One to watch from Scorpa
By TMX Archives on 20th Jul 06
THE Scorpa SY250 is the latest attempt to move trials forward into the four-stroke realm. Montesa-Honda has, of course, gone at the job full-tilt with its 'no-going-back' approach to the 4RT, while Sherco has applied a more subtle softly-softly approach with its 4T variation.
Interestingly, Gas Gas and Beta have both steadfastly refused to engage in the four-stroke war, sticking with their tried and tested (and successful) two-strokes.
Tiny French manufacturer Scorpa has opted for more of a middle route. Yes, Scorpa has attacked the project enthusiastically - but it has been careful to cover its options and insider information says to look out for a clear update of the popular SY250 two-stroke soon!
Scorpa has certainly broken the mould for the SY250F with its radical bolt-up chassis and rear silencer as an integral part of the structure. The Yamaha-supplied engine is a tried and tested unit in its own (enduro) environment. The big question remains, can Scorpa down-tune what is a pretty full-on, big horsepower motor and produce an on-the-button model first time out? The model tested is one of only a handful of pre-production models released to the importers so far and fine-tuning is an ongoing part of the development between the factory and the importers.
Regular T+MX tester Woody Hole was keen to get out on the Scorpa thumper. Woody has ridden everything there is to be ridden, including the 4RT and 4T and wanted to see how the SY250F panned-out.
Says Woody, ''I must admit to being a bit disappointed at my first look at the bike. Sure, it looks stylish, the chassis is quite trick and the engine dominates but - there is just no wow! factor. Scorpa two-strokes have some real nice touches like the machined alloy head-stock and snailcam chain adjusters. The four-stroke is so plain in comparison, such as the adjusters which are cheap stampings. And where are the stickers? The plastics are nicely moulded with indents just screaming for decals that aren't there! This sounds like nit-picking but first-impressions and showroom looks are important. Where's the Bling!
''Looking around the bike, Scorpa appear to have done a good job of shoe-horning what is a pretty big engine into a tiny trials chassis without having to compromise on any components. Everything is fitted neatly and tidily with nothing nasty sticking out to snag or annoy and the exhaust is really neat with the twin exit pipes looking, and sounding, a bit special.
''On with the test. First - starting! And I'm happy to report that this is genuinely not a problem. It is the question everyone is going to ask, especially with a carburreted engine but the bike fired up easily, hot or cold. There is a 'but' though. For some reason, the engine does take a LONG time to warm up and you really do need to give it this warm-up time or it will stall on you all too easily when cold. So don't just kick it into life and dive straight into the first section, get it good and hot.
''Moving off, the riding position feels good, the relationship between 'bars and footpegs feels fine and the bike does not feel any wider than anything else. There are no awkward bits and bobs to dig in to your ankle and things like the rear brake pedal are nicely positioned.
''With that big motor it stands to reason that it isn't the lightest bike out there but the important thing is that it doesn't actually feel heavy. Also, the weight distribution appears to be bang on because it is neither front or rear-end heavy. It really does feel pretty neutral to ride and all credit to Scorpa for getting the weight distribution on the button.
''On to the suspension. Nigel Birkett told me that, in his opinion, the rear shock was set-up to act too fast. I actually found it nice and lively. For a modern-style rider it is fine, I was certainly very happy with the action and wouldn't want to touch it. I have always liked the Scorpa rear suspension which offers plenty of lively movement.
''The front forks are the very latest Paioli units which will also be fitted to next year's two-stroke. I never really know what to say about front forks. They work fine with no bottoming or clanking. They just do their job and let me get on with the riding. If there was anything wrong with them, I would be able to tell you!
''The brakes on the other hand were definitely below par. Neither did its job properly. On the face of it they should have been awesome as the Scorpa uses all the right bits. It actually proved impossible to lock-up the rear. Birks agreed 100% and reckons that the problem is the brake disc material. I can't actually think what else it could be so this is something they can address on the full production model.
''On to the engine. As we said, it starts easily and once we had given it a good revving to warm it up we were away. When the motor is revving, no problem, stacks of useable power. The problem is that in current trim it does not run too well right at the bottom. Below quarter throttle it feels flat and on opening the throttle has an annoying fluff that knocks your confidence. This bottom-end glitch spoils what is basically a really good motor. Once you get above the flat-spot it is lively and has really good, strong power. The factory are aware of this and are working on it.
''We tackled a steep hillclimb and, even allowing for the fact that it was a dry day for the test, I don't think that there is another single trials bike that would have accelerated as rapidly up it. The grip-factor was tremendous and the bike flew out of the top.
''The gearbox contains five ratios and they are really very good for trials use. The bottom three are all useable trials gears, fourth is a jump but might just be brought into play for a good, wet, southern hillclimb while fifth is your track/ road gear. I found that I was actually using all three gears, unlike the Montesa 4RT on which I find I can use bottom gear for virtually every section. The Montesa bottom gear just seems so long. The Scorpa should be the same in theory, maybe even more so, because I reckon it revs higher than the Honda. But, because of the low-end fluff, this effectively shortens the available rev-range.
''The clutch is also not as good as it could be. The action is a bit sudden and this doesn't help dealing with the low-speed fluff. Again, there is nothing wrong with the Yamaha clutch, just the action. If either one of the problems was fixed, the other wouldn't seem half as bad!
''Having said all that, which looks pretty damning, I reckon that as it stands the bike is actually over 90% of the way there. It is basically right and just requires that final but important piece of tuning. I am totally confident that the problems can be sorted, probably relatively easily. Scorpa is a small factory and has turned this early small batch of machines out to see what needs tweaking for real-world riders. The Yam engine, in MX or enduro guise, has no known problems and Scorpa is working hard to rectify the glitches.
To sum up, the SY250F is a bike that I really want to like - and I almost do! Get that fine-tuning sorted and it will be a real force because the basics are bang on the money. Then add some Bling!
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