All 2st Motocross bikes for the woods

I have a 15 acre riding area in my backyard that is a motocross/endurocross/single-track practice area. I have a log matrix, supercross sized woops two big jumps one smaller jump a monster berm, an acre of wood chips that are similar to riding in sand, a cedar thicket with a maze of bar width trails, and a rocky creek in big oak timber. It's kinda like a skate park for dirt bikes so many of my friends come ride after work when they only have an hour or two and can't travel to a large riding area.

Now to get to the point of the thread. We often swap bikes like most riding buddies do and I've noticed that in general there are two types of set ups for the woods. One is like my WR250 Husky which my son has nicknamed the sofa because it soaks everything up and rarely loses contact with the ground. The other is motocross style suspension which is easy to skip over stuff and if desired can purposely be made to deflect off obstacles to clear other obstacles. My son prefers this type of riding and his 2011 YZ450 is his weapon of choice since snap of the throttle and he's hopping off rocks and logs and landing beyond the gnar that he prefers to skip over. I see the advantage to this style and set up but there is no going slow, the magic speed to skip through the woods must be maintained and more time is spent on the back wheel. I ride my "sofa" bike more like a trials bike, always in control and in contact with the ground letting the LTR re-valved suspension soak everything up. (Keep in mind he's 19 and I'm 51.)

Recently a friend who was a raw beginner on dirt bikes bought a used KX250 at a deal and brought it out to start learning. (probably the worst choice for a beginner bike) He paid $1750 for it which was a steal. It was really clean and things like billet triple clamps and powder coated frame with welded in damper mount gave away that at some point either a really fast guy or someone who liked to throw bling on a bike had owned it. We all took turns riding it and the reviews were polar opposite... either "it was awesome" or it was "I would kill myself on that". I really liked it, the motor was by far the fastest 250 2 stroke I'd ever ridden and it was easy to tell that this bike was highly modded. The light went on for me, what my son had been preaching to me about how and why he liked motocross set ups better . By motocross set up I mean the suspension has very little soft cushion in the first bit of travel then a very firm middle and is virtually impossible to bottom out unless you case an obstacle or hit a massive G-out. If I rode this bike fast it was awesome but if I slowed down it didn't work as well. Even though I liked the suspension on his YZ450 I could never ride his 450 like this mainly because I could never get comfortable with the 4 stroke power curve. A friend who works at the local dealer looked up the originally ordered the bike and it was Destry Abbott... That explained a lot.

The beginner rider that bought this bike rarely got the bike in to the mid-range let alone on the pipe until one day he screwed up and whiskey throttled it in a corner and crashed. He didn't get hurt but it scared him enough that within a week or so the bike was sold for $2,500. I would have liked to own it but it was gone before I knew it was for sale.

when people say MX, vs, XC, or WR
first definitions MotoCross was an invention of post war Europe as a way of entertainment, went viral in the 60's \, more so in the latter half
XC is Cross Country and is more American, more specifically the deserts of the west, very popular is Aussie land for the same reasons
WR Wide Ratio, as in a low 1st and usable top speed, these were created as "woods weapons", some were lowered seen in the early Husky, KTM stuff
any one of these can have the suspension set soft to brutal
i see your point on definition as most people equate MX to jumping over a barn
a friend and his dad rode with me lately, one riding an ex stunt rider (Pastrani type) the bike is brutal, not sure how he rides on some of the single track, but something to be said for youth, his dad has one of my old XC bikes, i set it soft as a woods type bike basically a WR with full travel suspension, he loves the fact that you can sit (he's 72) on everything but jumps, i ride the softer type so my 360WR would be seen as a woods set up
i had 7 acres recently and used a portion of it to warm up before taking to the woods for a few hours, not as cool as yours sounds but handy to warm up and top off for a long day
we all need to set the bike for what works, as in what fits our personal style, with time (now 60) i keep softening my springs

Umm lankydoug i love the idea of your back yard set up, i failed to read a question in your text are you after a kx250 or are you trying to move your son to the husky?
Motorcross bike for woods try a honda cr 250 my friend rides one alot in the woods and it keeps up with my lazy boy husky just fine, his suspensions wrist breaking but its quick.

a good friend rides aYZ250 same results, they make good woods bikes if you soften them, but,,,,,, the advantage to a WR is the gearing, that's all

No real specific question but more or less looking for comments on riding styles vs. suspension and engine set up.

Im not the fastest but i keep up with my mates who are on honda and ktm 250's my suspensions soft and i like it, ive not managed to bottom them out yet and i do drop offs about 5-6 foot with downhill roll outs so probably not maxing anything out. I can ride cr's etc but i like my husk purely cus of the amount of time ive spent sat on it.

The tattle tale rubber "O" ring placed on my WR250 fork tube tells me that I use all of my suspension more than I thought I did. I equate the set up on my Husky as more of a tractor. It allows me to be a bit lazy and still go about anywhere technical. When we get to the more open fast stuff is when I get beat by the youngsters. An A rider friend had a 250SX KTM 2 stroke that I liked. He is much faster than me but he sold it for a much mellower KTM300 woods bike that I didn't like at all. He claimed the SX was too snappy... he was also one of the guys that hated the fast KX. Over the last year or so I've been working on increasing my speed and as I make progress I have had to put three or four more clicks in the compression and one or two in the rebound.

If possible, I try to keep one of each bike type. It's nice to ride an mx bike when you want to fly, and it's also nice to ride a couch when you just want to cruise.

Always road woods bikes set up for woods. My 13 WR144 is the bomb but I can see its shortcomings on the mx style race track's.
So its getting a stablemate a 14 SX150. After just racing for two years GP style in the woods motos the SX should be a better fit. The suspension will be setup for woods,then tune the power to suit me.
With what I only now a CR 144 would have been the ticket other than the 19 inch wheel.

I had an 11 CR150 and bought a WR165 for woods, since I'm doing much more of that now. After a season of going back and forth, I sold the WR because I much prefer the CR in the woods.