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Hey guys! I'm 20 years old and haven't ridden a dirtbike in 2 years. I sold my last one for a four wheeler and a trailer (laugh all you want, it's for farm work and very handy) but I've been riding street bikes the whole time during that gap (boring to me lol) Anyways I now have the means to get a new (or relatively new) dirtbike, and I see the new crf450rx. I don't want the 2018 model because I want the kickstart backup and the 2018 models took that away. The downside to the RX model is price, MSRP is not much more than the R model, but here the 17 R models are $1200 cheaper than the RX. The 2016 model (new, but didn't sell) is $6300 here. Is the 17 R model worth the $8000? Is the RX worth $9200? I was looking at KTM's but when I went to the local dealer they didn't take me seriously so I just walked out. Both Honda dealers near me treated me like a friend, so I know if there's a problem I can trust them, and I don't want to deal with bad dealers. My riding is mostly trails (I ride on friends woodlands) and I plan on getting back into racing but not too often, maybe once a month, sometimes twice, and it will also be a yard vehicle (to quickly go from one side to the other to tell someone something or to go grab a tool or chase coons and coyotes away) I was looking at older bikes but now that I have the funding for a new bike with my current job I think I'd like a new bike for once, get the benefits of modern suspension and stuff. So basically I'm just wondering your guy's thoughts on 2016 vs 2017 and R vs RX. I know the 17 RX is best for my riding style (mostly trails and stuff) but is it worth the extra $2500 ish over the 16 R model? I'd do most of my own maintenance except for valves.

Hello, everyone. I thought I'd share my personal experience on this bike considering its so new and very few people actually own one right now. Background (for some context): I'm a 31yr old mechanical engineer/entrepreneur, 6ft, 235lbs, and in okay shape. I've started riding when I was 6 on a Honda Z50, and besides about a 10-year hiatus starting in college, I've been riding since. Rain or shine my daily driver 9/12s of the year is currently a KTM 1190 ADV-R. I take it offroad quite a bit and try to do a 2-week multi-thousand-mile adventure/camping trip two-up with my wife once a year (I'm a lucky bastard). I love the KTM, but it definitely did not convince me to get a KTM dirtbike. The dealer had to rebuild the motor after 4k miles because the airbox looked like it was designed by a 6th grader. A design flaw causes it to flex and let air past the filter. It has a few other annoying quirks, like an undersized starter motor and battery which make it impossible to start sub 40 degrees outside. I feel like KTM pushes the weight/reliability boundary too far. Back to the dirtbike, I'm currently focused on riding in the woods outside of Boston. I don't ride competitively, but many of the guys I currently ride with do. Most are vet A or B riders in their mid-40s and all are a little faster than me. I only recently started riding at a "competitive" pace to try and keep up. Up until last year, I was more focused on finding really technical terrain, like tackling the hardest lines up a steep hill or something. I've been really enjoying this new style of fast pace, more flowy woods riding. My last bike was an '08 CRF450R. I got it originally for doing track days at the MX track. I switched to doing more technical offroad riding and plated it so to easily get from one riding area to the next. The bike was getting old and the suspension was set up way too soft for what I'm doing now so I figured it was time for something new. The timing worked out perfectly with the release of the CRF450RX. I literally couldn't have been more excited to hear of its release. Before the first ride: This is what I did and why: Yoshimura full TI Exhaust: I only got it because it looks awesome. The weight benefits are nice and it supposedly gives you better low to mid power and sounds a bit nicer and quieter than stock. I can't compare it though since I never used the stock pipe. It was extremely easy to install, maybe 10 minutes. They do split the header into 2 parts, unlike the stock pipe. Also, they are longer, and there's a fat section in the area behind the shock. Hear it here: https://www.instagram.com/p/BPQqqvojFX2/ Antigravity 8 cell Lithium battery (P/N: 1388590001): I got this because I figured it was a simple way to drop a few pounds. Install was simple, although I needed to drill out the power terminals on the bike since the bolts are larger for this battery. Acrebris Endurance handguards: These were missing a couple of M6 Hex bolts that hold the bar clamps together. According to reviews I've read, others have had this issue too. As expected, it requires you to cut the end of the handguards to fit them in the bar ends. In doing so, you compromise the adhesion between the rubber grip and plastic throttle tube, which broke free shortly into my ride. The bike didn't come with the little wire that holds down the grips. I was forced to use a couple of small zip ties. Fortunately, when placed correctly, they didn't get in the way. I'll have to clean this up for next ride. 12 tooth front sprocket: We ride in the woods, its very tight, so I figured it needed to be geared down more than just 1 tooth on the rear. So I'm running 12/50. I think its perfect, more on this later. Studded tires from http://www.kevinscycle.com/ These are needed this time of year in New England. The ground is hard and there is still some snow in north facing hills and heavily shaded areas from a storm last weekend. Ride review: I'll break things down to keep things organized. As a heads up, besides the gearing and exhaust, I didn't want to make any changes to the bike until I get more hours on it. I wanted to focus on getting comfortable with it and understand the baseline. I didn't even change the mapping. I feel like doing this really helps me understand subtle changes more easily. Chassis and ergonomics: I feel at home sitting on the bike. The riding position is very comfortable. The pegs, handlebars and seat feel similar to my '08. The biggest difference is how narrow and light it feels. Pivoting the bike left and right is incredibly easy. The bike also looks really small, although I don't feel cramped at all. Everything is exactly where I want it to be. My only complaint is the seat foam. Its way too stiff for anything but the MX track. The seat cover, however, is great, very grippy. The bike turns similarly to the '08 but the front end feels more planted. It really dives and leans into corners well. Still can't get over how light it feels. I swapped rides with friends on a KTM 250 XC-F and 350XC-F and it did not feel an ounce heavier. Both the guys who rode my bike said the same thing. I feel like my bike lays down into corners easier, although I'd say both those bikes feel more stable in a straight line. It's a compromise, but particularly for what we do, I prefer my bike. This is one of the biggest reasons why I wanted to stick to a Honda. There is an intrinsic handling characteristic that's rooted in frame geometry that I prefer. Another thing I noticed is how the bike stays planted under acceleration. The front tire doesn't lift up as easily when getting in it hard. It just explodes forward like nothing I've felt before, almost as if I had a long swingarm on it. This is clearly a benefit of having a lower center of mass and whatever they do to the frame/suspension geometry. I feel like this is what really seperates it from other bikes. I read a review about the frame "blackening" easily after use. This is because they apply a heavy bead blast texture around the lower part of the frame to provide a sticky surface for your boot (or improve adhesion to gripper tape). It's the exact same alloy as in my '08. The "blackening" is from the rubber on my boot. Engine and transmission: My '08 had beryllium-copper valve seats, a heavier flywheel, 12/48 gearing, and a Magura hydraulic clutch. The only change to the RX is the 12/50 gearing. The bike is more powerful and smoother everywhere. The power feels extremely linear, almost electric like. The engine revs really quickly. Twisting the throttle in neutral gives you the impression the flywheel mass is next to nothing. This made me nervous since I tend to stay low in the revs, and it can get very technical in areas. However, it was never an issue. You can really lug it easily. It does idle high which helps. I did stall once or twice but this was from braking before getting on the clutch. The e-start got me going immediately though. Its awesome btw. I never touched the kick start. It was 25 degrees out in the morning, and it fired right up cold with the lithium battery without an issue. All the KTM guys kick start their bike when its cold out. This bike definitely doesn't need it. The clutch feels great. Clutch pull is on the heavy side, but the engagement travel is short. I'm used to the Magura hydraulic clutch which requires you to pull it in more to fully disengage, but with a lighter pull. It took some time getting used to but I was happy with it. It engages and disengages smoothly with a lot of feedback. I don't think I'll get a hydraulic clutch for this bike, I'm really liking the feedback it provides. I gambled a bit with the 12/50 gearing I started with. I figured I'd be better off being geared a little low than a little high. I think this is perfect gearing for the woods. I stuck to 2nd gear most of the day, with a handful of sections in 3rd. I really didn't need first, even when hitting a rutted, tight 180 around a tree. Only a little feathering of the clutch was needed. With this gearing, first works well in really slow stuff. It is definitely a bit lower than the 12/48 set up I had in the '08, not sure what I prefer. I am really happy Honda stuck with a close ratio, I don't like wide ratio boxes in the woods. My only issue is the cam profile on the throttle tube feels a bit aggressive. This was my biggest learning curve on the new bike, took me a solid 20 minutes to get used to the delivery. I think I'll end up liking it since it's much easier to blip the throttle to get the front tire up when needed. We'll see. I could also try the mellow map, buts it's only that first mm of travel that I need to be careful of. I finally figured out why Honda does dual exhausts. You can warm up and dry both hands AT THE SAME TIME!!! Seriously though, I love the way these look, even if the benefits are unclear. Suspension: The suspension is a little too stiff for the riding I do. There are a lot of roots and rocks, and it lacks the plushness on the initial part of the stroke, which was very noticeable when I hoped on the KTMs I rode, as well as the 300 XC-W I'm familiar with. The rest of the stroke is great. It floats well over whoops and resists bottoming over g-outs well. No big jumps or drops yesterday but it feels like it'll do just fine in those cases. I'm not yet convinced I'll need to change the spring rates even though I'm a heavier rider. It never sunk into the stroke, but this may be because its over damped for this kind of riding. I'm going to start with adjusting the clickers on the next ride and go from there. I may have to send them out for a revalve and new springs, we'll see. I'll post more once I start playing with changes. How the KTM guys felt: Eric (on the 250 XC-F): Bike feels great, very light, clutch is nice, the suspension is definitely set-up for the morning. I'd consider one if it was a 250 or 350. Mark (on the 350 XC-F): You need to sit more forward to get that front end planted feeling that I have on my bike, but it really corners great. It's too powerful. I like it otherwise. Best looking bike out there. Overall: It's a well engineered, cohesively designed bike. I run the engineering department at my company and act as the chief engineer on complicated equipment for homeland security markets. The best way to maximize performance and value while minimizing waste and bloat is to get a tightknit group of talented guys who are ultra focused on the same underlying goal and not their immediate tasks, even if it means sacrificing on their on contribution for the benefit of the whole. You can tell this bike was designed with that mentality. It's not about the horsepower, or how light it is. It's how well it functions as a complete package. I absolutely love the bike. Honda hit it out of the park. Bottom line, it was probably the best day of riding I had. Link to picture gallery: https://www.dropbox.com/sc/vl1sbjcp0hr6h8o/AACQX1ySiMWUqbHVBANAKubLa If you guys feel this was useful, I'll post more updates as I get familiar with the bike.

I've heard the Beta side, now I'd like to hear the Honda side. My dealer sells both and I was really impressed with the new Honda. Fit and finish are excellent and there isn't a better looking bike out there in my opinion. Does anyone out there have a buddy on a Beta so they could compare? The only drawback I could see on the Honda is a 5 speed transmission and a cable clutch.

Whats up everyone, i figured i would make a post on my 450L build, experimentation etc, and contribute back to the forums. Normally I dont post stuff and instead do research finding what i need, but i havent found anyone that has done what ive done yet, and see lots of people have questions. Ill post my build as i go. If anyone has questions feel free to ask. A little background info: i bought my bike end of 2018 and put maybe 15 miles on the thing. I came from riding a 2012 crf450r and wanted something for trails. I originally was looking for a 2019 husky te300 with the new efi, but seeing as they had a street legal 450L for the same price i figured i would much rather have that instead. Here are pictures when i first brought the bike home

hi I'm new here, my 2017 CRF450RX bike stared to get bad vibrations throughout the bike I have some metal in my oil filter so I've got a friend to pull the motor apart. thought the crank had play so replaced it with a new one from Honda he could tell where the metal was coming from so he tore it right apart still can't see what was leaving the shavings. rebuild the motor and it still have the bad vibrations, counter balancer is good, cam looks all fine any leads fellas ? thanks

Here's my GoPro footage from the start of the 2017 SCORE Baja 1000, enjoy!

I have a 03 450 that I just got and it runs great! I love my bike and am big on preventative maintenance. I have searched the threads on TT and have not found any descriptive threads on how to check valve clearance or adjust them. Just by looking at them, I can see that the intakes need to be shimmed and the exhaust valves can be adjusted quite easily unless one needs to be adjusted differently than the other. I tried to do it last night, and lined up the marks on each side to get the piston to TDC to check adjustments and could not get any readings on tolerances on either the intake nor the exhaust. I moved the crank a little bit forward and got a .011 reading on the exhaust valves. I read in a thread that the spec was .011" for the left one and .014" in the right for the auto decompressor. The spec I am using for the intakes is .006" Are these specs correct? :excuseme:The only issue is that the adjustment for the exhaust valves is one and the same. Different from my KTM where you can adjust each valve individually. No matter where the cam was on the intake valves, I could not get any readings. Does anyone have a thread, website, downloadable manual, or article on checking and adjusting valves in these beasts?

Factory Connection shortened the shock a little (3mm I think) on my 15 CRF450 and it was easily the best handling mod I had done. Ride mostly desert stuff in fairly sandy conditions. Has anyone played around with shock length on the 17? I'm struggling to get the stability I want on my new bike and would like to hear any feedback. All the obvious stuff has been addressed like sag, lowering fork tubes in clamps etc...

Hey guys so i just got a new 17 crf450rx. I was able to find a used one for 5000 with 3 hours on it. I have never had a fuel injected bike before. I am coming off the old trust 450x. So far the bike has been amazing. I do however have a few concerns about it that i wanted to get checked out. So when i bought the bike i am pretty sure there was bad gas left in it. I did not drain it and i ran the rest of it with some new gas in the tank. After the first ride i washed it and cleaned it up. Since then it has been taking it twice to start. What i mean by that is when i start it cold (it is in the 90's here in texas) it will die and then i have to start it again. then it will run. My throttle response seem kind of poor before it gets warmed up. when it is warm not problems what so ever. I drained the fuel and put some fresh gas in it with some sea foam thinking there might be some junk left in a injector or something. What is the deal? I dont feel like this is normal. Maybe i need a new fuel filter or something? Thanks everyone!

A while back I put a Rekluse Radius X on my 2019 CRF450RX in an effort to eliminate the flame out issue I had on tight trails. I was under the impression that with the Rekluse I didn’t have to worry about covering the clutch and could just focus on riding. The Rekluse helped with not having to be constantly using the clutch to keep the rpm’s up but it made the bike feel very “twitchy” at low speed. After idling his YZ450F uphill to load it on the trailer my son tried to do the same with my bike and said my auto clutch was very grabby. This got me thinking that I might need to swap out the internal springs in the Rekluse so that it engaged at a lower rpm. I tried using the clutch like normal this weekend on the RX is some very muddy slick conditions and was amazed at how much more control I had. This makes me wonder if it is normal to still use the clutch when running a Rekluse for slow speed control or if I would be better off just putting the stock clutch back in?

When I was doing this conversion I could not find anything to help me other than older bikes. With that being said here is a guide to anyone that wants to convert their newer body style to a dual sport. First I went to jcr speed shop and picked up his headlight for the rl. JCR made new mounting brackets and connections so it is a basic plug and play deal that connects to the data plug on the left side of the bike. I also purchased his rear tail light and brake switch for the rear. From then I ended up going with the universal dual sport wiring harness of Rocky Mountain, since I already had most of the stuff that comes in the complete kit, and bought the flush mount turn signals for the rear and tusk front turn signals as well as the tusk mirrors. Here is where I had a headache. I really wanted it to be as factory looking as possible and I am really OCD on little things. Obviously with it being a universal kit nothing is perfect so there is a good 2’ extra wire front and rear and it was really hard to hide that. I ran everything along the left side under the tank along the factory harness then down into my airbox where I made my connections for the taillights. There is the power plug that I wired into the battery box then connected it to the harness running along the frame as well. Then for the horn and flasher I used the factory mounting hole for the number plate and mounted them both there because that’s just how the wiring worked out because the original spot I picked was my lower radiator mount bolt but it was too tight. With the horn and flasher mounted at the number plate bolt the horn does fold over every bump I hit and it annoys me but it still works and you can’t notice it so for now that is it’s home. Front turn signals I mounted on my front fender and am surprised I haven’t ran into my tire eating up the wires yet I plan on making a new bracket that mounts the front number plate to move the blinkers up like the rl but I haven’t gotten around to that yet. Hope this helps anyone looking to do it to your bike. If someone needs more specific pictures I’ll take some.

Dose anyone running with this combination !? i just got 12T in front in order to help me in the wood , specially to prevent stalling in low RPM. Will this combination help !?

Electric start with lithium-ion battery now standard on both models TORRANCE, CA - May 15, 2017 - (Motor Sports Newswire) - Honda revealed today that the CRF450R gets even better for the 2018 model year, with electric starting now standard. Designed following an "Absolute Holeshot" philosophy that resulted in a downdraft-intake layout achieving optimum power and centralized mass, the revolutionary motocross model is the industry's top-selling 450cc motocrosser. The electric starter that was previously offered as an accessory is now standard, as is a lightweight lithium-ion battery, and the CRF450R also gets updated suspension settings aimed at improving chassis feel and overall action. Today's 2018 model-year announcement also included the updated CRF450RX closed-course off-road bike and returning CRF150R mini motocrosser. "It's been amazing to see the success of the CRF450R this year, and we're even more excited about this model with the improvements we've made for 2018," said Lee Edmunds, American Honda's Manager of Motorcycle Marketing Communications. "In addition to the obvious convenience, electric starting can save valuable seconds following a mid-moto mistake, and with the use of a lithium-ion battery, we can still achieve an extremely light weight. These changes make the CRF450R more competitive than ever, and of course customers can continue to count on Honda durability, quality, and reliability." CRF450R The CRF450R's downdraft air-intake and fuel-injection layout achieves a potent, broad spread of torque, but it also allows for heavier components to be located as centrally and low as possible so that all that power can be effectively utilized. In addition, the vehicle packaging results in nimble cornering, while updated suspension settings to the Showa® shock and 49mm coil-spring fork improve handling. Corresponding with the addition of an electric starter (powered by a lightweight lithium-ion battery), the kick-start lever has been removed in order to shave precious weight. An updated ECU setting means power delivery is more useable than ever, and the big CRF still has great features like a titanium fuel tank, engine-mode select button, and wave-pattern 260mm front brake. Add it all together and you've got a bike that delivers even better on its promise of the "Absolute Holeshot." Color: Red Price: $9,149 Availability: July 2017 Info CRF450RX Currently being campaigned in the GNCC series by JCR Honda's Trevor Bollinger, the CRF450RX already came with electric starting, but for 2018 the model gets a weight reduction with the removal of the kick-start lever and the switch to a lighter-weight lithium-ion battery. The model is based closely on the flagship CRF450R but with off-road-focused updates like a larger 2.2-gallon fuel tank, 18-inch rear wheel, side stand, optimized ECU and suspension settings, and more. When it comes to closed-course competition like GNCC, hare scrambles, and Grand Prix racing, the CRF450RX constitutes the ultimate off-road weapon. Color: Red Price: $9,249 Availability: August 2017 Info

Hi Everyone, I recently got a 2017 CRF450rx and want to put spark arrestors on to comply with OHV rules here in Oregon. I will most likely go with the PMB fastaway end caps, but was more curious about sound levels. Anybody else ride this bike on trails and have any tips on how to reduce noise? I would like to be within the legal range of 99 db and wasn't sure if just the endcaps would make much of a difference. Any info would be great!