 The 350 EXCF made its first appearance with the 2012 model and ever since changed completely the way we see mid-size in the road bikes, establishing itself as the bike to beat in its range. The start of this bike is a 4 stroke 349.7 cc double overhead cam and liquid cooled engine, a perfect breed between the light 250 cc and the mighty 450 cc. The engine shaped off 1.9kg of weight from the 2018 model but actually improved the torque figures. I don't know how, but I guess the Austrian magicians won't tell me even if I wanted to. The Cahini EMS Throttle Body feeds the engine while the Cromoly frame helps the WP Explorer PDS shock and WP X4 48mm forks keeping the power to the ground while the front and rear bramble brakes bring it all to a halt with tremendous sopping power. But let's see how this benchmarking machine handles, shall we? I gotta admit I was curious to try one of these for a long time, but damn it blew my mind in every possible way. Right off the bat I felt a strange lightness that I never felt on a 250 before. The bike simply feels stable and points out exactly to where you want it to go. About the engine I never thought an extra 100 cc from a 250 would make such a huge difference, but in truth it's a completely different bike. It has the lightness of a 250 but way more power. Although not in an intimidating way, it has a really linear and predictable power, so the fun way. Since it's feel injected, the throttle response is amazing and you feel that you always have power. If you feel that it's not holding or it might stall, you just need to twist the throttle a bit more and it simply goes every freaking time. The suspensions, bone stock, set on comfort modes for a speech, they are good but a bit unpredictable. Obviously in ideal conditions I would tune it for my riding style, but you ride what you can when you can. The WP Explorer shock with PDS system clearly seems to lack the progressive stroke at high speed compressions, you feel the back end spitting you up sometimes. If you're doing more technical stuff, the shock will be truly wonderful, it soaks up and eats up everything. But at higher speeds, if you keep on the back of your mind that it simply might spit you up out of nowhere, and it's not the best thing to have in mind, is it? To really squeeze the juice out of these suspensions, they would require some work on it. Just messing with the clicks might simply not be enough, but hey, it's my opinion and it's worth what it's worth. Overall, this is the bike that will give you amazing confidence when riding it, it's really stable bike and it's super, super fun. For you to have an idea of how good it is, if I had to choose just one bike to use for everything, it would be a 350, hands down. It can do hard enduro in the more technical sections, since it's responsive and powerful enough for you to play with the weight of the bike. But at the same time, it's stable and stretches its gears like crazy, so it would suit really well some cross countries or enduros. And did I forget that this is a freaking wheelie popping machine? You can literally pop a wheelie whenever you want, it's stupidly fun. It's light enough to not be a big cow, but it's powerful and fast enough to be side by side with the big boys. It's a really superb bike. If you have a friend that has one, go ask him for life advice. He has his life figured out, trust me. Really hope you liked it and don't forget to subscribe.