SPECIAL FEATURES
HONDA CBR600F2 PREVIEW
First ride on Honda’s latest middleweight balancing act.
BMW ’91
First the Berlin Wall comes down—and now BMW has a
damping-adjustable shock.
ROAD TEST
HONDA XR250L
Honda invites you to discover motorcycling’s roots. Also its
boulders, sandwashes, mud bogs, 1000-foot drop-offs, pointy
sticks, rabid roadside rodents . . .
F..E..A TURES
BENCHMARK BIKES
Eight great motorcycles that define the state of this art.
THE INNOCENT ABROAD by Kevin Cameron
Mr. Cameron goes to Cologne for the world’s biggest bike show.
BREAKING AWAY by Kevin Cameron
Will Doug Chandler be the next American Grand Prix star?
JOHN KOCINSKI: WORLD CHAMPION by Ken Vreeke
Seven Grand Prix wins might have looked easy; they weren’t.
BORN TO BE MILD by John Burns
Hog wild in Sturgis.
D E P A RIM ENTS
EDITORIAL by Steve Anderson
TDC by Kevin Cameron
LETTERS
BITS compiled by Tyrone van Hooydonk
PIPELINE by Jim Greening
...head-cam. four-valve head for maximum
valve area and airflow; by 1982 the
XL250R had a six-speed gearbox and
single-shock. Pro-Link rear suspension.
In 1984. the XL received twin carbs and
an RFVC (Radial Four Valve
Combustion) head, which disposed its
valves radially around the bore axis to
create a tine hemispherical combustion
chamber. Trick stuff, but four years later,
after 16 years of development. Honda
canned the XLs in favor of the new NX
series—machines that went backward,
to the SL concept of street machines with
fireroad styling. Limp suspension and
fragile, crack-me-if-you-can fairings
made the NXs poor choices for riders
who wanted to keep going when the
pavement didn't, and the new machines
were poorly accepted. Ironically, last
year. Suzuki lifted Honda's four-slroke-
dirt-bike-with-lights formula with its
DR-S models, and sold a lot of motorcy-
cles. Honda was left scrambling for a
counlerpunch.
It arrives this year in the XR250L,
which—like the XL-250 in 1972—
comes closer to being a true dirt bike
than any street-legal Honda before. To
make its intentions clear, Honda named
its new dual-purpose machine after its
XR four-stroke dirt bike line.
Fortunately for off-road riding fans, the
XR-L shares more than a name with its
dirt-only counterpart. Bruce Ogilvie—a
Barslow-lo-Vegas winner and four-lime
Baja 500 champ, including wins on
Honda XRs—had a pari in developing
the XR-L. Its lineage traces to the
XR250R of 1986-90. and lo the streel-
going XL250R of the Japanese market.
All three bikes cast virtually the same
shadow, share numerous parts and simi-
lar engines, but the XR-L is mostly a
combination of the dirt bike’s chassis
components and the road bike’s street
equipment and instrumentation. Like the
dirt-going 250, the XR-L runs with an
overhead-cam. air-cooled single displac-
ing 249cc. The two almost identical
engines feature Honda’s RFVC head and
mix fuel with a single, accelerator-pump-
equipped. 30mm Keihin carburetor; the
earlier twin-carb arrangement was sacri-
ficed in the 1986 XR, according lo
Ogilvie, because of its apparent com-
plexity, even though it gave slightly bel-
ter performance.
Noise and emissions standards dictat-
ed most ol the changes that transformed
the XR250R engine for its new street
mission. The XR-L has a lower compres-
sion ratio (9.3:1 from 10.2:1), 3.2mm-
smaller head pipes, a quieter muffler,
and a slightly different airbox; the XR
has a removable, noise-supressing lid.
Valve sizes and intake and exhaust open-
ing times remain the same, but the XR-L
closes its intakes 5 degrees sooner...