The saga of the dual sport Hondas, from the XL250S to the CRF300

If a journalist writes an article to celebrate a motorcycle he likes, is he a “hustler”? Why, if so, I’d be disbarred. But I am a sincere fan of the Honda XL250 and all the little sisters that have succeeded it, up to the current CRF300. I’ve always had to do with them, willy-nilly, I’ve always found them around me, guided by this and that. I’ve always thought it was a bike to buy, for a lot of good reasons. Meanwhile, it must be said that the first of the series, the XL250S, appeared at the end of the seventies, when it was considered normal to make very long journeys even with 250 cc bikes. She was robust, cheap in petrol and maintenance, went everywhere, from the office desk to the North Cape, passing through the dunes of the Sahara. Now, they have made many such versatile dual sports, especially the more powerful and showy 500/600 cc, but this little Honda, evolution after evolution, has come down to our days: it’s called the CRF300, it’s available in two versions (L and Rally) and maintains the same qualities, including that of the small engine capacity. Yes, I’m talking about quality, even if we live in a very fast world, where I too am used to racking up km on big motorbikes, which purr slyly at 140 km/h. But the quarter liter has its reasons and I’ll try to explain it by talking about all these Hondines that have accompanied my motorcycling existence, almost always under someone else’s butt.