Long-Term Report Honda Xr250
Long-Term Report HONDAXR250
For Once No News Is Good News
One reason historians report giant events in sweeping scale is because an individual involved in such great events can miss them entirely, can do nothing more than pull guard duty while all around him epic battles rage. The Honda XR250 shown has led as calm a life as any dirt bike ever experienced. For the past year it's gone out to woods or desert every week or so, been ridden hard, cleaned and checked and rolled into a corner of the garage until the next week. It's done Barstow to Vegas twice, visited exotic Mexico, gone on photo shoots with fancy works motocrossers...and nothing has happened to it. The spokes are straight, the seat is unripped and the tank undented. With 1200 mi. on the odometer it's still on its original spark plug. Two oil changes, a set of shocks and tires and that's all. Not much of a report. More like an account of the wait until something happens, except that this is a 1979 model.
And there hangs most of the story. The current Honda four-valve, four-stroke Singles in 250 and 500cc form were introduced in 1978, in dirt-only (XR) and street-legal (XL) form. They had some clever touches, like dual counterbalancers for smoothness, 23-in. front wheels for more tire tread on the ground, close-ratio primary drive so less torque would be multiplied and the gears could be smaller and thus lighter, but in the main the new XL/ XR line followed the original XL250 and XL350 in that the engines were strong and mild, the suspensions sturdy and predictable. The machines were unbreakable and too heavy for anything except serious play.
Some of our people like motorcycles done this way so early in the 1979 model year we borrowed an XR250 and began riding it, while keeping records of what worked and what didn't, what went wrong and how much trouble it was to fix.
Nothing went wrong, nothing got fixed and everything worked, well, we never did like the 23-in. wheel and tire because the long, thin footprint seems to slow the steering and make it heavy at high speed while not giving any extra traction as a result. But when the bike had about 1000 mi. on the clock, it went for a long trip in Mexico.
The biggest man in the office was riding it wide open on a sand road when he discovered a gulley too wide to jump and too close to avoid. Man and machine flew through the air and came down from 20 ft. or so. They stayed upright and although nothing broken could be found, the rider quickly discovered that the XR wouldn't go straight. The rear wheel wasn't going where the front was aimed and something, the swing arm, the rear of the frame or both, had been skewed by the non-crash landing. He rode it the rest of the trip like that, and no other damage turned up.
Usual rules are that long-term bikes are treated as if we owned them and are serviced and repaired by us or by one of the local dealers.
The misaligned something was out of our experience, being not exactly crash damage and surely not warranty work and not the sort of repair we do on Saturday morning. The Honda guys asked to see the bike, so they'd know what had happened. Might be useful for future models. So we dropped it off at the factory's shop.
We never saw the bike again. Nor did we ever learn what had happened, as the factory men all went blank when we asked until finally they said oh, yeah, that XR250. We sold it.
This isn't to say they were wrong or trying to hide something. More likely a mixup. Our conclusion was that the jump and impact had been so nearly a crash that we couldn't blame the XR250 for bending under the strain, thus the flaw wasn't something wrong with the model.
The long-term test was resumed, with another 1979 XR250 because the first one disappeared just before the start of the 1980 model year.
The second first 1000 mi., so to speak, were just like the first first 1000 mi. The engine was broken in and the XR was taken to the trails and hills and sand washes. It was hosed off and the filter cleaned, the chain oiled and the oil changed and that was all. Never missed a beat, never faltered.
We were sorry Honda asked that the XR250 not be included in the 250 enduro comparison (OF, Aug. 1980) because although it isn't the lightest or most powerful and wasn't intended to compete against the two-strokes, the rugged engine, good gearing and predictable handling would have served Honda well in the test. The XR wouldn't have won, but neither would it have come in last.
The second XR did compete in one
race, an amateur hare-and-hound in the desert. One of the staff kids had gone riding with pals from school. They discovered there was a race so they entered.
The XR was first pie plate, i.e. novice, for most of the race. Then the XR went on another long flight. This time the rider was light and all that happened was the front tire burst under the impact. The kid rode the last 10 mi. on the flat, wasn't last and had a good time, which is the next best thing to a trophy.
CHANGES
If the XR250 has flaws, they are the tires and the rear shocks. We managed to improve both.
The Honda-designed rear knobby was replaced with a Hi-Point Enduro model, 4.50-18. This is a conventional knobby; square knobs in staggered-number rows, designed mostly for loam and mud. We have no numbers for this, but the Hi-Point, a Metzeler copy for less money, was much better in loose ground than the stock tire and was slightly better in sand and on hardpack.
The front tire was replaced with an IRC, again a square knob design. We were happy to see this because until IRC introduced a rival 23-incher, the XR owner had a choice of the Honda tire or nothing. The IRC was better under all conditions, the XR steered with more precision on hardpack and rocks, and better but not awfully well, in sand.
Stock shocks will suit the calm rider but fade quickly at speed. They were replaced with S&W Strokers, extra length to match the stock units. These come with primary and secondary springs, in choice of rates, and in firm or soft models. We swapped back and forth during the year, with the light riders preferring the soft units and heavy riders the firm ones. That single race rider said the firm models faded after half an hour at speed, but they recovered once the XR was returned to its normal calm habits. Strokers are nitrogen/oil, with no reservoirs or motocross features, and at $ 1 36.90 they are a bargain.
This second 1979 test was cut short, in the sense that we still hadn't broken anything or needed any real maintenance, by the law.
The editor was given a ticket for transporting an unlicensed motorcycle. The only way to resolve the issue was for the XR to be registered for offroad use. Only Honda, the legal owner, could do that, and the only way Honda could do it was to trace the engine and frame numbers and send them with the money. They had to have the bike, they said and anyway, it's too old to be in the factory fleet. Because we know what happens when they get back a loaner, we figured to end the longterm test now.
Conclusion: All the news nowadays seems to be motocross and suspension travel and so forth. Racing dirt bikes, in so many words.
But there must be dirt riders who are play riders, who'd just as soon ride and wash and ride again. The 1981 XR250 seems to have corrected the major shortcomings of the first XRs, with single shock rear suspension and 21-in. front wheel. Just how good they are, we'll see when the 1981 arrives.
The engine and drivetrain are little changed, with a six-speed transmission added, which means that for riders who'd rather ride than wrench, who prefer to thump up hills than fly through the air, the XR250 is ready when they are.
