Having ridden for Craig Dack on numerous occasions and having won Dacka his first championship as team manager back in 1993 I’ve had the privilege of riding many CDR Yamaha team bikes for ADB over the years. Riders such as Kade Mosig, Dan Reardon, Dean Ferris, Kirk Gibbs, Aaron Tanti and now Jed Beaton are riders that have allowed me the privilege of testing their race machines. Each and every one of these riders has different tastes and body types that require a completely different set up. So sitting on Jed’s 2024 CDR Yamaha YZ450F for the first time I had all senses engaged just trying to take it all in to figure out the subtle differences that make it all work on the track.

The first thing I noticed was the handlebar setup. It’s no secret that Jed is running a radically different set up to what most people run and it was brought to our attention through the mid part of Pro MX this year. The change of handlebar bend is an effort to tame down the arm pump that Jed was suffering from time to time.

To the naked eye the ‘bars look quite high but have a huge back sweep, almost the opposite to what most people including myself run these days. I thought that when I sat on the bike that they would feel like ape hangers on a Harley Davidson however they didn’t feel too high at all. To be honest, the back sweep was very noticeable but didn’t feel too bad. Clutch, front brake and back brake lever positioning along with the gear shift position were all bang on for me and good to go. The next thing I noticed sitting on the bike while off the stand was how firm the suspension felt.

WARM UP TIME

Our test track was in prime condition, still rough from the previous weekend.  As is the case with any factory bike review I eased my way into my first warm up session trying to get to know this beauty before we wind the wick up too much. The production Yamaha 450 for 2024 already has an impressive motor to start with but it was apparent from my first half lap that we have an absolute monster of a power plant on our hands here.

After a few corners lugging a taller gear on the exit I realized that the motor was a very well behaved monster and that we had something really quite special under the hood. If you watch Beaton ride closely you’ll notice that he never gets below third gear other than out of the gate. Even in hairpin turns he’ll lug third gear and roll the power on flawlessly.  This is something I picked up on from the very first lap.

I initially thought I was between gears in corners however I soon realized that you just click up that one extra gear that almost feels like you’ll stall the bike and sure enough, there’s plenty of torque to pull right from the bottom. The true champion in the motor though is the midrange bulk of the power. The kind of power that passes people down the straight, or allows you to still quad out of a corner even when you slightly mess up the corner. That to me was the most impressive part of the power plant.

With Jed weighing around 83kg without riding gear on he is one of the very rare world class riders that could tame this kind of power. I’ve always loved high horsepower 450’s and grew up racing 500cc two strokes and I absolutely loved the way the power was delivered. By the second lap I’d completely forgotten about the handlebar bend and felt so comfortable with Jed’s set up, which surprised me.

MY FAVOURITE PARTS

MOTOR

Here is an example of a factory 450 motor where the race team has been able to go to town and build a fire breathing weapon. Don’t get me wrong, this is a very smooth, easy to ride motor provided you know how to roll the throttle on. There are no dips in the power at all to create a hard hit anywhere through the whole range. You just need to make sure that if you give this throttle a hard twist that you’re prepared for what is heading to the back wheel. Some riders have good throttle control and others don’t, and clearly Jed has some of the smoothest throttle control around.

Every time I hop on one of the latest generation Yamaha’s, whether a 250 or 450 I need to wrap my head around the induction noise. It’s a totally different noise that you get from any of the other bikes. When I recently test rode Seth Burchell’s WBR Yamaha 250F I honestly thought I needed to run ear plugs, however with Jed’s bike the noise inside my helmet wasn’t quite as intense.

SET UP

It’s really quite rare that I’ll hop on someone’s race bike and feel completely comfortable right from the get go. With Jed’s CDR Yamaha YZ450F I didn’t need to touch a thing right from the lever positioning to even how far Jed has his levers wound out to suit the length of his fingers. Everything just felt spot on but the biggest shock was just how comfortable I was with this extravagant handlebar setup. Not only did I forget about the bend once I’d ticked off the first lap, but I’d go as far as to say that the more the day ticked on the more comfortable I became with the setup.

The huge sweep back allows for a very comfortable seated position in the corners and even in the air. It still looks a little weird when I run my eyes over the #14 machine but I’m truly gob smacked with how nice it felt out there on the track. So I must give a tip of the cap to Jed on slightly breaking the mould here on what is considered the norm in the handlebar bend department.

CHASSIS AND BALANCE

Jed runs a very firm set up with his Factory KYB suspension on his CDR Yamaha YZ450F and the balance of his bike is second to none. It didn’t matter if I was charging into one of the huge jump faces, landing off the massive triple step up, or braking hard into one of the hair pin turns, the axis of the bike was spot on and not once got out of balance.

I’m generally fairly smooth on the brakes and try to carry rolling speed into turns rather than braking at the last minute while using huge amounts of front brake. For testing purposes I tried to adopt this style just to see if I could get the front of the bike to dive to no avail. It made me realise immediately how Jed could negotiate his way around all of the Pro MX tracks with such a stable bike, rarely looking out of sorts.

The chassis gave a very confident feeling at speed and to me leaned a little more towards the stable rather than agile side. That being said the bike still felt extremely playful in the air and for someone who doesn’t find whipping the bike sideways completely natural I found myself throwing in the odd scrub here and there.

WHAT WOULD I CHANGE

SUSPENSION SETUP

This CDR Yamaha YZ450F is set up perfectly for a lightning fast 83kg Jed Beaton. I actually spoke to Craig in detail the day after I tested the and I mentioned that this was the first time in the last 20 years that I’ve tested someone’s factory outdoor bike that was way too firm for me and to be honest it was a breath of fresh air. Back in my day as a factory racer I was so used to having media people test my bike and tell me it was way too stiff for them.

I was 82kg when I was racing and loved a firm set up and most media crew were mid to high 70’s and snuck around the track at a half decent pace. Likewise, I’m now over 50 years old, weigh 79kg and don’t circulate anywhere near the pace of Beaton. So it was just how I would expect things to be, a little on the firm side for me.

Not so much on the jumps, more so the small chattery bumps. I’d probably need to go one spring rate lighter on the fork and shock along with a slightly softer valving spec and we’d be bang on the money. I could certainly feel out on the track when I was going 110% speed that I could get the suspension into the meaty part of the stroke and working quite well. This is a race weapon purpose built for a very specific rider.

OVERALL

The #14 CDR Yamaha YZ450F is not the type of bike that anyone off the street would be able to throw a leg over and immediately start throwing down lap records. If you’re a decent state level rider that knows how to get around a motocross track at a good pace, you’re going to need to weigh around 90kg plus to feel comfortable with this suspension package. However, the motor is something that will put a smile on anyone’s face, particularly if you’re out at the practice track mid-week trying to out-drag your mate into the first turn. Overall the bike ticks all the boxes and it’s no surprise that we saw the #14 in either first or second place in nearly every Pro MX moto this year.

BITS AND PIECES – CDR Yamaha YZ450F

Factory Dunlop Tyres

727 Wheels

Mino Disc rotors

Regina Chain

Guts Seat Cover

Fleetwood Print Group graphics kit

Neken Triple Clamps

Renthal 603 Fatbar

Renthal Half Waffle Soft grip

Renthal Sprockets 13-51

KYB full factory suspension

GYTR Hydraulic Clutch kit

GYTR Carbon skid plate

GYTR axle blocks

GYTR rear brake clevis

GYTR front brake line

GYTR clutch cover

GYTR radiator braces

GYTR 2.0 radiator cap

Carbon fuel tank

CDR Performance subframe mod

Unifilter Rush airfilter

Panta race fuel

Vortex ignition

NGK spark plug

CDR performance engine package