Picking up a new bike to test is always a good day, but this one was a bit different. This time, Instead of rolling into a dealership and loading it on the trailer, I was on my way to Yamaha New Zealand’ s HQ in Auckland to watch my 2026 WR250F come out of the crate. The Yamaha team up there made the whole thing pretty welcoming and I ended up spending a few hours in the workshop with one of Yamaha’ s technicians, Dave Cole, as he went about his business of getting it out of the crate and ready to go. Watching someone who does this every day go through a build was worth the trip all on its own. I managed to pick up a handful of little tricks I’ ll definitely be using in my own shed for years to come.
DELIVERED IN FULL ROAD SPEC Because every WR-F model that lands in New Zealand comes in full road spec( along with indicators, mirrors and a horn), there was a decent pile of gear that needed to come straight back off. This machine isn’ t a roadgoing bike, it’ s my race bike for the NZ enduro season, so all the road kit got put into a box pretty quickly. The interesting part came when it was time to fire it up for the first time. The WR and other Yamaha dirt models now have an ECU lock function, which has to be unlocked before the engine will start( the warranty gets applied at the same time). This is an anti-theft measure at heart( which is there to be used by the owner), but the bit I like is the digital trace behind it.
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