Comparo: Honda CRF450 v Yamaha WR450

Twins or Enemies?: Top two 450 dirt bikes compared

It's a bit of a mystery to us that so far as we know, none of the other dirt bike mags has ever done a two-up shootout between the two market leaders in the 450 class, Honda's CRF450X and Yamaha's WR450F. Maybe they're so obsessed with multi-bike comparisons, where one bike wins the money by a poofteenth of a percentage point, that they can't see the wood for the treees. Who knows?

Whatever, we thought it was high time to stick the Honda and the Yamaha face to face and get a bunch of die-hard dirt riders to belt 'em all day and come back with a few answers. Like, which one would they buy, and why? After all, there are hundreds if not thousands of riders, some new to the sport and some old hands, who don't know which way to jump when it comes to buying a new bike. There are so many choices these days, and with all the discounting going on, making the right decision is no longer a simple matter of preferring red to blue or vice versa. These folks need advice and we're here to oblige.

WHERE WE'D DO IT?
This comparison was carried out in the Watagan mountains not far from Newcastle. The trails were premo after plenty of rain, and we spent five or six hours flogging these two along the best sections in some of the best trail riding in New South Wales. We had everything: rocks, logs, fallen trees, humungous ruts, machinegun nests, big ascents and descents, and fast flowing stuff you'd give your right nut to ride. Yeah, it was a good day.

One other thing before we go any further. In case you're wondering about, you know, 'personal bias', there was none. These guys have done comparisons before and they know the deal: leave your bias at home. We don't actually give a flying rat which bike 'wins' a shootout so long as the reader gets useful info from all the effort we've put in. We don't gain anything from the result either, in fact it's usually the opposite; we piss off the people who don't win.

HOW'D WE DO IT?
This is not rocket science. You don't have to be David Knight to know which bike you like, or even what makes one bike better, or better suited to certain kind of riding, than another. We rode the trails we always ride because that gives us a perfect reference for comparing bikes. Take every bike up the same hill and over the same rock shelf, in what we call 'Little Jurassic', and it doesn't require a giant mentality to work out which one gets up the thing easiest. Like we said, it ain't rocket science.

And we're democratic. Each rider rode the two contenders several times, first to acclimatise to the new bike after getting off his own, then to get more varied terrain experience as the day wore on. It was telling, and a little unusual in our experience, that as the comparison wound up we hadn't merely reached a consensus but it was unanimous. We all liked the same bike more, and for the same reasons.

THE CATERING
Catering was handled by the servo on top of the hill at Freeman's Waterhole. They make nifty burgers. Dr Dan ate his pasty quicker than everyone else ate their order, then ate the bag it came in. The man's an animal.

THE ERGOS
Okay, into the nitty gritty. Here's how we think these two bikes stack up in the ergo department.

They're probably on a par comfort-wise, good news for trail riders, but the Honda feels bigger and wider overall, and fatter at the front. The impression, real or imagined, is that this bike carries a lot of equipment on the bars, or as trail riders like to put it, 'there's a lot between your nuts and the knobs'. 

By comparison the Yamaha feels slimmer and narrower. We're tempted to say it has better weight distribution but that would be presumptuous coming from the Mad Monkeys so we'll just say the WR feels better balanced. It also feels smaller, a big plus for those of us sensitive to a bike's perceived weight and mass.

THE ENGINES
The CRF has possibly the fastest engine in the 450 class. It's an MX mauler with a huge bottom-end and midrange but not much top-end. Our test bike was poorly jetted though, with a flat-spot at about one-quarter throttle, an annoying, not to mention slightly hairy trait that raised its ugly head every time we tried to blip the front wheel over a log, only to have the engine cough at the crucial moment. It'd bog then bark.

Other than that, the engine was impressive and made the Honda a lot of fun on fast trails when you could let all that rpm out to play. This bike feels best on that sort of terrain, but on slower trails it's a different matter. This is not an engine that likes to dawdle. It's a bit like a two-stroke. It's unhappy on a trailing throttle and doesn't like poodling along. It'd rather be frightening the horses with its ferocious midrange and ripping opponents out by the roots.

You could mount an argument (if that's what you do on a Sunday morning) that the Yamaha is as fast as the Honda in outright ground speed, but you'd be wrong. The WR has the quietest and most efficient muffler on any Japanese 450, so you feel that you're gliding over the terrain and not going all that fast. The Yamaha has a smooth, electric power delivery, with no bottom-end or midrange hit, but despite the lack of noise there's power everywhere. This is a brilliant trail engine and easier to live with than the Honda mill, but the Honda is definitely faster. The thing is, the Yamaha gets more of its power to the ground. And that, of course, is all about handling.

ALL ABOUT HANDLING
We didn't run a side-by-side drag race but we're pretty sure the Honda would have won if we had - provided of course that it could get all that power to the ground, and it can't. Yeah, the Honda engine is tougher and faster, but the Honda's suspension doesn't do as good a job of getting the rear wheel to talk to the dirt. Where the Yamaha seems to float over rough terrain, like the smell of a burger wafting across the parking lot, the Honda crashes through it and then wants to punch on. It's the Willy Mason of 450s and the Yamaha is Hazem El Masri - fast, smooth, and no mistakes.

Ride quality on the CRF is actually quite good but the Honda bounces around a lot, and occasionally the shock will take offence at something on the trail and react with an unpredictable spike that sends the rear end sideways. And it's more physical to ride. We had to back the compression damping off six clicks to get the stability thing happening on the Honda but it still felt nowhere near as plush or sure-footed as the Yamaha.

The Honda doesn't steer as easily as the Yamaha either. It has to be muscled. You can't stroke it and hope for the best. It's not one of those "Luke, use the force!' kinda bikes that starts a turn as soon as you think about it. To make the Honda work you have to get up front and talk dirty.

WHICH DO WE LIKE BEST?
The Honda is not a bad bike, and we don't mean to give the impression that it is. However, it's the Honda's misfortune to be competing with the best WR450 Yamaha has ever made. This is a much better bike than the 06 WR450, or for that matter any other Yamaha that came before it. Dr Dan was so impressed he said it's as good as his beloved Gas Gas 450, and he said it within earshot of people who will store that piece of information and later use it against him.

Someone said the WR doesn't do anything brilliantly but does everything well. That's not true. What it does brilliantly is make you want to ride all day. If Yamaha is silly enough to change this bike for any reason, they'd be mad. The Yamaha is one of the nicest bikes we've ever ridden, bar none. There's nothing about the WR you can point to and insist that Yamaha improve. 

As for the Honda, we'd like a slimmer bike with more compliant, predictable suspension. And if they could make it feel less like Willy Mason and more like Hazem El Masri, we wouldn't mind that either.  

WHOOZA BOOZA?
Interested in feel consumption or don't give a damn? If you don't give a damn (or you own a Yamaha) don't read this.

When we fuelled up at the catering stop we'd done 50.7 kilometres. The Yamaha drank 4.79 litres (10.5km/litre) and the Honda 3.46 litres (14.6km/litre). For all its growling and barking the Honda is the more fuel efficient.

WHAT THE RIDERS SAID
Mumblings over custom-made beer

DAMO
"I'd buy the Yamaha because it does everything fairly well, in fact it does everything better than fairly well. The power is really nice and the WR floats over everything, whereas the Honda tends to bash its way through.

"The CRF is a brutish bike that will fatigue you, but it can be pretty exciting. I think the motor's fantastic, and although our test bike was badly jetted I know the CRF isn't like that normally because I've ridden Honda 450s that don't have that hesitation off the bottom. I'd buy the Yamaha, but I'm not bagging the Honda".  

DR DAN
"The Honda is a big powerful brute, aggressive and fast. The suspension isn't quite right though, and on the test bike neither was the jetting. The CRF's a blast on open fire trails but a bit of a handful in tight stuff and it's not really my style of bike. I couldn't get it to track nicely over rough terrain, and the rear especially felt unstable. I found it quite disconcerting and it really knocked my confidence around.

 "On the other hand, I thought the Yamaha was a great package. You don't come away feeling it has the best motor or the best suspension, but it does everything well. It's got good suspension, it handles real well, the motor's so smooth and it's easy to ride and ride quickly. It inspires confidence".

EV
"I thought the Honda was an aggressive bike that was hard to manoeuvre and felt very heavy. The brakes and everything are okay but I don't know that I like the style of power.

"The Yamaha has pretty much got everything dialled-in just right, although it's a very tall bike so if you're a shorter rider it's harder to stop and turn on the WR. Apart from that, I'd buy the Yamaha".

SNED
"Having ridden a 250F for the best part of 18 months, the Honda felt big and heavy the minute I sat on it. Wide at the tank, wide seat, and it seemed to carry its weight fairly high. I found it really difficult to get comfortable on single track.

"My biggest gripe with this bike though was with the handling. I grew less and less confident the more I rode it, with the front end washing out when pushed into corners, and a couple of times the bike swapped on me under power. More unnerving though was the back end, which felt quite firm but again very unpredictable.

"With the Yamaha I felt Wow, this is a nice bike! It took a little time to adjust but as soon as I hit familiar trails I was tearing it up like David Knight (in my head anyway).

"The Yamaha inspired confidence in the way it just floated over everything. It was super stable and didn't once unnerve me. I was able to stay on the gas later into corners because I could push the front end through so much harder than I would normally, and blast out the other side with confidence as the bike got power to the ground. The engine was sweet, with smooth power right off the bottom, it revved cleanly and predicably right the way through the range and just kept on going".

BAZZ
"I thought the WR was one of the best bikes I've ridden. It glides over rough ground effortlessly, is so easy to turn and has such nice power, there's just nothing there to criticise.

"The Honda's undoubtedly the faster, and I think it rides okay, but it feels big and heavy to me and I'll always favour the more nimble bike. There seems to be a lot of mass in front of you,  it has to be muscled, and it jumps around a lot on rough trails. It's not as stable or sure-footed as the WR".