In all fairness the new Honda CRF 450 is better then a YZ426, for overall power/weight. Now the new YZ 450 is a lot closer to being the same bike, sooo... point is they are all good bikes, Yamaha has been dominant in performance 4-strokes for the last few years so most of the bikes out are those, I´m not brand-loyal, and basically picked the honda because I off-road a fair bit and like being a little closer to the ground, couldn´t start the yammies without a stool, tree, rock, ect... BTW nothing can hang with a street bike 600cc+ unless you put it on a dirt track :)