I have ridden a lot of bikes over the years and most of the time I ride them in the situations for which they’ve been designed. For example, enduro bikes in enduro scenarios and MX/XC bikes in MX/XC conditions. Well, I threw that out the window this month on the 2025 Yamaha YZ450FX and took it on a hard enduro ride. I didn’t plan to do this particular ride but, hey, sometimes you got to do what you got to do.
At the recent, 300 two-stroke shootouts, I was asked to bring the big FX down to the venue to open the tracks and scout out around the place and ensure everything was good to go. No dramas for Day 1 as it was the ‘race/trail’ day, so the track – while tight and technical – was more than rideable for the big YZ-FX. Sure, it wasn’t as nimble as the 300s but the grunt and power of the 450 blew those smaller bikes out of the water going up the hills. The traction the 450 gets is unbelievable. So no issues on Day 1.
Day 2, however, was a complete upside-down, turn-on-its-head moment for the mighty FX as I set off with the boys to open and scout the hard enduro track for the 300s. I have to admit I was a little nervous and while I don’t particularly enjoy the hard enduro stuff, I can ride it fairly well. But keep in mind the other guys are on the newest and greatest 300s and as they laughed at me heading down into the first gully I quickly realised that the FX, while not even remotely built for this stuff, is still plenty capable of getting through it. Sure, it’s a lot heavier than a 300 and the power can be seriously overkill at any moment, but I was pretty impressed with its performance.
In and out of a gnarly ravine, up and down the gullies with zero run-up, the 2025 Yamaha handled it well. I did crash and cork my thigh in the creek early into the lap, and my boots were filled with water, but other than that I made it out unscathed and, more importantly, so did the bike. Usually, a bike like this will flame out and be awful to ride in this stuff, but I found the YZ-FX not too bad; a handful, yes, but overall, solid. The one uphill with minimal run-up and logs scattered across it was a bit of a worry at the bottom, but once I was away and the enormous amount of torque was released, the hill and its obstacles became nothing more than a distant memory.
I think the change to a 52T rear sprocket helped with the bike’s ability to handle the slower speeds, and I would obviously gear it a lot lower if I was to do this more often, but for a one-time gig the 2025 Yamaha YZ450FX handled it like a champ. I was especially stoked with the way the day ended on the FX – I watched the boys on the 300s slowly descend into the last creek, into the mud and over the crap on the other side. The YZ wasn’t having any of that, and I spotted a little sneaky line of the left side and I went for it, jumping the whole creek, about a three-metre gap, landing in a dry spot and then launching up the bank and over all the nastiness on the other side. No mud and way less effort than the boys on the 300s put in. It was the perfect end to my hard enduro career on the YZ450FX.