For 2018, the YZ 450 was completely new from the ground up. Arguably, one of the most anticipated bikes of the year, I was excited and all smiles getting the chance to swing my leg over the new bike at Cahuilla Creek and Milestone MX. Coming off a 2017 YZ 450 as my personal bike for the past year, I immediately felt a difference the moment… well the moment I went to grab the kick starter and it wasn’t there! “Ah yes,” I told myself, “who kick starts a bike now a days?”The electric start was one of the new features for 2018, and to my surprise, didn’t realize how much I would enjoy the luxury of a push-to-start.
Along with e-start, an all new chassis and revised body work would be the most significant changes I felt on the track. The bike felt so much more narrow between the legs, according to the numbers from Yamaha nearly 18mm thinner than the previous model, and it makes a huge difference! The new and improved thinner bodywork of the Yamaha made the bike feel light and nimble in the air, and made the transition from the
standing up position, to cornering position smoother and with less effort than the wider 2017 model. However, one thing I always felt that Yamaha has lacked was the ability to have a smooth consistent front end feel. While the new chassis improves the overall handling and feel of the bike, it didn’t quite fix the front end of the bike. At Cahuilla Creek, cornering wasn’t much of an issue with the type of conditions we had, which was mostly flat, dry, corners with no ruts. While at Milestone, deep tight ruts started to develop. At times the front end would wash on the entrance of the corner, and other times the bike would want to stand instead of following and tracking along the rutted corners. We ran the recommended sag height, and will test more with chassis geometry, fork tube height, and overall suspension settings.
The Kayaba SSS suspension is hands down the best stock suspension you’ll get on a bike. At Cahuilla Creek and Milestone MX, there wasn’t a lot of chop that developed throughout the day, didn’t get rough enough for us to do much suspension testing, and made no major changes. Yamaha has always been known for a strong power plant. For 2018, its no different. The previous stock motor/mapping to me, had felt jerky, and made it extremely difficult to roll the throttle on throughout corners. While this years stock mapping, still had Yamaha’s traditional broad and long power band, but felt much more usable. We had a chance to mess round with the GYTR mobile map tuner as well. At Cahuilla Creek, a track littered with fast straights and high-speed corners, the motor worked extremely well in the early morning hours where the dirt was tacky. I liked a map with a more of an aggressive bottom and mid range hit. We played around with 3 or 4 different map settings and look forward to do more testing with this feature to figure out which type of setting works best in different types of conditions.
Overall, I’m impressed with the new machine and new technology it’s brought along. While it’s made leaps in the right direction over the previous models, I’m interested to see if some chassis and suspension adjustments can be made to combat the inconsistent characteristics Yamaha has yet to get rid of.