On the 1st November I was invited to the DNA Motorcycles open test day of the 2010 Kawasaki’s that was held at Dirt Bronco race track in Krugersdorp. On my arrival I was welcomed by the friendly staff of DNA Motorcycles and shop owner Dean Weir. Shop owner Dean Weir had been telling me about the changes made to the green beast for a while and how the machine had changed and improved on power delivery and handling, not too sure what to expect from the 2010 Kawasaki’s as the KXF450 looked virtually the same as the 2009, but boy was I wrong!! Kawasaki made minor changes cosmetically on the KXF450, shorter header pipe by 40mm and changing the material from titanium to stainless steel for durability, the silencer has been enlarged claiming to be 99 db’s, we all know how strict the bunny huggers have become with all the environmental issues so apparently this was a big NB !! There are minor colour changes on the graphics, but the real changes on this green monster, was to the engine.
My overall impression of the 450F I would officially like to congratulate Kawasaki on their awesome mean green machine, as this bike handles great and has awesome power delivery from low down right to the top end. They have really done their homework on the throttle response as well as power delivery making this 450 a walk in the park to ride. I really enjoyed throwing the bike around as I found the KXF450 remarkably light easy to handle. DNA had a hard time getting me off this machine and I felt sorry for those folks who attended the launch and had to watch me play around for hours. The only negative feature to the bike is that there are no major change to the look of the bike, but hey, the engines upgrades make you turn a blind eye to the conservative look and cosmetics.
Much to my amazement the KXF250F is still carburettor and not fuel injected, apparently this is due to Kawasaki trying to keep the costing as low as possible and that the previous model had performed adequately enough as is. I’m sure we can expect fuel injection next year on the KXF250F, but at a higher price!! The performance of the 250 was still as much fun as the 2009 model bearing in mind that both 250F and 450F models were totally new models in 2009, but again major changes was made to the motor and gearbox.
Another interesting bit that I noticed is that the 250F uses Showa suspension and the 450F uses Kayaba, I’m not too sure for what reason that is as I found both machines suspension adequate as is with no major modification, I only had to slow down the rebound on the 250F as it was too fast kicking the back end up, but again this was just a mere turn of a screw! The 250F was a dream in thick sand, come into the turn hard on the gas, lean back and hang on!! Much to my delight a noticeable change to the 250F was black rims, I think all bikes should have black rims as this just gives the bike a more aggressive look, and it even makes you look fast standing still. My overall impression of the KXF250 The 250F is always fun to ride, light in weight making this bike easy to throw around but bearing in mind that you need to keep the power on like all other 250’s. The one difference that I noticed was that the gears were a bit longer; this allowed me to over-rev the motor and not loose too much precious time, as races are won by seconds Dylan Smith is a professional rider and a regular contributor to Bike SA
