimmy-Rigged" with anything! His self-serving, egotistical forums need to be eliminated. Better yet, send him packing and let Kramer take over. Ask anybody in the industry. My guess is they think he's a pain in the butt, too! Keep your swag...send a check to the BlueRibbon guys.

This summer I followed the 250 class motocross championship, the action was so intense and the competition so fierce, the show was incredible. As the season past by, I came to know more and more about the different riders, one rider keeped my attention. Christophe Pourcel, even if he didn't win the championship, surprise me a lot with his smooth riding style, his lightning fast speed and his ease to pass other riders. Even Ryan Dungey didn't seem to pass other riders as easily as Pourcel. The more and more I learn about this rider the more I become a fan of him. For a guy that could have been paralyzed for life few years back and that came to race in the United States (while his mother language is French which is another thing to adapt to) far from his family and friends, I think he did a pretty good performance.

MotoConcepts
MotoPad
www.motoconcepts.com
877.321.2199
Do you put your bike on a pedestal? How about at least a $169-$199 bike pad?

There is 20 privateer pros all staying at Honolulu Hills Raceway in Taft, CA preparing for the 2010 supercross season. Many of them are also fighting for a spot on the Warthog team for supercross.

Day 5:
Today I think I moved up to 29th OA and was on the same minute as my USA teammate Timmy Weigand (he was 30th OA). We had a lot of fun riding together and would be checking out each others scores after each test. On the first lap of day 5, Timmy was riding right behind me in a sand section that had a lot of tree roots. Then suddenly I saw him disappear, and figured he went down. I slowed down and then a guy from Spain said he was ok and was coming, so I figured I'd meet him at the check. When Timmy showed up his pinky and hand were really bloody, and you could see he was missing part of his pinky. The Dr.'s came over and looked at it to see what they could do. I took off so I could make it on my minute, and when he didn't make it to our minute I figured he was done. He ended up toughing it out and got back on and road again. He dropped two trail minutes, but I was pumped to see him ride through the pain like that. As far as my day went, everything was really good besides the last test on the beach. I came into a hard left hand corner, and my front end went into the berm and I went down. I lost a little time, but kept the bike running. I was thinking I was finally going to finish a day without crashing in a test! I still was able to finish the day out pretty well and moved up to 25th OA (13th E2).

I have a Honda CR250R, 2002 mod (yeah it is quite old) but still run very good. Gassing the bike on 5 gear on a straight, the bike is very jumpy and is difficult to hold on. What settings can I change on the bike?

If you read your November issue of Dirt Rider Magazine cover-to-cover than you likely read the Old Bikes Renewed story (page 48) and saw Brett Madron's Industry Insider 2007 RM250. Well, as a true "dude on the inside", Brett and his posse from Fastway/Pro Moto Billet really wanted to "show up" for that story and actually brought three used, refreshed and really shiny off-road bikes to Idaho for me to play with. It was their own in-house used-bike shootout. And what they (and I) learned is so useful that I thought I'd share the morsels of info here.

Troy Lee Designs
SE2 Limited Edition Malcolm Smith helmet
www.troyleedesigns.com
951.371.5219
Troy Lee's really topped himself, and you, if you put on this $525.00 helmet.

The Rockstar Energy Drink US Open is here (in Las Vegas that is) and Dirt Rider photo wizard Chip Morton is snooping around the MGM Grand property looking for cool stuff like James Stewart's 2010 Yamaha YZ450F! Here's a few snippets of his discoveries...

Fresh Trails!
This last week some of my family and friends took the week off and went on our annual weeklong bike ride. We go to a popular spot that is loaded full of single-track trials. I've always been cautious to tread lightly and try to preserve our riding areas. I have read a lot of previous letters that brought to our concern to ride with quiet exhausts and to help keep our trails and riding areas open. Yet on my trip I realized something else. In an area that gets rode constantly there were many unridden trails. The trails were heavily over grown and brush beginning to cover the trail. Everyone needs to ride the trails out there that are there available to ride. If we don't we are shutting ourselves down from the inside and just letting trails disappear. Go ahead and break in the trails and challenge yourselves. If you don't that will be one less trail for everyone to enjoy and ride. I know I want to still have trails to ride when I'm ninety or until I can't hold on to a bike anymore.

Moto Rose
Onsies
www.motorose.com
714.964.2908
$16.95 to make that cute baby even cuter.

Riding motorcycles is awesome, but riding for a good cause is even better. And what better cause than breast cancer awareness month? In honor of this noble October charity, the third annual Ride for the Cure event went down last weekend at the massive Rynoland Motocross Training Facility in Anza, California. The event was a huge hit, with a raffle, a "bra parade" and a huge vendor row, with all proceeds being sent to a local cancer research center called Michelle's Place (www.michellesplace.org). Kawasaki also had a huge presence at the event, as a beginner's riding school was conducted for a few special guests. Here are some photos from the event:

Russell Bobbitt Interview, Photos by Kenneth King

FRANCIACORTA (ITALY), 4 October 2009 - An eventful Red Bull FIM Motocross of Nations got underway today, with Team USA winning and home Team Italy being hit by bad luck.

Over the duration of five days, I ate, slept, rode, thought, stood, sat, breathed, sweated, drank and worked out like a professional motocross and off-road dirt bike racer. Granted, I'm not a professional dirt bike racer. I'm not even close. But I tried my hardest to find out just what these guys and gals go through to win. I learned a lot about commitment, hard work and getting your head truly in the game.

If there were a bigger mystery, a more confrontational and controversial subject or a downright dumber story for Dirt Rider to take on than this test, please let me know. Off-road motorcycle helmets have come under more and more scrutiny lately with some much publicized accidents involving high-profile athletes' head injuries and even some deaths. Serious stuff. Complicated even further by additional press containing uneducated viewpoints and nonscientific tests based solely on safe-sounding or popular opinions. But this was not good enough for us to rest our delicate brain matter on (and in). We wanted some answers. What do the helmet tests and the st ickers that are proudly displayed (or required) on the helmet mean? How do those tests equate to the way we hit our helmets on the ground? Does the material make a difference? Does the price of a helmet matter? And what is your helmet really supposed to do?