Life with 250

This Could be the Most Fun-per-Dollar Motorcycle I’ve Ever Owned

This article was originally published in the November/December issue of “On the Level,” the magazine of the BMW Riders Association. Not long ago, having decided that my motorcycling life is entirely too sanitary, I bought a Honda CRF250L dirt bike on Craigslist, for $2,000. A friend drove me to San Francisco to pick it up, and I rode it home to Santa Cruz on the interstate, at 8,000 rpm, for two hours. Cars passed me going 30 mph faster, carrying small children with their faces smushed against the glass. “Mommy, why is that man wrestling with his motorcycle?” I imagined them asking. “Maybe he has a wasp in his jacket!”

Indeed, I thought my head would explode, or my arms would fall off. Neither happened, and fortunately, everything got better from there. The short version is that I’ve ridden the crap out of the miniature motorcycle, and every minute has been a party. I washed it once, but decided it really wasn’t worth it. I have changed the vital fluids, and the air cleaner, so there may be a place in the lower rungs of heaven for me.

But I doubt it, because I have fallen over quite a few times at the local OHV park, and it really doesn’t look as good as it did when I bought it. But I haven’t run into a single person who’s noticed the damage, least of all my wife, who wishes I hadn’t bought it in the first place.

I’ve become quite possessed by the little screamer. Despite its paltry 23 hp, the bike has spent an inordinate amount of time with the front wheel in the air. Make no mistake: this only occurs when aided by sculpturally perfect whoops. In other words, riding skill is not a factor; the same thing would result with a crash test dummy aboard. Power wheelies are something the little Honda only dreams about, despite the installation of a 13-tooth countershaft sprocket. The latter modification has taken the CRF’s reputation from “anemic” to “barely competent” among my off-road brethren.

In my teens, I rode a succession of two-stroke dirt bikes in (literally) 10 cc increments. This included a Honda 70, a Yamaha 80, a Yamaha 90, and a Yamaha 100. Talk about baby steps. Evenings were spent “decoking” pistons and making important modifications of the day, like adding a Preston Petty front fender and removing exhaust baffles, which did little to improve my already low reputation in the neighborhood.

I also crashed a lot—seemingly daily. But since I was young and apparently pliable, no serious injuries resulted. (I do, however, seem to remember that my progression through advanced mathematics in high school slowed to a crawl. In retrospect, there may have been brain damage.) Once, aiming to impress my mom, I asked her to watch my newly perfected wheelie in the side yard. Aided by a small ramp, the front wheel came up in a moment of impeccable beauty and perfection, pointing skyward like Michelangelo’s finger. The wheel remained up as I went through my mother’s freshly painted picket fence and cherished rose garden. I eventually came to rest in an exquisite, one-man yard sale, surrounded by wood splinters. I’m pretty sure she wasn’t impressed.

The CRF is exactly one gazillion times better than what I rode in 1972. But it’s still a real pooch compared to the current crop of “real” dirt bikes. My riding pals love to malign me about my choice of motorcycle because, ahem, an Orange Bike Made in Austria would be oh-so-much-better off road and why wouldn’t I just cough up the dough to buy a proper machine?

The short answer is that I am a cheap bastard. Perhaps someday I will graduate to a bike that has suspension that can be easily adjusted to accommodate whatever you had for breakfast, weighs 250 pounds, and can be tuned with a cell phone app. The CRF, in contrast, has only one suspension adjustment, which requires Neanderthal moves with a drift and large hammer: a great commotion which has minimal effects on actual handling but does tend to leave interesting metal bits on the ground. Like most things with the little Honda, it’s a messy and approximate affair.

When I was researching my choice of motorcycle, all the forums said, “You’ll quickly outgrow this bike, and wish you’d bought something more sophisticated. You’ll also want to replace all the suspension after six months, because you’ll be bottoming out all the time.”

“Never!” I said. “This is plenty of bike for me!” Naturally, after six months, I replaced all the suspension, at a cost of nearly $1,000. As my friends remind me with great glee, I could have spent that $1,000 on Something Orange in the first place and been much better off. Apparently, I’m a slow learner.

Almost all of our riding takes place at the local OHV park. Usually this involves a truck or trailer, but sometimes I ride there on the little 250, which happens to have a license plate. This involves about 20 miles of highway riding at 65 mph, during which the little Honda feels like a nuclear experiment that is about to explode in a glorious mushroom cloud. I’m exhausted before the off-road riding even gets underway.

Besides being more relaxing, traveling in my friend’s brand-new Honda Ridgeline presents an opportunity to listen to old blues and talk about what good dirt bike riders we used to be, and might be again. In other words, it’s perfect for prevarication, a prerequisite for motorcycle riders worldwide.

On a good day, we do about 35 miles of singletrack, punctuated by peanut-butter-and-jelly sandwiches back at the truck, and more fictional tales of riding prowess. We also stop out on the trail, to discuss important issues like tire choice and what kind of motorcycle we would buy if untethered by household budgets and, well, reality.

My skills are improving with glacial speed. One of my riding buddies has actually won vintage motocross events, and even raced flat track back in the day. For him, having the wheels squirm and slide is normal. When this happens to me, I clamp my jaw shut hard, along with other parts of my body that will not be named.

The little bike has also made me a better rider on my BMW R1200GS.  However, while I do dirt roads quite often on that big bike, I don’t aspire to do technical singletrack. Every time I think about riding gnarly trails on a 525-pound motorcycle, it generates a recurring nightmare in which I’m seated in the office of my orthopedic surgeon, looking at illuminated x-rays of a broken tib/fib. Upon closer examination, I notice that the x-ray carries my name.

But for now, I am having a blast, murdering the little CRF in the way that motorcyclists have done to Hondas since time immemorial. As far as I can tell, these bikes operate on an inverse principal of longevity. The more you abuse them, the farther they go.

And for now, it’s all the motorcycle I need. If I owned an actual, competent dirt bike, then I wouldn’t get wonderful, backhanded compliments like, “I can’t believe how well you ride that POS!” Or, “Congratulations! You made it up that hill without stalling or falling over!” Statements like this are enough to make the World’s Worst Dirt Biker swell with pride.

In every instance that I’ve gone down in displacement, I’ve been happy with the choice. At this rate, the motorcycle that I’ll own in my dotage will be a 50-cc pit bike with 12-inch wheels. But motorcycles, no matter the size, are also time machines. I’ve noticed that the more I twist that stick, the younger and less mature I get. By the end of a good day at the OHV park, I am practically a child.