2018 EC250 1st Ride Report

[Jakobi]

So almost 5 months after buying a new bike, I finally made the time to ride it. A beautiful muddy, overcast day! Prime conditions.

The silencer is too big.. It makes the bike too quiet. I feel like a ninja. I have some spooge but nothing that I would call excessive given the conditions and the lack of throttle. It felt like every tree in the forest decided to fall across the track. Pretty much became a free ride.

4 hours on the clock now. The bike looks far from new. Even after being washed. The bars almost touched the ground. Mud over the brush guard but not the end of the bar.. doesn't count!

Have they changed the internal gearing?? At 13-50 using the chain and sprocket off my old rig it feels a bit taller I think. The engine is nice. Less vibes for sure. Soft(er) off the bottom but really pulls smoothly into the mid and then revs very strong up top. I liked it very much!

Fuel economy was great, as expected.

Starter worked as it should.

She seemed to deal with water well too. Deep crossings no issues to report.

Chassis wise it was very familiar to my 13 I thought. Similar weight bias and handling characteristics (as 13 had reduced offset with KYB front end too).

Carried over the same old bars, so cockpit felt same same.

The seat I could sit on! And I don't think it was just the seat.. The SHOCK works and works bloody well. It highlighted how much harder that Ohlins 888 had me working.

Big thanks to Bits for Bikes for the deal on her, Dave at TSP for the head work, and GG Chris for the bolt on bits I needed. By far the best one yet.. I can't think of anything I need to do to this bike..

The fit and finish still needs refinement; but given this is my 3rd GG now, I can live with that!

Ohh.. And it's very tall. Or my legs are very short. I had a few moments where I struggled to find the ground..

 

[Gasser Nate]

So almost 5 months after buying a new bike, I finally made the time to ride it. A beautiful muddy, overcast day! Prime conditions.

The silencer is too big.. It makes the bike too quiet. I feel like a ninja. I have some spooge but nothing that I would call excessive given the conditions and the lack of throttle. It felt like every tree in the forest decided to fall across the track. Pretty much became a free ride.

4 hours on the clock now. The bike looks far from new. Even after being washed. The bars almost touched the ground. Mud over the brush guard but not the end of the bar.. doesn't count!

Have they changed the internal gearing?? At 13-50 using the chain and sprocket off my old rig it feels a bit taller I think. The engine is nice. Less vibes for sure. Soft(er) off the bottom but really pulls smoothly into the mid and then revs very strong up top. I liked it very much!

Fuel economy was great, as expected.

Starter worked as it should.

She seemed to deal with water well too. Deep crossings no issues to report.

Chassis wise it was very familiar to my 13 I thought. Similar weight bias and handling characteristics (as 13 had reduced offset with KYB front end too).

Carried over the same old bars, so cockpit felt same same.

The seat I could sit on! And I don't think it was just the seat.. The SHOCK works and works bloody well. It highlighted how much harder that Ohlins 888 had me working.

Big thanks to Bits for Bikes for the deal on her, Dave at TSP for the head work, and GG Chris for the bolt on bits I needed. By far the best one yet.. I can't think of anything I need to do to this bike..

The fit and finish still needs refinement; but given this is my 3rd GG now, I can live with that!

Ohh.. And it's very tall. Or my legs are very short. I had a few moments where I struggled to find the ground..

About bloody time matey! Been hanging for this report for a while now! Glad you like it! The seat is really nice, I could almost go up a spring rate but I just love how comfortable it is to ride. When I find the time to!

 

[Jakobi]

About bloody time matey! Been hanging for this report for a while now! Glad you like it! The seat is really nice, I could almost go up a spring rate but I just love how comfortable it is to ride. When I find the time to!

The seat fitment leaves a bit to be desired on mine. It's like the middle mounting tab is too big and keeps the seat from sliding up where it needs to be by about 5mm. I may make some modifications to that. Will help with the retaining screw being easier to fit too.

I'd normally bump the rates up one too, but given the height of the bike already and the way she handles I'm not going to worry about it.

I felt like it still sat up in the stroke well and didn't note any wallowing.

Front clickers were something like C15 R12, and the shock might be something like C12 R10. Whatever I set them to the afternoon before is where they stayed.

The only changes I made on the trail was a slight bump in idle speed and a couple tweaks of the pilot jet to get best response. The 42 pilot could possibly be bumped up a size, but works alright. At 1 turn she's a tad rich and the idle suffers a bit; but shes very punchy. At 1.25 out she's bang on!! At 1.5 turns out it's clean running but lacks snap off idle and gets a bit of a lean buzz just before 1/4 throttle.

 

[john r b]

5 months Jake? I forgot you bought a new bike, Glad your liking it so far. Have ya named her yet??

 

[Moto7man]

Very nice. Does it feel lighter than your 2013?

 

[(F5)]

That sounded very encouraging. . . . Except the being tall bit.

 

[Jakobi]

Weight wise, I don't know. It's not like I rode my old one last week and then jumped on the new one. I'm working off faded memories! I never felt the old one was heavy except when man handling it.. And today on a couple occasions I got hung up on sets of roots in ruts where I needed a second set of hands to help lift the bike out, thus it's still not light enough to offer any real world advantage to me in those situations.

Height wise the 13 wasn't really short either, but perhaps the seat made it easier to slide across and reach the ground. The 13 might squat a bit more as the suspension beds in.. in which case I'll be able to ride no worries. Comparatively it doesn't feel as tall as another mates Husaberg TE300.

I need to go through the paperwork and see if they've done anything with the final drive though. The gearing felt taller to me for sure. Mind you my old bikes pipe was half folded in and I could feel it sapping some of the top end out of it in the open.

Hopefully I don't wait another 5 months to ride again! Been so long that the glue on my boots broke down. Lost a sole on the return trip.. into the unknown. Now need to go order some more. Sidis again, Formas, or Gaernes?

 

[barossi73]

You do have short legs.Lol So are mine.
Deal with it.
Glad you like it after building up the anticipation for so long.That shock sounds like the biz!!

 

[Jakobi]

You do have short legs.Lol So are mine.
Deal with it.
Glad you like it after building up the anticipation for so long.That shock sounds like the biz!!

If you keep your feet on the pegs you don't need to touch the ground

I think I could probably slow the rebound on the shock a touch.. but it didn't feel too busy and wasn't unloading violently off sharp edges. Just worked well. Hard to ask for more than that.

Hopefully I'll be just as happy once shes broken in fully. The engine didn't get an easy break in either..

 

[shawbagga]

Silencer too long & too quiet?! Quiet is good for the sport & my sanity!
Seat is comfy. I'll have to take mine off again(hasn't been off since new 50 hours ago) & check that bolt/seat mount point 'cause yeah as you know it's same as yours & like you say may very well help with seat bolt(which I temember was a bit of a prick to refit).
Tall?! Coming off Italian Huskies these things are like 85s!
Keep any eye on disc bolts as my fronts all came well loose after first ride or 2!
I honestly thought fit & finish aside from seat/tank junction & seat bolt is pretty good. Some odd sized fasteners still though.

 

[Jakobi]

Silencer too long & too quiet?! Quiet is good for the sport & my sanity!
Seat is comfy. I'll have to take mine off again(hasn't been off since new 50 hours ago) & check that bolt/seat mount point 'cause yeah as you know it's same as yours & like you say may very well help with seat bolt(which I temember was a bit of a prick to refit).
Tall?! Coming off Italian Huskies these things are like 85s!
Keep any eye on disc bolts as my fronts all came well loose after first ride or 2!
I honestly thought fit & finish aside from seat/tank junction & seat bolt is pretty good. Some odd sized fasteners still though.

It's better than they used to be.

But yeah, I had tank/radiator line clearance issues with the Ptech braces. Fitment of the seat to tank to subframe is less than ideal. Plus you pointed out the subframe isn't inline with the frame... It's just little things.. Not deal breakers, but they are there!

I have an Ital Husky here.. I'll vouch it's even taller again!! Not a problem for giants like you...

 

[shawbagga]

It's better than they used to be.

But yeah, I had tank/radiator line clearance issues with the Ptech braces. Fitment of the seat to tank to subframe is less than ideal. Plus you pointed out the subframe isn't inline with the frame... It's just little things.. Not deal breakers, but they are there!

I have an Ital Husky here.. I'll vouch it's even taller again!! Not a problem for giants like you...

That little CR125 would be epic for a grasstrack pony with a whippet like you on it!
I had to file one of the AXP side braces on rad guards a few mm just to clear hose. Easy enough.
I thought tank fitment was good with all the padding they use along backbone etc.

 

[Jakobi]

As per another thread. I'd lost a bit of coolant on my break in ride.

Investigation showed that the sealing surface on the radiator had a castling flaw/corrosion in it. Managed to polish it up and drop my old rad cap on.

Seemed to hold pressure mostly, but at times was venting some fluid out the overflow. Checking cold this afternoon it's still over the fins so maybe not too bad now! Both caps are rated 1.8 bar but the 2018 one feels much easier to press the spring in.

Rode some more technical terrain in even wetter conditions today. Got a bit more beat up.. but I think it's mostly my lack of ride fitness.

I think I'm going to go a touch richer on the needle too. She lost balls a bit on extended climbs and really needed a lot of clutch work to keep going.. even then it didn't feel like the clutch was bringing it into the meat of the power..

Later that day I managed to take in a lung full of flowing water.. all the way into the crank cases!! Didn't take too long to clear (crank case drain pulled, spark plug pulled, tipped up on the back wheel and cycled for a bit, with some fuel overflowing out the carb.. and she was off and running.. albeit very shit!! Rode for a few kms thinking it must have been pulling water through the filter still (which I didn't wring out).. only to realise I had the choke on!! Bahahaha..

Anyway, the softer bottom end I spoke of in my last post showed up in the bush today.. I think I'll try and extract some more grunt out of it yet! Other than that very Gas Gas typical.. braaap

 

[shawbagga]

Haha I did the same thing on my second or third ride on my brand new WR300 years ago! Ran good for another 400 hours on the same bottom end though!

 

[Jakobi]

Haha I did the same thing on my second or third ride on my brand new WR300 years ago! Ran good for another 400 hours on the same bottom end though!

I'm pretty sure all of mine have had a crank case full of water at some point their lives.. some multiple times.. My 2010 went swimming in its first couple rides too. Crank was still in spec and running well at 260hrs.

Realistically, the filter should still be doing it's job, and I believe a quality oil holds up much better in this instance too! So as long as the water going in isn't full of abrasives, then as long as you get it out and get the engine back up to temp to get rid of the moisture and allow the oil to coat everything then everything should be fine..

Just have to watch the old hydraulic lock up if you get a heap in the combustion chamber.

 

[(F5)]

Nothing like drowning your new bike to bond with it.

My 07 toppled over last weekend. Drained about 3litres it seemed from the crankcase bolt and presumably the pipe.

Drowned my 200 within about 1 hour of its first ride.

 

[Jakobi]

I love riding in the mud.. I'd rather drown her than dust her..