My first dirt bike was a KTM 250, same 4 stroke Subzali has. super light and fun on easy stuff, but when things got hard I was bad at it- my RPM's were either too low and I'd stall, or too high and I'd flip over backwards, almost impossible to start again on a steep climb. Once I rode Marco's 525 for a day, I sold the 250 and bought one a 525. It's so much easier to be able to get lazy on gears, lower RPM's, the fact that I almost can't stall even when it's all loose and full of roots and what not. The extra 30-40 pounds to me totally worth it... I feel much safer on the bigger bike and can do way more on it. but I also think the CRF's are a little more tolerant of doing low end grunts than KTM's, as the CRF 230's I've ridden (Barry's, Al's) didn't seem to have as much of the same vulnerability as the KTM did.