2021 KTM 450XC-F - Dirt Bike Magazine

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Dirt Bike Magazine tests the new 2021 KTM 450XC-F in the desert. Our 2021 KTM 450XC-F test bike arrived in the nick of time for the rescheduled NGPC series next week in Idaho. This is the perfect bike for that series, which was formerly known as the District 37 Big 6 GP series. The KTM 450XC-F has a long history of success there with riders like Gary Sutherlin and Eric Yorba. I’ll be taking the bike up there for a race test, and sharing it with Paul Krause, who will ride it in a different class. Neither of us should be too surprised by the 2021 model. The changes are minimal. It remains a very close blood relative to the KTM 450SX-F motocross bike. The things that set it apart are the 18-inch rear wheel, the kickstand, softer suspension settings, handguards, Dunlop AT81 tires and mapping. We don’t quite understand why the price is quite a bit heftier than the 450SX-F–$10,799 versus $10,199.There are two things worth knowing about the 2021 model. The first is that the suspension has very significant changes. The WP XACT AER 48 air fork has new piston design and features a mid valve (for lack of a better description). The other factor is the coming of KTM’s smartphone app. This still isn’t available in the U.S., but I have seen a demo of a beta version and it’s very impressive. There are a few differences between it and the Yamaha Power Tuner. First, it’s Bluetooth, not Wifi. I don’t know if that will be better, or not, but I have chronic problems hooking up my Android phone to the Yamaha app. An even bigger difference is the user friendly aspect. The KTM version isn’t a remapping tool with differnent fields for advance and fuel mixture. It concentrates more on tuning the power delivery for loamy and hard-pack conditions. It turns out that very few people can get the desired results by changing the values in the 48 different fields required to make a change on the Power Tuner. Beyond that’ there are more electronic aids coming next year on the KTM app that will be very impressive if they pan out. THe KTM guys aren’t ready to talk about those yet.The fork is the other really important upgrade for the 2021 KTM 450SX-F. If you read my first impression of the 450SX-F motocross bike you already know that I’m very impressed with in improvement here. For off-road use, the improvement in compliance is even more welcome. I’m looking forward to riding the bike at the Idaho round of the NGPC series and I’ll have more to report in the December print edition of Dirt Bike.



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