Race Bike Evolution?
Story by Brent Farrell, Photos by Trevor Hunter
The DBT team has been putting some hours on the new GasGas EC450F. See the First Impression write up for the details. To quickly summarize, we’ve found it to be a fun, easy to ride enduro bike. The power is there, but it’s mellow and not particularly inspiring. The positive is that without that aggressive power so common in 450 offerings, mistakes are less common and the overall effort is reduced. The suspension works surprisingly well as long as it’s used as intended. Keep it on twisty trails and it’s plush, compliant and can be ridden aggressively. If you venture out into higher speed environments with bigger obstacles, it feels soft (which it should), but can still be pushed in a safe and controlled manner. After all, why would anyone buy this bike and then use it in environments more suited to one of its more race oriented siblings. They just wouldn’t, right?
As a few of our vet testers spent time on this bike, the positive comments continued to roll in. Sure the power is very mellow and the suspension is soft, but it works well and all the bones are there if you want to make a few changes and find the “race bike” hidden under the surface. A few post-ride conversations later and we decided to explore a little further.
The two areas of focus are power delivery and suspension and we’ve made substantial progress on both. First thing we did was grab a stock silencer we had off a 2025 KTM 450XC-F, something many riders replace with aftermarket components so they can often be found cheap in the used market. We knew the restrictive stock silencer was holding the motor back, but we didn’t expect the change to be quite so dramatic. A simple component change took the EC450F from mellow to semi-aggressive. It now comes on with authority and pulls throughout the rpm range. It’s still calmer than its race focused brethren but it runs like a race bike. Our own Jimmy Lewis has said for decades that a super aggressive motor will make most riders tired, sloppy, and ultimately slower. Dare we even say a worse rider? Could this motor be the perfect happy-medium for the average joe?
The next area to focus our attention was suspension. The rear of the bike is a traditional linkage design common to most of the Austrian models so coming up with a more aggressive setting is pretty straight forward. We weren’t quite as sure about the forks. The new GasGas is the last to come with the WP XPLOR Open Cartridge models. It’s been a long time since any of us have spent considerable time on an open cartridge fork and we weren’t sure if we’d be able to find a setting we liked. There’s some good things about this type of fork. There’s fewer contact points internally compared to a closed cartridge design so stiction is minimal. This often makes for a very compliant fork that works well in true off-road conditions. The challenge is it’s hard to get the hold-up and bottoming resistance you need for a race application without making them harsh. Todd Davis at TCS revalved the shock with the same setting he uses in his personal 450 XC-F race bike and a fork setting he felt would provide what we were looking for. There are some parts available that replace main components of these forks but we stuck with a basic revalve to keep with the theme of making minimal and cost effective changes. The results were surprisingly good.
After making these updates, I raced the EC450F at an SRA Grand Prix at Glen Helen, and then a District 37 Sprint Enduro. I was very impressed. Even though it runs and performs more aggressively now, it still retains the smooth easy to ride characteristics we first appreciated. It’s left several of us wondering if it couldn’t be a sleeper at off-road races. I think I could sprint faster on the off-road race version, but over the course of an entire event would the XC be faster? Kind of like Cole Trickle testing tires, will smoother beat out aggression and be faster in the long run? The idea here is to put the GasGas on the line for the 10 Hours of Glen Helen. After that, we’ll have the answers. Watch the video below to see how the race went and hear our positive, and negative, comments on the bike and the changes we made.
As land use and more government restrictions come into play here in the United States, there is a very real possibilty that our “race bikes” in the future will start as these models, if not full blown dual sport bikes. The EnduroGP racers in Europe all start with this platform as they comply with the rules and regulations that we feel aren’t an “if” they come to the US, but more likely “when.” As we’ve stated for years, bikes like these have a lot of potential and are better candidates as starting platforms for a good portion of off-road racers out there and we feel confident that they’ll be potent for riders of all skill levels in the years to come.
