How long do you think the European bikes will stay on top? All the hare scrambles here it's a sea of orange now(KTM). It was mostly a sea of green before(kawie) with some red, blue and yellow bikes mixed in. What can the Japanese manufacturers do to compete. To me the growing trend is going orange. The other European bikes are knocking on the door to the top spot too. I think the European manufacturers are stepping up to the plate now. The technology seems to be forever changing. Where does this leave the Japanese bikes?? Will the four strokes continue in popularity or will there that day end and we will return to the two strokes? Yamaha seems to offer there yz250f but can it compete? Which bikes do you give the edge too? European or Japanese??
Think slightly further afield to .... China in the next few years we will see big steps from this country and a small forray into the bike scene is inevitable personally i think the big guns will be moving manufacturing there as they progress in the world economic. But for the next two to three years euro bikes will be leading untill they chop in production and move it for more profit.
I think the Yamaha YZ250FX is pretty impressive and I would look at it seriously if I was in the market for a new bike. I like the fact that Yamaha is still making the YZ125/250 as well. But overall, since I am not into MX, the Japanese offerings are not on the radar map for me.
what can the japanese manufacturers do to compete? ummm, how about make competition off road bikes? they make virtually none. do they even make a 2 stroke off road bike? only the mx yz right? right there makes it tough. they have nothing to even choose from, and have abandoned 2 strokes, when its clear many off roaders still like and purchase 2 strokes
Yep, japs need to make an off road 2 stroke. They have really lost out and let KTM take the bulk of the market.
Honda is too busy building robots that meet queens and air-planes that have the engines mounted on top of the wings to worry about this sport ...
It was poor planning on their part.They let that part of the market slip through their hands. When I was younger I always had a Jap 2T woods bike. Now they are not available. They concentrated on MX bikes and let the European bikes become dominant. if they were serious about gaining a foot hold, they would start building 2t bikes for woods riders again.
I think they looked at the numbers and decided spending their efforts on quads, and streetbikes was where the money was at as they sell MANY times the numbers of units.
Great point Kelly.... But I still think they could have invested some money in the woods bike market and maintained a presence there. I guess if they were interested in that market, they could do something to make it happen.
That's probably a lot of the reason however KTM's success has really rubbed their nose in it since KTM doesn't make a lot of street bikes and I've never seen an orange quad.
KTM desperately wants in on the street bike side of things (and building a bunch in india right now) and they do make a quad.
they have been making the duke and super duke for years. The "adventure bikes" are also streetbikes and sell in huge numbers.
Yeah forgot about the adv bikes. Haven't seen to many dukes on the road though...fine then, first bike to really tap into the sportbike market
The big difference is like Bill points out in his first post that hare scrambles are a sea of orange. This is not happening for KTM in any other area... Hell, I just saw my first ever orange quad today!
A friend of mine bought a YZ250f last year and it never made 100 hours before it self destructed. He's going back to Euro bikes again. The YZF is impressive but I don't know anyone who has gotten long hours successfully on one.
huh, not been my experience with the Yami's. Many guys around here have ridiculous miles on them. Jake on this site has a older WR250F he has hammed endlessly for some ridiculous miles and it is still alive. What I find with these newer 250F's is if you MX them and bounce off the rev limiter a lot they die early if you ride them off road they last a long time.
This was a new YZF250 with the new backwards motor. Yes the older designs were better but it seems the new ones are iffy at this point.
Point taken. Seems cyclical. Husky used to dominate and was everywhere way back in the day. Then the japs took over. XR400's were everywhere and on the cover of everything, Kawasaki did well with the KDX Yami with the IT. Then KTM pushed its way in. Some day it will be someone else. But overall it seems the industry is shrinking and off road is not focused on as much as it used to be other than KTM which has almost taken the entire segment.
