Australasian Dirt Bike — June 2017

http://www.adbmag.com.au JUNE 2017| 71

punch while remaining useable and

the suspension package was nice and

racey. It feels super light as well and I

really enjoyed riding it.

The 2017 version of the trusty

350EXC-F is by far the best EXC I’ve

ridden. I’ve always enjoyed riding the

EXC-F but this year’s bike is even

better. They have done a lot of work on

the bike. New engine, new chassis,

new fork, new shock, the list goes on.

It’s an all-new bike.

I’ll start with the handling. The WP

XPlor 48 fork is the latest thing to come

the next corner. Map #2 was much
better for me and I actually did my
fastest XC-F time with this setting, but
I’ll get to that later. The only thing I
had an issue with on the XC-F was
when riding in the slower technical
stuff. At low revs, I had it ‘flame out’
and stall on me multiple times. It was
frustrating but, at the end of the day,
you don’t really ride this bike in a
trailriding situation.
Overall, I was very impressed with
the 350XC-F. The engine was a
standout for me, packing so much

out of the WP factory. Thankfully,

KTM never put the 4CS fork on its

enduro models and stayed with the

traditional open-chamber units. They

were good, but soft. The XPlor is still

soft under racing conditions but has a

lot better feel and when you play

around with the clickers there is a

noticeable improvement.

They arequite sensitive to change. I

cranked up the compression and it was

much better for me. Still softer than

the XC-F suspension but not to the

point where I was uncomfortable.

GEARBOXES

Two six-speed transmissions but the

EXC sports 14-52 final drive and the

XC has 14-50 for more speed, with a

fancier X-ring 5/8 x 1/4 inch chain.

REAR SHOCKS

WP Xplor shock offers 310mm travel

with no linkage, while the XC runs a

monoshock set-up with 300mm and

no dancing monkeys.