Trail Rider Magazine

32 Trail Rider www.TrailRider.com 250 2 Stroke CoMPArISoN HoW oUr 2014 teSt BIkeS StACk UP Story and photos by Kevin novello pick a Color, Any Color. T his a good year to be a two-stroke en- thusiast. With brands like Sherco and Beta coming on the scene and perform- ing so well, the two-stroke market is the most competitive it has been in a long, long time. Our original plan was to do a 250 off-road two- stroke shootout last fall. We even plunked down our own money and bought the Beta 250 RR to insure we had it for inclusion. The only problem was that Sherco and GasGas were late to the party and never even made it in to the U.S until mid-February of this year. By then our window for getting all the two-strokes at one venue had closed. With the exception of the Sherco and GasGas 250's (we rode their 300's) we got to spend sig- nificant time on the KTM XC, KTM XC-W 250, the Beta RR and the Husqvarna TE 250. As a side note, the Sherco 250 is said to be the same as the 300 minus a little extra bark off the bot- tom, but our past experience with the GasGas 250 has revealed it to be significantly different from the 300. With that in mind, we won't opine on the GasGas 250 but will include some thoughts about the Sherco 250. We are also going to take a slightly different ap- proach to this comparison. Often, too much emphasis is placed on a picking a winner while the other bikes' strengths don't get enough credit. We are going to share our thoughts on how the bikes perform and compare in differ- ent categories, types of terrain and scenarios. Lastly, these bikes also have more commonali- ties than differences, so when we talk about the differences, the scale is quite small. The Motors The common characteristic of each motor is that they produce a smooth and linear delivery of power. If you have paid attention to trends in the two-stroke market, this is where things have been going for the last few years. The characteristics of each motor are also highly tunable via the external power valve spring ad- justments and can be tailored to suit about anything that's fair to ask of a purpose-built off-road bike. Despite the trend towards a smooth delivery of power, there are differences in performance. In terms of power, acceleration and corner-to- corner to speed, the KTM XC 250 rules the roost. Built to dispatch the Japanese mo- tocross bikes from the off-road scene, the KTM XC 250 is fitted with a more aggressive ignition box and cylinder head, making it better suited for advanced riders or faster venues. Of course, you can always de-tune the motor for BETA 250 RR HUSQVARA TE 250 KTM XC 250

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