Fred's YBR 250 ;-))

[Fred]

AT LAST !!

I have to pinch myself too, I finally got the bike 2 weeks ago at my place, after a 3 months wait.

I'll try to keep this thread about the bike, not about all the troubles I had and still have with the shop and the bike itself.
To summarize quickly those troubles (and then focus later on on the bike) :
- 2 months for the bike to arrive at the shop
- 1 more month without the bike, with the shop laoban terribly unorganized, leading to many many yellings, many threats, in order to do all the paperwork for the selling of the previous bike, ownership change, the plates transfer, etc. .
- damaged tank and plastic on the right side : tank changed now, still waiting for the new plastic cover...
- after 1st test of the bike in the street : crooked steering (handlebars not straight in order for the bike to go straight !). They change the handlebars, which helped some, but I still feel something is slightly wrong. I seem to see that the 2 tubes of the fork are not completely parallel, but I need a bit more time on the bike to be really sure. Clearly not what you expect from a new bike...

Needless to say that after all that I inspected very very very carefully all the bike. I cannot spot any other problem, the bike is for sure new for those who wonder. Did 180km with it, no complain at all except the steering thing, which I'm not really sure of yet.


Now to the bike and my review so far !

(I know, I know, this thread is useless without pics, but unfortunately I only took pics of it when I brought her home, in the dark, and there're quite useless... I'll shoot a few for you guys this week.)

I took a red one, because it's obvious that they're faster, period.
What a change from the Honda-Sundiro "Shadow" 150cc ! The riding position, the power, the good feeling from the tires even in the rain, whoah it's a completely new world for me.
Positive review from my GF too, and she hates bikes... Seems more comfortable for her, that's good.

When I was riding the 150cc, which is a "cruiser style" in terms of riding position, I always felt a little bit awkward when trying to lean, my body was fighting the lean at first and even after 5,000km on it, I was not sure of my body position when leaning the bike. I was starting to wonder if maybe it was not something "natural" for me.
Now with the YBR it all disappeared very quickly ! The position is much better to take corners, your body just flows with the bike, I feel I will be able to lean much more when I will be used to this bike.

The power is nice after the 150cc, even though I'm in the break-in period (not over 5,000rpm for 1,000km). In 5th gear at 5,000rpm I go as fast as the top speed of the Honda 150cc before...

The storage space under the seat (easily reachable with a lock under the seat) is a nice addtion compared to the 150cc, with enough space for the stock basic tools kit + a tubeless tire repair kit + a big heavy chain lock + a disk lock.

I don't know if it's a good thing yet, but the red YBR attracts a lot more attention than the black Honda 150cc which looked like a moto-taxi. Needless to say that 99,99% of the questions asked are about the price...

From what I felt (only 180km), the Sakura tires are much more confidence inspiring than the ones I used to have on the 150 (Cheng Shin). Of course they're fatter, but I think the rubber quality is better too.


For an urban bike I think it's a very good choice (power and featherweight), I don't need more than this, especially in China.
For a touring bike (as it will be for me), sure you can find bigger (JH600) but I think it'll be more than enough for me with the right bags. A big plus is the range with a quite impressive fuel tank (19 liters, bigger than a lot of much bigger bikes), coupled with a 250cc engine, which means close to 600km autonomy (in theory, I didn't test yet), pretty impressive.

There it is for the 1st review, I need to sort out this "problem" of the front fork and ride more to evaluate it better.
And of course, to snap pics for you guys !