A short story of the Honda XR650L dual-sport motorcycle in a long lifespan
The 32-year history of the Honda XR650L can be fit into a very brief summary: It arrived in 1993. It’s still here. The XR is an accountant’s dream bike. It was assembled mostly from existing parts, and for more than three decades nothing has changed—no new tooling, no new parts, no new part numbers. It’s a page right out of the Volkswagen Beetle playbook.
Honda changed the color from red to white and back to red a few times. There were also a few details that changed in its second year, but it truly is a living fossil of a motorcycle. The seeds that generated that 1993 model, however, can be traced back another 20 years to the very birth of the Japanese dual-sport bike.
1972: The Honda XL250 was released. In a massive ad campaign, JN Roberts was pictured flying over a sand dune in all the popular print magazines. Even though Honda had a long history of scramblers and minis, this was the company’s most serious dirt bike. It was street-legal, but at the time, there were plans to introduce a motocross version, and Gary Jones was hired to ride it. That program was eventually abandoned in favor of the CR250M two-stroke, but in the Honda history book, the XL250 was the start of what we now call dual-sport bikes. It was joined by an XL350 in 1974.
1979: Honda’s dual-purpose line expanded and the XL500S replaced the XL350. It was a much bigger motorcycle, and you can begin to see a resemblance to the present-day XR650L motor. Honda also released a dirt-only version called the XR500R—that was the first bike carrying the XR designation. Both had 23-inch front wheels.
1981: Honda went a little nuts with a sweeping redesign of all its dirt models. The CRs and XRs all were reconfigured around the Pro Link single-shock rear suspension system. The XRs remained air-cooled while the motocross bikes got liquid-cooling. The 23-inch front-wheel concept was abandoned.
1982: The XL500S dual-sport bike was updated with a version of the XR500R Pro Link chassis. It had less suspension travel, a steel fuel tank and different overall styling than the XR.
1983: The XL was completely redesigned and punched out to a 589cc. This motor was the first version of the present-day XR650L. It incorporated the Radial Four-Valve Combustion Chamber (RFVC). That year, the XR remained a 500 and was joined by a 350.
1985: The XR got the 589cc RFVC motor, and both the XL and the XR grew a second carburetor. That system was abandoned two years later.
1988: Honda lost its corporate mind and discontinued the XL600. Instead, the NX650 arrived. It used an electric-start version of the RFVC motor with a longer stroke and no kickstarter at all. The chassis and styling were inspired by the Dakar Rally with a larger fuel tank and a frame-mount fairing. The rally-raid look was a European craze at the time, but Americans just didn’t get it. The NX was discontinued after two years in the U.S., but remained in Europe where it was called “The Dominator.” The XR600R remained, but now with a single carburetor.
1993: Honda took the dirt-only XR600R chassis and gave it the NX650 motor. The XR650L was born.
The post THE LIFE AND TIMES OF THE HONDA XR650L appeared first on Dirt Bike Magazine.
