Small Test Ride with Rieju MR 300 Racing (MY 2022)

Описание: On my second time riding after an 8.5 month break got to test ride my mates almost brand new Rieju MR 300 Racing (model year 2022) which he bought also considering my suggestion as it had a great price. This is most of the riding I did on it, nothing fancy, didn't want to ruin anything as just a moment ago got back riding.

I was pleasantly surprised that the bike felt similar enough to my Husqvarna that after only a minute or two of riding it I essentially was comfortable and could ride with more confidence. Sure, I'd definitely would make some minor adjustments, but all in all the geometry of the bike felt similar.

The power was awesome. Would not say noticeably better than the Husqvarna, but different, as Rieju is carbureted and seemingly has a larger progression in the power curve, if you will. The Magura clutch, of course, was good. The Nissin brakes worked great, definitely nothing bad to say about them.

I was most interested in the suspension. The owner is similar in weight to me. The springs were stock. I'm not sure where he had the clickers (I suppose on "standard" setting), but I was blown away by how good the rear suspension worked - it crushed to pieces my stock WP XACT shock on my Husqvarna (MY2023) even though my suspension had only 8 hours on it (including serviced linkage, etc.). If it were my bike (the Rieju), I'd probably set the SAG (which I'm not sure had been set) and play with the clickers, but even without all of that, the suspension worked brilliant. After total of some 15 minutes of riding I couldn't find a thing to even mention as a minor complaint (in these riding conditions/speeds, etc.).

As for the fork - it was good, no doubt about that. Not sure about SAG (springs/preload), but the damping was a bit too harsh for my liking for the slow to mid-speed stuff, although it didn't deflect much. On the faster stuff it worked great, no harshness or noticeable deflection. I presume some adjustment to the clickers would have solved the slow-to-mid speed damping for me and I'd have been totally pleased with the fork as well (as I did no adjustment, can't be certain, though). The most important thing, though, there was essentially no deflection, chatter or skidding on bumps which gave a lot of confidence tacking the trail.

Would I recommend this bike to anyone - sure, to be honest, I really liked it (apart from mildvibration that you feel while not riding).
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Been riding off-road for about 135 motor-hours in total up to this.

Video captured by GoPro HERO 11 mounted on my helmets chin in a HyperView mode.