Pigs in pooh

It's been just over two years since our last big 450 dirtbike shootout, so we decided it's high time for another. This time though, we thought we'd do it a little differently and stretch it out a bit — we split it up into four machines for this instalment and will follow up with four or five others in the next, so as to give each bike its reasonable time in the spotlight.

And to spice it up, this scrap is between the somewhat polar pair of Japanese stalwarts and two exotic Italians — the latest aluminium framed Yamaha WR450F, Honda's CRF450X, the hand-built TM 450 and a relative newcomer in Beta's 450 Enduro.

Starting with the rather exotic TM that's immediately set apart by its anodised blue rims to match its mid-blue plastics and workmanlike black chrome-moly frame, this one deserves a really close look: it's packed with cool trick pieces - the wheel hub for instance, are hand machined from aluminium rather than cast, that swingarm is fabricated by hand with beautiful welds and the handlebars, levers and triple clamps are clearly the work of a master craftsman rather than a CNC machine or foundry.

Powered by a carb-fed twin-cam with the necessary electric start, a Gianelli tailpipe, lighting kit and a neat little onboard computer, the TM boasts Marzocchi upside-down forks, a Sachs rear shock and Brembo front and Nissin rear straight-disc brakes. It certainly does look the part of a factory works bike, rather than something spat out of a giant factory every minute or two...

Next up the Beta. Beta and KTM enjoy a technology sharing agreement, so it shouldn't come as a surprise that the red machine is built around a KTM engine.

They say the Beta's exhaust gives the same carb-fed SOHC 4-valve mill a few more horses than it makes when powering an orange motorcycle but everything else is pretty much the same — from the radiators through that six-speed 'box (it's the only six-shifter in this quartet) to its electric start and pretty comprehensive onboard computer.

Like the TM, the Beta boasts Italy's best Marzocchi upside-down fork and a Sachs rear shock on its cast-alley swingarm, while it has Nissin callipers front and rear on wave discs. The Beta also boasts a few works-looking bits but it is quite a lot more conventional looking than its TM compatriot — yes it has trick machined hubs and black anodised rims, but most of the rest of it is pretty much run of the mill. That doesn't mean it isn't good looking — it certainly does look the part with those black rims, a charcoal frame with a few neat plastic protectors in the same hue all topped by red fenders, covers and fuel tank clad in neat decals.

The Yamaha is an old friend that boasts one very significant new trick — its all-new aluminium frame. For the rest, its business as usual for the DOHC five-valve flyer. Carb-fed with electric start, a five-speed 'box and Nissin callipers on sexy wave discs, the WR450F may well be a production line product, but you cannot really hold that against it.

Beautifully finished in blue and silver, we really like that Darth Vaderesque taillight and another novelty in a neat improved onboard computer, but some finicky bits like why does it have a car-like water reservoir inside the rear wheel well when none of the others do, make us wonder why? Still we were delighted to be the first mob in SA to ride the new alloy framed WR.

We left the Honda CRF450X for last only because the '07 machine is pretty much unchanged from the bike we rode a year ago. Still, we reckon there wasn't very much wrong with it last time, so why meddle with a winning formula?

That beautiful, chunky aluminium frame bristling with predominately red and white plastics is built around a carb-fed single-overhead cam four-valve mill not unlike the Beta, although the Honda does without a sixth cog in its gearbox. But like the Beta, the CRF-X is quite a lot less fussy than either of blue machines here.

It has Nissin callipers on conventional discs too, while one area the Honda could improve is in its computerless tick-tock odo. That the red brigade offer no-fuss riding immediately becomes clear when firing them up. Both blue bikes need to be switched on by pressing separate switches before fingering their starter buttons.

Leave those switches live when you stop and the lights will remain on and drain the battery. But the Honda and the Beta come alive at the touch of the starter and when the engine stops, everything else stops too and will only come alive again when the engine restarts - a far more clever solution.

Talking starting, all fire up pretty easily if everything is just right, but while the other three need the throttle to be in a very specific position and they prefer neutral to the clutch being pulled, the Beta fires up pretty fuss-free whatever the circumstances...