Ossa Super Pioneer 250

OSSA SUPER PIONEER 250

CYCLE WORLD TEST

Off-road motorcycles and their brand awareness have changed so rapidly during the past several years that the Ossa name serves as instant quiz.

Sneak up behind a dirt rider and say “Ossa!” He’ll say “What?” or he’ll flood you with the past; how he raced a Pioneer in TT and sold the bike to a friend who sold it to a friend who still rides it and never yet has a wrench touched the machine.

The first man just got here. The second man is on his way to his golden years as a cowtrailer or the terror of old-timer motocross.

Fond memories don’t feed the bulldog. Ossa is a respected name, a small and dedicated Spanish firm with a history of competition wins and reliable bikes. What Ossa isn’t, is a name which springs into mind when the younger set decides it’s time for a new motocross or enduro or play motorcycle.

What Ossa is doing about this is revising its product line as quickly and completely as a small factory can.

For the play and enduro crowd, Ossa has the Super Pioneer 250, or SP. Its line of descent began three years ago with a new frame for the enduro/play/motocross models. The frame is a good piece of work; light, strong and adaptable for varying applications. It’s made of chrome-moly steel coated with epoxy-based paint to protect against scratches and rust. The frame was contemporary when new, so Ossa has been able to rework the rear sections for forward-mount shocks and to adjust the steering head portion when a model needs revision of steering head angle or triple-clamp design.

The SP’s suspension system is subject to several limitations. Because Ossa is a small company, many components are bought from outside suppliers. In this case the front forks and rear shocks come from Betor. That’s a good brand name, so good that many other makers buy their suspension pieces from Betor, meaning Betor has a limited supply for each. Ossa has assigned its allocation of leading axle front forks to its motocross models. The SP gets the center-mount design. A truly long travel rear suspension wasn’t possible without extra long shocks and major changes to the frame. The SP has late-model Betor gas/oil shocks of normal length, moved forward and tilted to about 45 deg. The Ossa SP thus has increased wheel travel at both ends, compared with previous bikes, but not as much travel as offered by most of the competition.

Ossa’s 250 engine needs no excuses. Ossa’s engineers must have some secret technique of their own which nobody has ever been able to copy. The SP engine is normal Ossa, with no trick reed or rotary or whatever valves. Just plain ports, shaped and placed to produce smooth power where the rider wants and expects to have it. This year’s SP250 engine has the new 32-mm Bing carburetor with external choke, just like most of the European bikes we’ve seen recently. The exhaust system is nicely tucked toward the center where it runs past the rider’s knee and is good at not making noise. The Ossa technical people say the SP250 could pass the tests for street bikes with no changes. (National forest use requires a spark arrester, which Ossa dealers can supply.)

A classicist's enduro bike with good old power and stiff old suspension

There’s something of an engine option in that the SP comes from the factory in what they call Stage II tune, aimed at midrange push. There’s not as much low-end torque as is supplied by Stage I engines, which must be ordered. Our test SP had Stage II and worked fine. The high-torque engine would be useful in tighter terrain than ours, so woods riders may wish to check with their dealers about this.

Ossa fits a cush drive on the primary between engine and transmission in order to soften the blows of hard shifts. The SP has five speeds, spaced fairly w'idely. Ignition is Motoplat pointless electronic. This is an Ossa tradition. Couple years back the conventional ignition was plagued by too much heat so the factory began working with electronic systems.

SP fittings range from superb to debatable.The 1977 line uses larger wheel spokes, conical hubs and shares brake drums front and rear. The skid plate is small and protects only the area between the dow ntubes as they sw'eep beneath the cases but the frame itself has added loops at each front corner, serving as protection for the engine. Retention cables run from the frame tubes back to the shift and brake levers, to keep those vital parts from becoming lost if they come loose. The SP in U.S. trim has a Hoss front fender, which the U.S. importers believe is better than the stock item. The SP is sold with a Bolger chain tensioner, again because the American Ossa folks think all bikes should have them. There’s a generous 3-gal. fuel tank, a center-mounted speedometer/odometer and an enduro—read tiny—taillight with license plate bracket.

The airbox deserves special mention. It’s fiberglass and carefully laid out to reduce intake noise and water intake. The actual air filter sits in the middle of the box while the actual air intake is a pipe which swirls around the back and stops, so water will fall out of the air before it arrives at the filter. The box has a drain with cotter pin for sort of a one-way pressure valve and the airbox lid bolts to the box with an aircraftstyle locking nut, no less. Impressive.

The SP also comes with a swing arm rigged for passenger pegs, odd for a dirtonly motorcycle. Also there’s a safetygroup-style grab strap across the seat, naturally right where most of us like to sit.

Oddest of all is the electrical control box. One small box, on the handlebars, with four switches: headlight, high or low beam, horn and eonnected-to-nothing. Right. A red button that just sits there. Used to be the kill switch, we’re told. Where is the kill switch or button? There isn’t one. Why not, the U.S. office couldn’t tell us.

The Ossa SP doesn’t have the enduro tool bag with which the big factories tell you they know what an ISDT bike looks like. Instead there’s a tool compartment molded into the underside of the seat. Our tool compartment contained: one openend wrench, 11and 12-mm, one spark plug wrench, one bar for same, onePhillips-head screwdriver, one spare plug, a polishing rag and one adjustable wrench. Fair play compels the admission that we did all required repairs on the test SP (none) with the tools in the kit but even so. Ossa obviously doesn't expect buyers to compete right off the showroom floor.

Such a contrast, this bike with lever retention straps and no tools, with a genuine waterproof airbox and no kill button. Our guess is that Ossa’s experts believe so firmly in their expertise, they’ve built motorcycles so well for so long, that they don't listen to what the market says. They have an idea about American dirt bikes, they’ve heard about race/play machines, on-off road and all that, so they have given us what they think we want.

When it comes to the engine. Ossa is right. To start with, the SP250 starts, which is pleasant after months of three-man bump-start drill with a series of temperamental transports of delight. Not even the leftside lever hampered one-kick fire, hot or cold. When prolonged immersion in water caused the lever to refuse to unfold, we could start the SP with boot on the lever tip. Try that on your Husky.

A fine engine. It was screamed and lugged, churned through hub-deep mud and revved with no load over the jumps. Not once did it miss one beat.

Power? Adequate. Ossa has honed its engine over the years with intent of producing power in the lower and middle sections of the curve. Less regard is paid to sheer speed. Without having actually raced the bikes against each other, we’d guess the Can-Am Qualifier 175 and maybe even the Yamaha IT 175 have more peak power than does the Ossa SP250.

Does this matter? Only to those who need to outrun their friends on the flat and straight. Talk of doing 110 mph down the fire road making up for lost time on an enduro is just that, talk. Enduros are seldom won by those who fall behind and scramble to catch up. The Ossa has power on demand and that should be adequate for enduros or for playing around.

The transmission has a flaw by association. The ratio spread is right. The shift lever, though, has a small, flat peg, covered with rubber grooved laterally. This little tab is tucked too closely to the engine cases and one’s boot tends to slip off the lever at just the wrong time, especially in the wet. As a result, we missed many shifts during the test session but are inclined to think it was the fault of the lever and its shifting surface rather than the gearbox and its internal arrangements. The clutch held up without complaint and with a precise and light action.

Wet conditions shouldn’t excuse anything on an enduro machine. Ossa knows about rain. The brakes performed well in the dry. The front needs a hefty yank before anything happens, which is good on loose surfaces. If the rear was a bit too willing to exert stopping force on the wheel, well, one can learn to modulate and it wasn’t that bad anyway. The test came at a time of late and heavy rain and our favorite river was running full, providing many chances to douse the SP up to its handlebars. The brakes never quit braking. They lost some of their grip but a few minutes in the air and they came back to work.

The engine wasn’t bothered by the wet. Didn’t even notice. No matter how deep we went—deeper than expected a couple times—that elaborate airbox kept the carb warm and dry and no moisture penetrated the ignition.

Now, the criticism. One cannot fairly say the Ossa suspension has flaws. More like limitations.

The Betor components and the Ossa frame are well engineered but as mentioned. they are a bit behind the times. The other companies have added lots of wheel travel while Ossa has added some. Some isn’t enough.

When the engineer has a target speed of X, an impact of Y and wheel travel of eight inches, the ride rate and damping curve can be fairly soft. For the same speed and impact with less travel, what Ossa’s designers had to work with, the rates must be firmer. The SP250 thus has a relatively stiff ride fore and aft. The SP won’t bottom out until the bike hits really rough stuff at high speeds, so the potential for quick riding is there. What the SP also does is ride quite harshly at low speeds and over stutter bumps and other terrain with small hops and high frequencies.

One feels this first in the bars, which hammer the wrists at a furious rate, aided by the grips which are too narrow and too hard for our liking. The rear wheel has a shade more control in that it doesn’t deal the frame and rider the whack that usually comes with stiff springs and damping. Instead the rear wheel is off the ground much of the time.

Back when sporting meant stiff, this is what all off-road racing bikes did. It doesn’t mean the SP won’t go fast. What it> does mean is the rider will take a pounding.

SUPER PIONEER 250

SPECIFICATIONS

$1545

POWER TRANSMISSION

DIMENSIONS

FRONT FORKS

REAR SHOCKS

Forks on the Super Pioneer are slightly stiff. Spring rate could be a few pounds lower, as could compression damping. For a slight improvement, use 5-wt. oil to reduce damping.

Tests performed at Number One Products

These Betor gas shocks worked well at first but seemed to weaken as hard miles were logged. Most likely this was the effect of settling springs. The deteri oration in ride quality and handling was minimal, so we suggest no changes be made.

During the photo session, the photographer needed to be hauled from one scenic locale to another, on the back. Also on the trip was a motorcycle equipped for 12 hours in the saddle, that is, soft and smooth. Sometimes the photog rode on the back of that bike, sometimes he perched on the SP. The difference in comfort, he reported, is like the difference between grandma’s lap and falling down two flights of stairs.

The SP steers like an Ossa. Quick and light, light in the sense that there is seldom much traction in front. The wheel skitters and if the traction changes or the rider runs out of berm in mid-line, the front slides out from under. Again, this isn’t bad as much as it’s something the SP owner better be prepared for.

The SP goes straight without struggle and over the jumps it’ll stay upright despite an unusual tendency to tip in short little arcs. Go over a jump at an angle and the SP goes maybe 15 deg. off vertical in that direction. Never more, though, and it lands in control. Something to do with the firm damping, no doubt.

Bars and pegs and seat are spaced properly in relation to each other. The strap across the seat is a bother, easily fixed with 30 seconds and an X-acto knife. The pegs were smaller than most, albeit they have serrated tops and grip the boot. Only thing that went bad during the test period was the horn. We looked beneath the tank one day and there the horn was, dangling by its wires. The screws holding the horn to the bracket had fallen out. Ossa’s tech rep said he tightened the screws and the horn wouldn’t blow, so he loosened them and the horn worked fine, until it fell off. Good, said our tech wizard, now that the horn isn’t there anymore we can use the horn button on the box on the bars to rig a kill button.

By now the reader may have inferred that the Ossa Super Pioneer 250 is not one of your normal run of enduro bikes, and that we like Ossas even if the SP isn’t the world’s best enduro bike right out of the crate.

Fair is fair. Those who wish to buy the best enduro bike for the money will find any one of the big factories and a few smaller firms will sell a 250 enduro motorcycle with more power, more wheel travel, more useful gadgets and fewer quirky ones.

The Ossa SP is beautifully made and finished. The basic design is sound as whatever it is the oil producing countries use for currency. Prior experience indicates the engine and transmission will soldier along forever. Some of the bits, like the grips and the gear lever peg, the lack of kill button and the excess of a grab strap, can be taken care of with no trouble. We’d like to experiment with fork oil weights and rear shocks and springs.

In the main, the best thing about the Ossa SP is that it’s an Ossa. Character. Individuality. A motorcycle with which an enthusiast owner can develop a beautiful relationship based on mutual dependency. Long after buyers of today’s wonderbike have traded the old nail for tomorrow’s wonderbike, off-road riders who value what Ossa offers will still cherish their SP250s.