First Test: 2011 Kawasaki KX250F – Dirt Rider Magazine

www.dirtrider.com. Now, let’s get to the fun part.We initially tried to evaluate the KX250F first as a complete bike, but right away it was hard not to focus on the fork action, which is startlingly…normal. That’s right, no odd binding of the axle, no twisting of the front end and no out-of-whack rebound to send you flying off the track. Really, the SFF operates just like a normal fork, but with slightly smoother action and a borderline soft stock clicker setting. One thing we did notice was how huge of an effect each individual turn or click on the new style fork really has. One click on the rebound or compression makes a notable difference, so much so that you’d have to go two or three clicks on traditional forks to achieve the same effect. It didn’t take long to chase the clickers into a somewhat stiffer setting, one that worked on two hugely different tracks for a variety of rider abilities. Overall, the damping was great and the front end felt balanced with the rear. It has an active, stable and progressive character in chop.After trying fork preload in both directions, we liked the standard setting on the fork preload adjuster the best, and so long as proper shock ride height was maintained we really didn’t feel a need to mess with the front end’s ride height. However, it is nice and simple to tune with a wrench.The rest of the handling revisions-including a full millimeter reduction in fork offset-all help to maintain the excellent stability that we’ve praised the KX250F for in the past. The front end is a touch quicker and a little lighter handling than last year, and none of our testers complained about a lack of traction. The revised shock settings are right on the money, so much so that only our heaviest test rider cared to play with the clickers, and that was just to tighten up the compression a touch. In fast, repeated hits or slow, bucking bumps, the rear of the bike simply ate up whatever we could throw at it.

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