It was still red and white, still a bit heavy and still had a 4 speed transmission.

Power: The engine chugged strongly down in the low-end and the brutish mid-range power snorted hard, yet smoothly! To go with this power was notchy shifting. And... the rider got only 4 notchy gears to shift. The Yamaha 490 engine was known to blubber off bottom most of the time, and ping like crazy in the upper RPM ranges when hot. No amount of jetting seemed to correct this. Many YZ 490 owners had their engine heads machined and this helped the problem.

Suspension: The YZ 490 forks were actually fairly decent! Not many '85 YZ 490 griped about them. The rear suspension worked "ok" for average riders. Anyone a little faster than average could bottom the rear often.

Handling: The YZ 490 was a fair turning bike (i.e. do not expect to undercut any Honda CR's) that was stable at speed. It was hard to move forward on the YZ because the rather bulbous fuel tank got in the way. It was a mid-range power machine that loved to be short shifted anywhere on the track or trail at anytime.

Reliability: Overall, the bike was fairly reliable. No weird things seemed to break or crack on a regular basis.

Odds & Ends: The YZ 490 vibrated a lot. Once again, the 4-speed transmission reduced the machines versatility. The 4 speeder worked well on MX tracks, but could be a real headache on trails that had a wide variety of riding terrain.

This was the first year the YZ 490 came with a front disc brake. Its performance was very good! All '85 model year YZ's came with a system known as BASS (Brake Assisted Suspension System.) Most YZ owners took their BASS off and threw into the nearest lake.

The '85 YZ 490 can make an acceptable trail/play bike, but... the 4-speed transmission will be dealt with at some point.