I'm sure you’ve heard that old rhetoric, “they don’t make them like they used to!” I hear it all the time from trail punters in regards to trailbikes. So many people wish the Japanese would make another Honda XR250 or XR450 or even Yamaha with the TT-R250. These bikes were praised for their rideability and reliability. For decades, trailriders had the privilege of piloting one of these easy-to-ride trailbikes through the bush with no fear of what their mates would think.
In the last two decades bikes have gotten faster and more competitive. We sacrificed rideability and reliability for performance and ego. The only trailbike that has truly stood the test of time is the Suzuki DR-Z400. It has been largely unchallenged in the full-on trail space since the XRs and TT-Rs were shafted in the mid-noughties. Sure, the likes of SWM and Honda have flirted with a few trailbikes in that period but nothing has been good enough to dethrone the mighty DR-Z400, until now.
Three years ago, Kawasaki revealed the KLX300R as a dedicated trailbike. They didn’t market it as a race-bred enduro weapon, they
