Ok so I traded my K3 600 street bike the other day for an 04 YZ450F (well at least the deal has been agreed upon and I'll actually make the switch here in the coming days)...

Then yesterday I went with some family to go trail riding and I was on an old XR250 for the most part and I couldn't believe how much different it felt going from the track to riding dirt with tires sliding all over the places and all that fun stuff.

I used to ride dirt every once in a while over the years until I got my first street bike and ever since then they feel absolutely terrible to me. Anyone got any tips on going back and forth from street to dirt and how to get used to the tires constantly slipping? By the end of the day it seemed like the best thing to do was to put 100% focus on front tire and as long as that was on a good line then I really shouldn't have to consciously think about what the rear was going to do...

My biggest problems were the slow spots where you had to do slow maneuvers and then the rear would slip as soon as you wanted to give it more gas. And then the other was the steeper down hill descents especially since it was wet so if you used the front brake you would just wash out and then if you tried to use more rear brake the back end would just slide down so I was trying to find a happy medium without just having the bike slide all the way down the hill on its side :lol




And yes I know a 450 is a big bike for a first dirt bike lol but I've ridden a handful of full size bikes both 2 and 4 stroke and I think its more about getting used to the feel of the bike than the power of the bike :biggrin

Yeah it was like that for me as well. My first dirt bike was a modded RM 250 2 stroke. I really can't offer much advice aside from seat time. I would just ride and it eventually became second nature. What was even harder for me was that my street bike had gp shift and my dirtbike was standard.

It's weird cuz I run GP shift as well but I can switch back and forth without any problems. What fucks me up is riding a TRX250 which is 5 up with neutral at the bottom. That's the only thing that I ever accidentally fuck up the shifting on and it makes no sense why lol.

I guess you're probably right about seat time being the biggest thing. I have a pretty decent sized back yard so I'll probably just screw around as much as I can to get the feel for the bike.

I think the biggest change is getting used to having to be very active in your movements in so many different ways in the dirt.

Dirt bikes are weird little toys. I just played around with my 450 in the back yard for a little bit just to get a feel for it and I can say that in 10 minutes of riding it felt like it handle way better than the XR250 I was riding over the weekend even with the extra weight (if there is any).

Everything felt almost effortless on the 450 (including tearing up the back yard). Hopefully I'll get to go take it out this weekend and get it out of first gear lol.

My Biggest thing when ever I get on a dirt bike is to remember to only use the rear brake. Last time I road a dirt bike I wadded the front end going into a turn cause I used the front brake instead of the back . Ended up with 3 fractured ribs . Came down on the throttle grip hard . :banghead