Factory Bike Friday: Jimmy Albertson’s Honda CRF450R

Jimmy Albertson has one of the trickest “non-factory” bikes in the pits, his Motosport.com/Crossland Racing Honda is sweet looking. Merge Racing does all the suspension and motor work on Albertson’s bike. But as far as the chassis goes, mechanic Greg Albertson says they run a lot of stock items.

As far aftermarket stuff, the team runs an FMF exhaust, Cycra plastic and Renthal products. They also use Brembo brakes, which are supplied through Dubya. Dubya also supplies the hubs.

“On the brakes, we’re running the stock system, but we swapped out the front brake master cylinder with Brembo, and we are running an over-sized Brembo front disc.”

The triple clamps are stock, although the team has made modifications to accept the fork they are running. The fork is a hybrid put together by Merge that uses larger diameter tubes. It was something that was still in the team’s budget and they saw immediate gains with them.

Probably the coolest thing on the bike is a Rekluse auto clutch, the latest EXP model. “That’s one thing we tested this year and we actually saw an improvement in lap times,” says Albertson. “A lot of people just don’t understand the auto clutch, but once you try one and understand how it works then it can help your times. We haven’t seen any slippage or horsepower loss, it’s all been positives.”