Review

ONE of the few injected 250 off-roaders on the market, the Sherco 2.5i is not only very competent in the rough stuff, it also offers a real point of difference.

The Sherco brand was born in 1998 in Europe. With a passion for trials and all things motorcycles the brand has grown rapidly over the last 12 years, extending from its original range of trials bikes, to enduro, supermoto and motocross.

Sherco has developed its own modern-day 250cc four-stroke. It features all the same basics of today’s offroad four-stroke engines as it comes complete with a DOHC, 4-valve, water-cooled engine.

One of the major features on the Sherco 2.5i is its electronic fuel injection system. It is breakthrough technology for the crew at Sherco and is also very new to the world of offroad riding.

The ride
On the track the Sherco donk is fun and lively to ride. The power comes on quite smooth from the bottom and builds nicely through the mid-range.

The power is quite surprising when you are poking around in the tight twisty trail and moving along the single line tracks.
The power doesn’t drop off and it is easy to keep the 2.5i moving quickly along single tracks.

When you hit the more open and fast trails and begin to really open the upper end of the rpm range the little Sherco begins to sign off early and leaves you wringing its neck and not going anywhere in a hurry.

The top end power lacks when compared to some of its 250 four-stroke competition, however if you keep this thing in the lower rev range and short shift the gearbox you won’t have any dramas keeping up with your competition.

The six-speed gearbox works well across the board and does most things very well, however from time to time the ’box seemed a bit clunky.
The Sherco also features a hydraulic clutch which works very well and has an extremely light pull at the lever.

The Magnetti Marelli fuel injection system on the Sherco has undergone a few changes for the new model and is claimed to be much more reliable than the previous system.
We couldn’t fault the fuel injection system and found it to work efficiently in most situations we threw at the little blue thumper.

The brakes on the Sherco work surprisingly well, a huge 270mm disc can be found on the front, complete with a new line and actuator on the current model.
The rear has a 240mm rotor and utilises the same system as in years gone by. When diving through the trees and giving the brakes a really hard time through the bush we pushed both the front and rear brakes as hard as we could and never faulted either of them.

After a quick squirt on the motocross track the brakes came up trumps once again and work very well for standard equipment.

Sitting beneath the Sherco frame and bodywork is the Ceriani telescopic front fork and Sachs progressive rear shock. Both of these units have undergone extensive testing and redevelopment over the last few years in the bid to iron out some of the handling issues associated with the 2.5i.

For 2010 the Sherco handles better than ever before and the bike’s development is certainly heading in the right direction. The front end is still a bit on the twitchy side and is somewhat unstable; we played around using the clickers and came up with a much better setting and got the suspension up to a reasonable level.

The rear shock was much better than the front forks and we were happy with the rear suspension settings from the get-go. We still used the adjustment setting on the shock, set the sag properly at just over 100mm and found the shock even better.

The bodywork on the 2.5i is unique to Sherco and the blue colour scheme looks great. The ergo package works well and the bike is quite comfortable to ride.
It is fitted with quality Reikon handlebars, new style grips and big wide footpegs.

The verdict
For those of you who like to have something different, unique and have a taste for European motorcycles then take a serious look at the latest offerings from Sherco. The 2.5i is a great bike for the average rider who loves to go riding in the bush.

Source cycletorque.com