I had about an hour to kill yesterday as I was passing by the dealer that carries KTM. This is mostly a road bike shop but they do sell some offroad bikes too. Quite a bit of stock on the floor.
I asked about 2T bikes because I didn't see any. As others have said, the dealer's owner shook his head and said a couple years back they could not get rid of the 2T bikes. Everyone and their brother wanted the 4T's. So he cut way back on the 2T request from the distributor/factory. So guess what? he has a 250XC coming in about a week -- and its spoken for, by 5 buyers! NOW he has quite a few 4T bikes on his floor, 250 and 450 in both SX and XC trim and even a street legal 450. Says there was tons of buzz early in the season about the new FE 350 but he can't even sell those either. I asked what people are saying that leads them to want the 2T bikes instead. He said (drum roll please)....
People want simple bikes with easy and reasonable cost maintenance.
and THIS is in California! Where you can only ride the 2T bikes about 8 months out of the year. Even with that gigantic drawback his customers seem to still be voting with thier wallets:
We Don't Want 4T Anymore!
He sounded pretty disgusted by the amazing flip-flop of customer opinion on the subject that leaves him unable to get the bikes they want and unable the sell the bikes he has.
Even without DI, 2T seems far from dead.
