When BMW announced they were going off-road racing with their innovative new 450, the world took notice. The G450X, if you haven’t seen one yet, are unusual to say the least. The fuel-injected engine, made by Kymco for BMW, is canted forward in the stainless-steel trellis-style frame. The swingarm pivot and the countershaft sprocket share the same axis, eliminating chain tension changes as the rear suspension cycles. The gas tank is where the airbox is on any other dirt bike, while the airbox is up under the ‘tank’ area.
You can go on an on about little details unusual to this machine, but the bottom line is BMW took on too much, too soon. Bad press tempered BMW’s racing success, like Juha Salminen finishing second in the FIM World Enduro Series, when David Knight suddenly quit the BMW team last season. Up in the Great White North, Guy Giroux rode his BMW Canada 450X to fourth overall in the Royal Distributing Canadian Enduro Championship and third at the Montreal Endurocross in front of 60,000 people. So obviously the bike can work.
We were lucky enough to score the exact same machine Giroux raced at the Montreal Endurocross as a long-term project bike, minus a few of the factory items. We dove into this project with an open mind, our goals being to race and ride the BMW every chance we get, learn its idiosyncrasies and improve upon its overall performance.
 |
 |
| Our first date with the BMW was at an arenacross track, where Canadian Pro Jason Michael cut some fast lap times after an unusually large amount of adaptation time. |
BMW Canada’s Guy Giroux, shown here leading Husaberg’s Shane Cuthbertson and KTM’s Jason Schrage at Montreal, did plenty of R&D work during the 2009 season. He used a Honda CRF450R fork and triple clamp with 24mm offset to improve rigidity and steering precision over the stock Marzocchi set-up. The rear Ohlins shock was re-valved in an effort to eliminate being too soft and blowing through travel or being too heavily valved and harsh. With no suspension linkage, this was a challenge. In fact, once the shock valving was finally set optimally Giroux says shock oil overheating became an issue. Photo: Angie Parker |
 |
 |
| Re-valved and re-sprung Marzocchi forks were reinstalled on our BMW, along with the very restrictive stock muffler. During the Enduro Championship Giroux raced with a titanium Akrapovic system. We’ll deal with that in the next instalment of this project. Anyway, getting back to boingers, Giroux’s Montreal Endurocross rear suspension settings worked pretty well at our Arenacross track. |
The BMW is slim and aggressive looking but has weird ergonomics. The saddle is as hard as a rock, but it offers a flat seating area and is well shaped. The footpegs feel a little too far forward, while the front end feels too low regardless of handlebar position, handlebar clamp position or suspension sag adjustments. According to Giroux the resulting ‘stinkbug’ feel of the BMW is something you get used to. So far, we haven’t. |
 |
| The BMW is sold as a legit dual sport bike, despite being a hard-core dirt bike. Removing the dual sport gear from the BMW, except for the headlight, saved us 6.90 pounds and took us about 6.90 minutes. It’s cool that you can lose that much weight by simply unplugging a few things, but it’s also cool that BMW managed to make this motorcycle street legal with such a small addition in weight. |
 |
| Fill’er up! The BMW never fails to draw a crowd when you fill up the airbox with gas through the hole in the seat. The tank is fairly small, netting only about a 30-mile range under racing conditions. There is a low fuel light to tell you when you need to start sweating. |
Your Privacy Choices