EP#66 - 2026 Beta 300 X-Pro Review!

We caught up with ADB Editor Mitch Lees at the track as soon as he hopped off the 2026 Beta 300 X-Pro to see what he thought. If you're in the market for a new two-stroke, have a listen!

Transcript

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Welcome to the ADB podcast where we talk all things dirt with your host Mitch Lee. Okay guys, we are finally finished testing our 2026 Beta X Pro 300. Now, as everyone knows, this is not the up spec version of Beta 300 CC2 Troke, that is the race, and this comes slightly different specs to the race version. This has a ZF Fork and it also has oil injection as opposed to the race, which is FreeMix and has the KYB fork. So, what did we think of this bike? Well, yeah, let's just say we were mightily impressed. In fact, I was probably more impressed with this bike than I was the race model. So let's talk about how it performs. So let's get back to that motor. That motor is an absolute peach, and one thing we noticed with this oil injection is that it actually is better off the bottom than the race version. Now, talking about the suspension, everyone talks about you know you need KYB instead of ZF, and that's all a load of BS. The ZF fork in this thing is pretty damn good if you're just a trail rider. If you want to save some money on the purchase price and then not have to modify anything, the ZF suspension is friggin' free mode. You've you'll you'll be able to do everything that you would normally do on a trail ride with this ZF suspension. As for everything else, man, this bike is so easy to get on and just ride. Really like the red plastics on it. We think the red plastics are absolutely unreal. And that pretty much wraps up the changes. So, how does it feel out on the track? Well, I can tell you right now, I have also ridden the 300 race model, and that's the up spec version KYB suspension. It is pre-mixed, this one is oil injected. And I actually found this bike ran cleaner. Uh, we're at a bit of altitude where we are because it's quite hot today and it's quite humid. Uh, so we just found a little bit of fluffiness off the bottom on the race, but with this one, because the oil is injected off a sensor, uh, it was clean. So we're in amongst the trees here today. You'll see, you can see in some of this video, it's tight, it's technical, it's slow, short, geared kind of stuff. And there were moments where I hardly even needed the clutch at walking speed and it still wouldn't fluff and it still wouldn't bog. So the fueling on this bike is spot on, and that's impressive considering an element of it is injected. Where there are other injected bikes that just struggle to do that real slow crawling stuff. This one, uh, even though it's not fuel injected, it is only oil injected, um, it's spot on. Now it's pretty interesting to mention too that the carb is the same, has the same settings in it, I believe, as the race model. Um, so the fact that this one is so clean uh would probably point to the fact that that oil injection is so good. So, motor-wise, I was really impressed by this motor. In fact, I probably preferred this motor over the race motor. Um, and the race motor just has a slightly different pipe. Um, so and obviously it isn't uh oil injected. Um, yeah, so for this model, uh, we found it the bottom end, heaps of torque, heaps of grunt. Like we said in the shootout, nothing has changed there. You can crawl this thing like at walking speed and it will continue to pull, it's so strong, it'll uh run and idle down so low uh that you don't really have to worry about revving it and clutching it to get it to crawl up technical sections. So, really impressive that. But then if you needed it to as well, this bike will freaking open up. We've got a grass track section here which we could really kind of rip into some of our uh testing, and it did it really well. So uh motor is probably the winner on this thing. Let's pull out the fork and the shock. This is the ZF fork. Now it is not probably as firm, I guess you'd say, as the race model, and it's pretty noticeable. It's softer. When we were kind of plodding around and cruising through, keeping the revs under halfway. Uh, it did really well in this in the snotty single track. Uh, but we did find on the grass track we got a lot of hidden holes and bits and pieces under there, and it got a little bit nervous on some holes you couldn't see under the clipped grass. We found it just probably didn't hold up coming into some of those corners as much as the race model. But that's great if you're at a race level and you're going really fast. If you're not, you don't need that firmer harder suspension. This suspension package will work for 90% of the people out there. That's why it won our 300cc hard enduro shootout, and that's why we were so impressed with it today is that for trail stuff, it's super soft, it's super plush, it absorbs everything, and providing you're not hammering a racetrack, it's it's okay. Um so despite it being the lowest spec suspension, and despite everyone saying, Oh, I want I need KYB to go fast, you don't. If you're a trail rider, this suspension will be okay. If you're really heavy, I'm heavy too, you probably could go up a spring rate or two and start tinkering with some suspension. But if you're just going to cruise around on it, you don't want to spend any more money on it, and you want to get the slightly more affordable version of the beater, you won't have any problems with the suspension. Um, mapping modes, you know what? I actually didn't find the mapping modes made it as much different with this model as they did with the race. Uh riddle me that, I'm not entirely sure why, it's probably a question more for the text that we've got here today. But um, there's still a noticeable difference from rain map to sun map. Uh, but and I ended up just riding it in the rain in the sun map and just running tall gears because I like I said, down low so good, you could run taller gears down low in the sun map. Um, and I did put it on the rain map a little bit, but it just signs off real early, which is fantastic if it is slippery and greasy and you don't want a wheel spin out of every single corner. That's unreal. But we had pretty good traction today, so I just left it in the sun map, tall gears. Uh, everything else on this bike, Nissan brakes, they're improved this year. They've got a different caliper on the front, so it makes them just a little bit stronger. We had some kind of spongy brakes a few years ago on the beater, but they've rectified all that. Uh, the seat, great for trail riding all day. Beaters uh two or three years ago was like sitting on a piece of wood. This thing's soft, so if you want to sit down all day and trail ride for three days in a row, your ass isn't gonna go numb. Clutch, super light, you can adjust the uh lever position so you can move it back and forth. We had no issues with the clutch today. And the balance and the feel of the bike, these bikes, as everyone knows, beaters feel nimble, they feel narrow, they feel low to the ground, they feel really well planted, they're just a very comfortable and neutral bar position. Now, the only thing that I prefer of the race model over the X Pro is the bar mount. These have a taller bar mount than the race. The race is a flatter uh bar mount, and I don't really like the taller feel in the bars. So, probably the only thing that um I would change on this bike if I was just a trail rider. Other than that, I'd just take it out and ride it. Um, there's nothing wrong with it. Anyway, I've spoken enough.