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[mtnman0712]

Hi, I am interested in buying the FX however I am concerned about the cooling fins on the front of the frame.  I currently ride a Yamaha WR250F on East Coast trails.  The trails have plenty of steep hills with lots of rocks and log crossing which I am constantly hitting my skid plate on.  Is the FX tough enough for a direct hit?  Are there skid plates for the FX?

[Cortezdtv]

Cooling find are actually the controller

And has long been a concern of mine, but I've never actually given it a ram hard enough to damage anything



Sorry I don't have the video of my buddy eating shit off the back wheeling one but let's just say it was fine after flying down the street no rider at 40 mph

I mean yes I had to remove the tail section and replace it and fixed my bent bars also beat up the steering stopper and hurt a fork leg

But most dirt bikes wouldn't have taken the hit as well as the zero did

I was impressed...

I've defrently done a few long crossings where I pick front wheel up and drop the bike on the skid plate and controller on the way over.  They seem to take that but if you were going to be trashing I would want to ass another skid plate to be safe


I have forded some deep streams creeks/rivers with them in stock form.  Was quite fun in the water

[rayivers]

I haven't cased mine, but the front tire's thrown some hardball-sized rocks at the heat sink ($74) and 'bash guard' ($41) and they've just bounced off.  One thing to keep an eye on is the rear motor fins.  My bike had the chain conversion before I got it and the lower fender is gone, and the tire chucked a small stone between the motor fins and swingarm which punched in a couple of fins (motor case is OK this time, but a bigger rock might have been a different story).  I believe the MX / MMX shock protector will work, I'll be getting one soon to try out.

If a longer/wider thick aluminum plate were welded to the existing guard, you'd have some serious protection.

Ray

[Christian Frankl]

I can confirm the problem with the motor-fins, too. Quite a few already are bent, especially when you ride in areas with lots a small round stones (creeks or in a gravel-pit).
I also crushed the frame a little bit underneath the motor, when I tried to ride over a little rock-wall. The frame is Aluminium and thereore not very hard. The skid plate should also cover the lower frame parts...

[WindRider]

Your WR250F is more durable to bounce off of trees and rocks and a lot cheaper for abusive use. 

The FX is great fun to ride trails with due to its light weight, clutchless linear power, and silent operation. 

[mtnman0712]

So I am moving to Australia next year and I will be buying a new bike.  Too my surprise I saw that I could get a practically new FX for just a little more than the price of a KTM 350 EXC-F + some other mods I need to have such as a Rekluse clutch, etc.  So from an economics standpoint they are pretty equal.  I plan on riding trail and on the street around town.  I'm an intermediate level trail rider.  But I am still wondering if I will be pushing the FX beyond it's limits with regards to absorbing trail impacts.  Is anyone doing an intermediate level trail riding on their FX on a consistent basis?  I love the fact that there is so much less maintenance for the FX and the ride characteristics on the fly.  I am on the fence and it's starting to drive me crazy.  Someone, please push me off the fence!

[Cortezdtv]

That's intermediate to advanced stuff depending on the trails we take

The fx handles it as well.  Yes I'm on a 12 x and my buddy on the 12mx but the fx is quite capable even with the stock dual sport tires


It's got much more power than the 12s even with 1 battery pack and is quite nimble for a full size bike still with one pack it's pretty light and honestly I love it!!



With 2 batteries it's heavy in my opinion     if you start on it and learn slowly you can use a 2 bike with the weight to your advantage on big him climbs going slow to gain traction but because the bike has so much torque without a good tire in the rear you will be sliding everywhere

The problem with the 2 battery bike is once it starts to fall it's probably going over, not the end of the world but with a single pack you have more of a chance of saving it



Granted I ride narrow trails, basically bush wacking so I'm sure someone can chime in with more of a "motorcross" or bigger trail perspective

[LiveandLetDrive]

I'm a bit more on the novice level which means I abuse it less in some ways and more in others.  Riding in NorCal on trails not unlike the ones in the video above (though much dustier!) and with lots of hill climbs, I've thrown it down on rocks and dragged it down failed hill climbs on its side (when remounting wasn't an option) many times.  The first month I had it I dropped it and then forgot to hit the kill switch before picking it up.  This resulted in chucking it 20' forward, through the air, and landing hard on its side on the frame.  Frame got a big ding but no sign of cracking a year later.  The batteries are reasonably protected but a full plate over them would avoid any single-point impacts potentially puncturing them.  Otherwise I've broken body panels and put gouges into the skid pan but no damaging impacts to the controller or motor.  YMMV  (:

[Cortezdtv]

Where in NorCal??

I'm in Santa cruz ...

[LiveandLetDrive]

East San Jose currently but just in the middle of buying a house in Boulder Creek!  I've mostly ridden at Metcalf, Hollister once, and a few weekends up north in Penny Pines and thereabouts.

[LiveandLetDrive]

Another toughness anecdote in "off-road" conditions.  The FX did pretty good riding in through lots of water this morning including 55mph through about a foot of standing water covering half of I-680N.  That threw up quite the bow wave!  I had a flickering alert light toward the end of my journey but I only saw it once and it went away.  Another foot deep water crossing in the parking lot as well as lots of standing but less deep stuff along the way.