Service Honda CR500AF & Jeff Ward's problems at MM
- Thread starter G92Joe
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Senior KX Rider
Super Power AssClown
- Nov 9, 1999
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Where did you find these comments? I would be interested in hearing or reading them. If someone with his skill and abilities could not holeshot the field and lead(at least for a while) on this machine, I would guess there was a problem with setup. Jeff Ward has plenty of experience on open class machines and the AF 500 is the finest open class machine I have ever ridden
- Thread starter
- #3
Jeff's comments can be found on RJ's site - www.supercross.com
Jeff: I last raced here in 1983 on a 125! It's a great track, and it reminds me of Washougal. I'm usually racing cars at this time of year so it's really good to be here. I'm riding a CR250 with a 500 motor. It didn’t work 20 years ago, and it's the same today. I really loved riding the CRF450 though.
Jeff: I last raced here in 1983 on a 125! It's a great track, and it reminds me of Washougal. I'm usually racing cars at this time of year so it's really good to be here. I'm riding a CR250 with a 500 motor. It didn’t work 20 years ago, and it's the same today. I really loved riding the CRF450 though.
Senior KX Rider
Super Power AssClown
- Nov 9, 1999
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Thanx Joe
SterlingYZ
Member
- Mar 19, 2003
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This is really interesting. Anyone have further info on what he meant? I am surprised the guys from Service Honda haven't spoken up. Sounds that could be some potentially damaging testimony without explanation. Even with all said, I surely hope taht one day I get to throw a leg over a CR500AF and make my own opinion.
Till then, I hope SOMEONE speaks up on what he meant.
-Sterling
Till then, I hope SOMEONE speaks up on what he meant.
-Sterling
- Thread starter
- #8
I remember reading a old Dirt Bike article about a comparison on the big bore 250cc kit bikes. In the article, when Jeff Ward was asked what he thought of these kit bikes, his reply was, "I'm faster at all the outdoor national tracks on my 500 than the 250cc". I recently spoke with Tom Morgan (Ward's Kaw mechanic at the time, now owns TMR racing) who did indeed verify Wards KX500 lap times were better than those times on the KX250 (during that era).
I'm sure not in Wardy's league, but I've been riding MX bikes since he was doing wheelies on a Z50, and the Service Honda CR500AF is head and shoulders above any bike I've ever ridden - and I've ridden most of them. The bike is fast, super easy to ride, handles like it's on rails, and has fantastic suspension. There's only one thing wrong with it - I think I'll have an unfair advantage when I race it (haven't raced mine yet). If I beat somebody now, it'll be because of the bike.
I think I can live with that.
I think I can live with that.
AJ Waggoner
Crash Test Dummy
- Nov 5, 1999
- 4,368
- 34
Hmm hadnt seen Wards responce ... and he was actually riding a 500AF.
but it was a joint effort.
i built the frame and components needed , but did not build the bike-
Pro Circuit built the bike from variuos trick components they had .
Not to point fingers but i know they got the bike finiahed about one or two days before MM and had no time to test it.
My guess is susp wasnt set up right.
If you think im just dodging the blame, thats ok ;)
but go back a year or two in MXracer article and read Laroccos comments on the AF.
He loved it and said it was far better than his bike he won the last 500 national title on.
he did say it needed more hit in the engine..but with a port job andstigffer susp he would race it "as is" very happily.
MC tested it and off the record ( since he was with Yamaha then) wrote me an email saying it was awesome and the best 500 he had ever ridden and that it was enough to make him think of switching back to Honda ( he was joking but funny comment)
Lechien Loves the bike, Healey also - there is a long list of pros that dig it.
On a related Mammoth mountain note -
Young usual rides an AF at MM. and loves it.
if you look back over the last few years youll see he led MC and others often ,only to get a flat or some such weird racing luck..
last year i think he podiumed? behing the "cobra"
of course there are guys that do not.
and example would be Stanton, but he has never ridden it, plenty of chances but he always tells me he hated 500's when they made him ride them and he sure doesnt want to ride one now...
its not the bike for everyone... its great bike for guys that like 500's.
i do admit i thought that wardy, as a past 500 guy, would have had a different reaction.
::::shrugs::::
but it was a joint effort.
i built the frame and components needed , but did not build the bike-
Pro Circuit built the bike from variuos trick components they had .
Not to point fingers but i know they got the bike finiahed about one or two days before MM and had no time to test it.
My guess is susp wasnt set up right.
If you think im just dodging the blame, thats ok ;)
but go back a year or two in MXracer article and read Laroccos comments on the AF.
He loved it and said it was far better than his bike he won the last 500 national title on.
he did say it needed more hit in the engine..but with a port job andstigffer susp he would race it "as is" very happily.
MC tested it and off the record ( since he was with Yamaha then) wrote me an email saying it was awesome and the best 500 he had ever ridden and that it was enough to make him think of switching back to Honda ( he was joking but funny comment)
Lechien Loves the bike, Healey also - there is a long list of pros that dig it.
On a related Mammoth mountain note -
Young usual rides an AF at MM. and loves it.
if you look back over the last few years youll see he led MC and others often ,only to get a flat or some such weird racing luck..
last year i think he podiumed? behing the "cobra"
of course there are guys that do not.
and example would be Stanton, but he has never ridden it, plenty of chances but he always tells me he hated 500's when they made him ride them and he sure doesnt want to ride one now...
its not the bike for everyone... its great bike for guys that like 500's.
i do admit i thought that wardy, as a past 500 guy, would have had a different reaction.
::::shrugs::::
- Thread starter
- #13
AJ,
Any chance you can get clarification from Jeff Ward & post the info here? As it stands now, Jeff's comments seem to leave the thought that there's a design or concept problem with the bike .... if it's only a mistaken statement, great; if not, the negative feedback would help improve the bike. If it's suspension setup, then there's another reason not to go that route and that also clears the doubt over what the root problem is. Thanks .......
Any chance you can get clarification from Jeff Ward & post the info here? As it stands now, Jeff's comments seem to leave the thought that there's a design or concept problem with the bike .... if it's only a mistaken statement, great; if not, the negative feedback would help improve the bike. If it's suspension setup, then there's another reason not to go that route and that also clears the doubt over what the root problem is. Thanks .......
AJ Waggoner
Crash Test Dummy
- Nov 5, 1999
- 4,368
- 34
Well its the *seem* that is the dicy part eh?
I may hear back from PC and some input - and then again I may not.
read what you wrote about the possible problems, one way or another -
and then what it implies..
;)
As far as *possible* design flaw, i have to say the bike is proven.period.
Everts went 1-1 in his first ever 500GP on one.
Herring riode one many yerars in the GP's and finished very well at different MXdN's on one
Healey loves the bike
Lechien Loves the bike.
MC loved the bike
Larroco loved it.
Young has lead mamouth on it on several occassions
Almost every mag that has tested it rates it the best production 500 2 stroke mx bike ever built.
I build about 200 a year since 1997.
99% of the customers call me back thanking me for building such a gereat bike and many buy another and another..
I have ridden them for 7 years, held an AMA pro card and although certainly no Jeff Ward, can hopefully tell if a bike is flawed.
I am not trying to sell you one.
This just doesnt seem like a bike with any kind of design flaw or a bike that :"dint work" could achieve these accolades and race results?
Wards comments are vague , i feel i'm defending a proven product that I spent years refining to better than Honda quality ,
when nothing was substantially said.
The only reason it carries weight is the name.
Of course if i hear directly from Ward I would certainly look into what he felt was a problem!! but with one ride on it...
any of my customers input would carry ,more weight as they ride them each weekend.
if Jeff just dint like the bike or dint think it worked well, it wont send me back to the drawing board.
There are far to many riders that absolutely love it,and have proven at most any level of skill and situation that it does work well.
:::shrugs::::
Senior KX Rider
Super Power AssClown
- Nov 9, 1999
- 8,575
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Dittos on that. I have all the respect in the world for his abilities and accomplishments but his opinion of the bike and mine were very much different and I would not let anything he said discourage me from owning one. :thumb: . I would say again that someone prolly missed on the setup badly.
It would seem strange that Wardy would get PC to set the bike up, when they probably don't work on very many CR500s, much less CR500AF's. If Bones had to guess on the suspension but Jeremy Wilkey works on them all the time...does that make sense? And what if PC did a bunch of porting and pumped the engine up...would that make the bike rideable, tractable and a basic improvement on the original design? Overall, I can't think of a worse bike to mess around with (whether you think you're "improving" it or not), then take to Mammoth and put under a rider of Wardy's caliber without serious testing time. If Jeff wanted one of the bikes, he should have ordered it from AJ, opened the crate, and rode it. If he still didn't like it...those are the breaks. But apparently the bike Jeff rode isn't the bike AJ builds. Again, I love mine in every area. IT IS THE BEST DIRT BIKE I'VE EVER OWNED!!!
- Thread starter
- #18
After hearing how Wards' bike was setup by PC, I would also tend to agree that the problems causing the bike "not to work" are most likely suspension & motor setup related. Didn't he race it though for 6 motos at MM?
I think the CR500AF is a great bike that is fun & faster than my current bikes (02CRF450, 02CR250, 87CR500, 89KX500). What puzzles me about Ward's comments is why would he say that if the setup could be easily changed?
If I recall correctly? feedback from previous Big motor bike retrofits in the past: '89-92? YZ490 into a YZ250 (Dubach); CR500 into a '88CR250 (MXA); CR500 into a RM250 '90+ (for Ross Pederson) there were comments stating the wheelbases were too short, steering head angles too steep, frame flexed from additional power, vibration, etc. . From my limited test rides, the CR500AF does not suffer from those problems.
But by hearing Ward's comment, there is the potential for riders only slightly familiar with the AF to take Ward's words as good advice and not consider the AF anymore. If I made a bike and a multiple time champion rider raced it & said that, I'd be thinking, "with your stature, by saying that you just cost me XX amount of bike sales - that's almost slander. I hope your reasons are accurate".
I think the CR500AF is a great bike that is fun & faster than my current bikes (02CRF450, 02CR250, 87CR500, 89KX500). What puzzles me about Ward's comments is why would he say that if the setup could be easily changed?
If I recall correctly? feedback from previous Big motor bike retrofits in the past: '89-92? YZ490 into a YZ250 (Dubach); CR500 into a '88CR250 (MXA); CR500 into a RM250 '90+ (for Ross Pederson) there were comments stating the wheelbases were too short, steering head angles too steep, frame flexed from additional power, vibration, etc. . From my limited test rides, the CR500AF does not suffer from those problems.
But by hearing Ward's comment, there is the potential for riders only slightly familiar with the AF to take Ward's words as good advice and not consider the AF anymore. If I made a bike and a multiple time champion rider raced it & said that, I'd be thinking, "with your stature, by saying that you just cost me XX amount of bike sales - that's almost slander. I hope your reasons are accurate".
Yeah, sounds like an off-the-cuff comment by Wardy and RJ was ill-advised to put it up on his website without explanation. It's not a matter of somebody not liking our beloved bikes (if in fact it was our bike he didn't like, which is an open question); it's that we don't like unconstructive, unexplained criticism from people who's words carry disproportionate weight.
We all have different riding styles and preferences, maybe Jeffy just don't like the big bores, especially if he said it didn't work then and it still doesn't.
I rode a CR500 for 7 years and loved it. But it was a hard bike to ride in comparision to a 250 for me. I would have given up on it earlier but I loved the power, and more power and the adrenaline rushes I got from riding it. I can remember racing a harescramble in Indiania and there was a big mud hole with a highway on one side and a swamp on the other. There was two basics lines to choose from, the first was a big water hole and he second was a big mucky swamp with a few trees and clumps of grass. Most people were charging into the swamp and then having someone help them drag the bike out. There was about a 30-40 yard straight in front of the hole, with the 500 I would just slip it into 2cnd and start hanging and banging, skating across the open water without a problem. (Except once) That race was a mud fest, and I thought I did terrible, I struggled all day and never got a good rhythm going, but at the end of the day I was first in my class, I ran the same track in better conditions and only scored a 3rd.
Well I guess I got off track, but the moral is some of us will always love the big bores. Just ride em a gear higher and grab a little clutch to get the R's up if you need to.
I rode a CR500 for 7 years and loved it. But it was a hard bike to ride in comparision to a 250 for me. I would have given up on it earlier but I loved the power, and more power and the adrenaline rushes I got from riding it. I can remember racing a harescramble in Indiania and there was a big mud hole with a highway on one side and a swamp on the other. There was two basics lines to choose from, the first was a big water hole and he second was a big mucky swamp with a few trees and clumps of grass. Most people were charging into the swamp and then having someone help them drag the bike out. There was about a 30-40 yard straight in front of the hole, with the 500 I would just slip it into 2cnd and start hanging and banging, skating across the open water without a problem. (Except once) That race was a mud fest, and I thought I did terrible, I struggled all day and never got a good rhythm going, but at the end of the day I was first in my class, I ran the same track in better conditions and only scored a 3rd.
Well I guess I got off track, but the moral is some of us will always love the big bores. Just ride em a gear higher and grab a little clutch to get the R's up if you need to.
- Jun 15, 2001
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He was just talking about 500's in general, obviously, since he said the same thing about his last KX500--"didn't work then, didn't work now". Maybe the track isn't suited for open class power? Anybody ever ridden Mammoth? Surely, by comparison to Washougal, it's not a tight track.??
I emailed RJ via Supercross.com asking for a little more info - told him we were scratching our heads trying to decipher Wardy's comment. We'll see if he responds, although I'd hate to know how many emails he gets per day and doubt if he can even read 'em all...
Come on guys,I doubt there is anybody reading this that is good enough to hold wards umbrella much less consider wether or not a bike is good by listening to his comments.I am sure he would agree Top level pros ride at a speed and level 99% of us could not fathom.A bike that may be unrideable to a pro like mr ward could be the best bike I or the other 99% have ever ridden. I have been a front running B class rider since 79 and will be ordering my af tomorrow. I am sure it will be a great machine. Think I'll put it in 3rd and remove the shifter.
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