Grabbo may just have found his ideal one bike that does everything as he clocks up more hours this month on the GASGAS EC 250F long term test bike.
With the 2023 race season firing into life so has my coaching which means I am back on the road a lot more, coaching at different venues and terrain. The majority of the time I take my long term test GASGAS EC 250F as my bike to do demonstrations and follow students around on. Considering this is my tenth month with the EC 250F I cannot say anything but praise for this bike.
I have serviced it like clockwork every ten hours and in return it has never missed a beat. It definitely has not had an easy life either as a large part of last year’s riding conditions were sloppy, deep, technical mud. Then this year has seen me riding it in dry, deep, fast sandy conditions.
Not only has the reliability of this bike impressed me, the all-round performance in such a mix of conditions, terrain and speed of tracks that it works on is very impressive. Especially when you consider it is only a 250cc four stroke enduro bike.
In years gone by when I ventured onto a flat track with a 250cc four stroke enduro model it was basically a waste of my time as they were that under powered. Providing I keep this 250F close to the rev limiter it is more than capable on a power sapping flat track.
Generally when I am riding such a mix of terrain on one motorcycle it would suffer to handle well on all conditions. Since fitting the WP 6500 cartridge kit I can easily say this is the most versatile handling package I have had with a dirt bike. Apart from firming up the shock clicker settings for Flat-track, I haven’t had to touch a setting for any of the mixed terrains I have ridden on it.
It is crazy to think that I almost turned down the opportunity to get this EC 250F as a long term test bike. After I handed back my last ADB long termer I had the opportunity to choose any GASGAS model from their enduro EC range. I knew I had tonnes of fun riding a 250F, however I was thinking the rides I do that are on fast flowing open terrain, would potentially be painful and boring on a 250F. Wow how wrong I was.
This EC250F has turned out to be one of my all-time favourite bikes. I just hope GASGAS are not in a rush to get it back as I am looking forward to getting it out in some desert conditions during the next few ‘ VIP experience’ rides I have coming up.
Ben Grabham