I under stand what ride is saying. yes the new rapptor is what seems to be a great bike. i don't have the money firght now to get one at the monent and may be never.I've riden may bikes and they all have thier pros and cons. ii love my warrior, yea i've put a lot of money in to it to keep it competitvebut that what make it fun. now on a motor crosss track or on the dunes to be competitive you need a good bike with good power. in the wood where i race thiers only so much power you can use and it leaves a lot up to the rider. my bike is only a 366 with the basic cam and pipe.with that power i'm able to run right with 250r's and 440's inthe woods and the fact that i'm narrower than them helps me out run most of them when the woods get tight. now mabe i'm a better rider then i'm giving my self credit for but. the simple truth is ride what you like and what you feel good on. plus why buy right now thier are a lot of companies that have yet to fire a shot. I love yamaha but i had a lt250r that was great and who knows what the guys a zuki are working on.

 

I just hope the new Raptor lives up to all the hype that's been created here in the forums and in the media, cause I can remember all the enthusiasm the DS650 created when it first debuted--but how many people actually sold their existing machines to buy one of them? I don't think I would until it's been tried and tested for a while...

 

Hey Ride, if you are so keen on that 250 2-stroke size and feel, Why do you own Two 4-strokes? Probably because one machine can't do everything you want it to do. As for me, I was a motocross rider(bikes) until just recently. I kept a Banshee and an 85 250r around just for grins. Injury forced me to quit riding motocross so I just sold all my race bikes. Now I am really into quads and it looks like a good time to pick up a new machine. Like you, I think I will stick to a small, light machine, so if anybody within a days drive of Tucson wants to give me a good deal on a Honda 250r, let me know. See Gunz, I aint so bad.

 

OK, argue argue argue. quads are not built for everyone, the bigger are better suited for bigger people and small people like smaller machines, etc. eachh quad excels in a certain area also. these are not novice quads we are talking about. notice it is a 660R R as in RACER, now i know alot of you mentioned size of the quads being too big for trails and what ever, But countless Racers spend $6-800 a set for A-Arms to widen their quads in order to improve handling and suspension. This is a really light machine for its size about 80# less than a DS. and if it comes from the factory ready to race then dont gripe because your saving $6-800 just on having good wide A-arms. Now given a Blater can haul @ss doesnt mean its made for a 6'3" 240# guy like me. I have ridden for 2/3 of my life and I can say that if the trails aint wide enough they will be because im going to ride a quad thats big enough for me even if i have to make new trails. by the way since it is an R racer keep in mind tat they know the avg motorcross atv RACER is over 6' and around 200# so just sit back and enjoy, i know i will when the first truck rolls up to deliver mine to my dealer.

 

yep i am about the same size and it will be nice to have something with the power that i am expecting from the 660. My last quad was a 300ex and it got me through the woods and stuff but whenever there was a wide open area it was kind of boring because it just didnt go very fast

 

Yes.

 

It looks like it has the same crappy air filter setup!

87 Banshee
99 Banshee

 

I am not biased to one machine, just higher quality machines. I am writing this because of all you people that can't stop knocking the DS without riding one. Ok, here are the measurements as per ATV Connection and the ds home page. ds-77L x 50W x 46.5H. Ok, now the raptor. 72L x 43.3W or according to the first guy 42.8W x 45.3H. Ok, now lets think about this for a second. All you anti DS people say that it is tippy?, well this thing is close to the same height, lots shorter, and OVER 5" narrower. Now who's gonna be tippy. Can't wait for the mags to start bashing this one. If it ever hooks up, over you go. SIDEWAYS and BACKWARDS!! I really am not biased, I just wish that Yamaha would make a higher quality machine. They just aren't built like the honda's and now the DS. Does anyone know if the carb measurements are supposed to mean 2 33mm mikuni's. It reads 33mm BSR x 2. If it is only a 33, something is wrong. If it is two 33's, then it will be an even bigger gas hog than the banshee. Question for yamaha - Why only 9.1 front travel and 8.7 rear travel. Yamaha's suspension department needs a kick in the a**. Don't those sound like the same dimensions as the banshee? Same frame only narrower in the front to accomodate longer a-arms.

 

U really can't tell how tippy a quad is gonna be just by dimesnsions, 2nd i doubt the raptor will it as much gas as the banshee, considering it s a 4 stroke and won't rev as high.

and how much travel it has doesn't tell the whole story. I'm sure the suspension is much better than the banshee's, also they could have addded more but it would have caused the center of gravity to be higher which woulkd result in more tippiness and squirrely handling.

 

OK, I have no idea about how the Raptor rides, handles, or anything else. But I'd be willing to put all my money on it that when the magazines have a shoot-out, the conclusion finds that the Raptor just doesn't have the handling the 400ex has. I could be wrong, but I seriously doubt ANYONE besides Honda will ever top the 250r's and 400ex's overall frame geometry. There's no way. You can have a quad that goes 100 mph, but WHO CARES on a track or trails. It's the handling+speed that counts. And that is where the 400 and 250 shine. Oh and by the way, all you people eager about "when I get my Raptor I will just smoke all you R's and EX's. Uh, there's no way they will let 660's run with 250 2 strokes and 400 4 strokes. You will be in open class. So forget that. I think the Raptor will be great for quad performance machines. But I still don't think it will dominate on that track.