2025 WR250F | Rev it like you mean it

Chris Jones | AMCN | Test Ride Review

Many of you offroad riders will remember the name Lyndon Heffernan, and it was at his property to the west of Batemans Bay where the day would unfold. Lyndon runs the Yamaha offroad training facility on his 360-acre slice of dirt riding heaven – so a huge thankyou first of all to Lyndon and his sons for letting me ride on their stunning property.

I say letting “me” ride – but without too much name dropping, Ben Grabham, AJ Roberts, Jason Cater and current Enduro 1 class champion Kyron Bacon were there on the day as well. And as if that wasn’t good enough, I obviously had a brand new WR250F at my disposal. So, if ripping through the bush on a quarter litre four stroke appeals, then read on!

SPOILT FOR TORQUE
Let’s get something straight; 250 four strokes certainly aren’t slow. In fact, the fastest rider outright at the 2024 ISDE was riding one. That means he beat riders on all capacity two and four stroke machines, and Kyron Bacon on a WR 250F wasn’t far behind him, finishing the six days of racing in 20th outright (super impressive, and well done young man). 

If the last 250 four stroke you rode may have been something like an XR, TT or DR, you’ll be in for in for a shock when you wind on the throttle on a modern 250 thumper. For reference, I ride a 500cc four-stroke. Do I need all that power? Probably not, most of the time, but having ridden big-bore four-strokes since 2003, I’m spoilt for torque and sheer grunt. 

With 24 years of evolution and sharing an almost identical motor to its motorcross cousin the YZ250F, the WR absolutely screams. Yamaha rarely go year-to-year without updates to the motor, suspension, chassis etc – and it shows. The electric start fires up the fuel-injected DOHC motor with ease every time, although semi-reluctantly when in gear. The cable clutch is as smooth in its function as any hydraulic system, and the pull is every bit as light. 

Once mobile, the six-speed gearbox is a joy to use – which is a good thing, because on a 250 you do a lot of gear changes. The gearing is spot on for everything from tight single track to wide open fire trails, and it’s worth mentioning that Grabbo managed to hit 152km/h before he ran out of room – while later stating he could’ve gone quicker. Now that’s impressive. 
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What caught me out for the first hour or so was being in too tall a gear; this was my problem, not the bike, as I’m used to riding a 500; 250s love to rev, and once I got my head around the characteristics of it, I was having a ball. You almost have to remove any mechanical sympathy from your mind and let them rev, and when I thought I was revving it hard it probably still had a few thousand RPMs up its sleeve! Give this thing a handful and you will be blown away just how hard a 250F can go; it’s quite amazing. 

Initially I found it a little easy to stall and thought it could benefit from a bit more flywheel mass, but as I got used to it those feelings faded. In typical Japanese fashion, the motor produces almost no vibration, remaining silky smooth all the way to the somewhat stratospheric rev limiter. When I spoke to Yamaha Marketing Manager Sean Goldhawk on our lunchbreak, he said to ride it as if you are trying to blow it up. I didn’t quite push it that hard. But Kyron Bacon certainly does. When chatting to him I asked if he did the full six days of racing at the ISDE on the same piston and he said that he did. Interesting also was the fact that Kyron’s race bike is essentially stock, with the exception of suspension mods tailored to him and an Akropovic exhaust. The power can be tailored almost infinitely via the Yamaha power tuner app, which is a very cool feature and is included with the bike. Two pre-programmed engine maps can be toggled on the fly on a handlebar button and were noticeable in their differences, with an aggressive and slightly softer power delivery available that’s ideal for slippery conditions. 

The day we rode the bikes it was well into the 30s but the Yammy kept it’s cool thanks to the factory-fitted thermo fan. Mere mortals like myself would get years of reliable riding out of this motor just with routine maintenance. Air filter access is easy and well away from the dust-churning rear wheel. These bikes have always had a very solid reputation for long-term reliability, which is a testament to how well made they are.  

This is an edited extract from Chris’ full review, appearing soon in AMCN!