The History of Honda's XR250 and XR250R off-road machines from 1979- 2004

[Music] this is Tony blazer back with another video for the motocross vault here on YouTube for this one we're gonna do is when I look back at a motorcycle that a lot of us have written over the years certainly one of the most popular machines Honda ever built the venerable XR 250 are not strictly a motocross bike obviously more of a kind of a woods play bike over the years Honda kind of marketed it as a legitimate enduro machine really that's maybe a stretch compared to like the two strokes and stuff that it kind of competed against it was obviously much more of a play bike but a super reliable fun motorcycle I've actually actually had the 200 I never had the 250 but a good friend of Mines had the 250 ever in a lot of over the years they're super fun great bikes pretty much indestructible as long as you change the oil the darn things and definitely one of the most iconic machines Honda's produced over the last 50 years or so this is gonna look at all the XRS from the time they started in 1979 through the 2004 which is last year we're gonna talk a little bit about the significant models I'm you know obviously a lot of them didn't change a ton from year to year there are a few big steps where they would make some major change to the model but a lot of the time the XR has just got bold into graphics and stuff so I'm not gonna get into details unless there's a significant change but this would give you a good overview of the history of the model like I said certainly one of the coolest bikes Honda did over the years and one that a lot of us wrote when we were younger and I'm sure a lot of you guys still have them and write them now they're just they're just fun bikes which off-road riding should always be about fun and if fun is the quotient the XR is definitely one of the best machines you get on so I hope you all enjoy if you do subscribe and hit that little bell there to make sure you get updated when we do a new one and here we go the history of the Honda XR 250 R as with other videos I thought it'd be a good idea to go back to the beginning here and give a little context to the market place that the XR was introduced to in 1979 Honda in 1972 actually introduced their first kind of off-road focused 250 not really an enduro bike more of a dual sport bike original Excel 250 now at the time most Japanese mowed off-road motorcycles were just like this one they're really kind of a dual sport the Yamaha dt1 enduro a lot of Kawasaki they weren't really as serious off-road focused as later machines would be they were kind of a jack-of-all-trades you could take the lights off here the excel was designed to have the lights removed and kind of turning in an off-road bike certainly not as narrow focused really really much more of a universal Japanese motorcycles they used to say even on the street into things they didn't have sport bikes they didn't have cruisers the Japanese kind of built do-it-all motorcycles and the enduro market here is very much the same kind of deal this original accel was powered by a 250 cc single-cylinder overhead cam engine pretty advanced for its time Honda was always a four-stroke company first since they had been started and they were really specializing this at the time almost all the Japanese motorcycles were exclusively two-stroke that Street and dirt Suzuki's street motorcycles are all two strokes that are off-road enduro bikes are two strokes Yamaha same kind of deal but Honda kind of clung to the four-stroke ideal that gave it an improved reliability is certainly easier to service kind of led to that whole idea that you meet the nicest people on a Honda as the Honda's required they didn't stink they didn't break down good reliable bikes kind of the same thing they're known for now in 1973 Honda bucked that four-stroke trend by introducing their first competition two-stroke motorcycle the original CR 250 M Elsinore this was obviously a major break at the time from Honda's kind of internal doctrine mr. Honda famously fought the idea of having a two-stroke but seeing the writing on the wall was Suzuki's excellent success on the GP seen in the motocross arena they realized that a four-stroke wasn't going to cut it from motocross racing at the time so they went ahead and developed a full-on competition two-stroke in 1974 Honda added a second two-stroke to line up with the revolutionary CR 125 M Elsinore the 1 to 5 version was even more popular than the 250 and really set a new bar for Japanese performance in the small bore class in 1975 the success of the 125 CR was followed up with a new enduro version the mr 175 the 175 had a lot of the DNA of the CR in it but it added lights and some other enduro equipment it was certainly much more serious than the XLS and stuff in terms of off-road ability a lot of guys took some see our stuff and stuck him on there and kind of made a pretty pretty potent off-road light weight off-road machine out of it in 1976 the mr 175 was joined by an all-new 250 version the all-new mr2 50 was based on the CR line and featured a motocross style chassis with some added enduro equipment the tank was larger at 3.4 gallons it also added things like a speedometer off-road tuned suspension and a carburetor that featured what they called a power jet I can only assume this is not the same power jet that was found on a 1997 CR 250 in spite of the name I don't think they had the sophisticated electronics in 1976 to make that work one interesting thing to notice about the mr is the fact that honda saw fit to put the elsinore name on it unlike the 175 the 250 does get the official Elsinore name so it you can tell they're kind of trying to trade on their kind of the cachet of the CR line with the mr the bike obviously was designed to be off-road first as lights and stuff and enduro tuned suspension but it was certainly much more serious than an XL and a pretty potent machine with once you put a little bit of some see our stuff on a lot of people found it to be a pretty good bike that year interestingly though Honda only saw fit to build it this one year the MT I'm sorry the mr 175 did go on for 1977 but the 250 version only made it this one year so it's really a unique and rare motorcycle today after a couple years off Honda re-entered the 250 Endura market in 1979 with an all-new machine the XR 250 now what set this bike apart from most of its competition was the fact that it was powered by a four-stroke single and a two-cycle the Pease I tease although Houska varnas KTM / Pitons at the time were powered by two strokes getting back to their four-stroke routes Honda decided to go with a four-stroke single for this new off-road motorcycle using a 249 cc single overhead cam for valve or cylinder engine this new motor design featured a pent roof head and it's certainly more sophisticated valve train than the original XL and 72 had used now by modern four-stroke standards this motor looks pretty simple but in 1979 it was pretty advanced a lot of a lot of four-stroke still we're using two valve heads it doesn't have a dual overhead cam design but again for the time this was a pretty advanced motor design out of claim 252 pounds the new XR was substantially heavier than some of its two-stroke competition but that wasn't an outrageous amount when you compared it to like an Excel or some of the street-legal versions of the the Honda's lineup the bike did have dual shocks in the back they were considered long travel for the time they're certainly not as long travel as like what was fine on a CR that year but fernand dura bike it wasn't bad the suspension was very soft though they tried to market this thing really as a serious enduro bike but if you were to pull up against you know like a serious bike from Europe Husqvarna or something the the XR was certainly weighed down on power the main problem was the motor and stuff was pretty mild the bike was actually much heavier probably than the 252 they claimed it was closer and weight to the 500cc version and really there wasn't much of a weight savings between the two the bike was kind of a really more of a play bike it was very heavy slow not really much real competition for anybody on a serious two-stroke at the time the main advantage was the motor was very liable it didn't have you know the frequent maintenance you didn't need to tear it apart and rebuild it like you would a two-stroke all the time the bike basically as long as you kept the oil in and it did ran and ran and ran but it was certainly heavier and way down on power compared to anything else that would be going up against in addition to having a unique powerplant this first edition of the XR had a few other little quirks to it that set apart from the competition the first thing was used a 23 inch front wheel which was in Honda's idea at the time gonna give it a little better tracking in the rough they thought it would roll over roots and rocks and logs better in practice it just kind of gave the bike a strange handling feel I don't think most people really care for the 23 inch wheel they also tried it on the cr125 that year and it was pretty quickly dropped it also had very limited tire selection due to the fact it was an oddball size now how did address this by actually introducing their own tire that year it was called the claw action tire they had a version for the motocross line and the enduro line it was supposed to you know improve traction in yadda-yadda-yadda but very much like the other quirks of the bike it was pretty much panned by all the press I don't think anybody much cared for the claw action tire and it was dropped by I think 1981 I think 80 they used it as well they dropped it in 81 for 1980 the XR line remained largely unchanged the only real significant change was upgrade in displacement on the XR 185 to a XR 200 I actually had an extra 200 this exact one you see here on the left fun little bike I tried to motocross it quite a bit and end up breaking the frame repeatedly but it was a fun little motorcycle just not really made for that the XR 500 and the 250 kept the 23 inch wheel for 1980 and like I said we're basically unchanged not much difference I always thought this front number plate light combo was pretty weird-looking on these no definitely not one of my favorite designs but the XR s did have a lot of cool features they had folding shift levers folding brake levers features you would not often found on motocross bikes nice stuff that you'd have to get from the aftermarket the tool pouch was a nice touch speedometers built in there for enduro use so it's pretty well pretty well equipment little motorcycle just didn't have a lot of a lot of outright performance in 1981 Hamid dialed up its first major redesign of the XR line both the XR 250 and XR 500 got a total makeover that year the chassis bodywork the looks everything was all new it featured a new single shock rear suspension system which was very similar to what was found on the Honda motocross line that year Honda chose to call their system the pro link and it featured a large single damper connected to a rising rate linkage below the shock now the idea behind the pro link and all the rising rate linkages that you see today is to give the shock a more progressive action to give it the ability to absorb small impacts and follow the Train easily on small stuff while still giving it sufficient bottoming resistance on large hits the problem with the dual shock design was a couple of things it tended to be wider in the middle it was definitely had a wider profile the single shock gave the bike a slimmer profile through the middle and it was difficult to get it to both absorb small stuff and not then not bottomed out so the idea behind the linkage was obviously to give you a wider range of control on hitting obstacles now the pro link on the CRS was a little more advanced than what was found on the XRS here the shock wasn't quite as good it did offer for adjustments for rebound damping there was no no compression damping adjustable on it it did have a remote reservoir basically this was a pretty significant upgrade at the time it was pretty trick that the XR has got of the same year that the CRS did now there is a differential here if you notice the the XR 250 and extra 500 get the our designation this year and that kind of sets them apart from the regular ex ours and the literature basically says these are the more race-ready models the regular XR 200 some of the other ones just didn't did not get the R in their name that year they were considered more obviously play bikes and again Hamid is still trying to basically you know market this is a race ready machine even though realistically if you were a serious racer the XR 250 was probably not your first choice the 500 was a pretty good like desert bike it was pretty good for that but the 250 still at this point is using the same pent roof 4 valve engine and it's it's pretty down on power at this point you know 252 strokes were much much more powerful than a 250 four-stroke would be it's nothing like you'd see today where the 4 strokes are putting out very similar power this engines very simple reliable but certainly not a powerhouse the new suspension was tricked but it didn't do a whole lot to make the bike really much more competitive against the two strokes two other little tidbits to mention 481 you'll notice that the front tire is now a 21 inch hoop so that they did ditch the weird 23 inch in 1981 when they redesign the bike but they also when with another strange choice they went with a 17 inch rear like the 23 this did give it a limited selection of rear tires I guess Honda was steadfast and having an oddball combination on the Rex ours for some reason I do imagine the 17 maybe gave you a little more sidewall protection kind of similar to what 18 versus 19 on a modern bike but it definitely limited the amount of tires you could choose so if you're riding XR you were going to be getting some weird weird tires in 1981 after the total redesign in 1981 the 82 XR was really just a bold new graphics deal as you can see the side panel here has changed from black to white the graphics are slightly different but other than that it's exactly the same motorcycle as it was the year before for 1983 Honda chose not to offer an XR 250r and instead decided to focus on a new mid-sized model the XR 350 are the heart of this new machine would be a redesigned 4 stroke 4 valve engine Honda would coined the RF VC which stood for radial 4 valve combustion now this new motor used a hemispherical combustion chamber a narrow angle set of valves and a centrally located spark plug to provide a faster and more efficient burn than the old pit roof design it still had a single overhead cam there was no dual overhead cam in it but it was a little more efficient design overall the bike was redesigned as well the 350 and the 500 this year had all new bodywork a new look as well they went from the Tahitian red which is a dark kind of a blood red to a new more orange e red and a blue seat here which could more closely mimic what was on the Honda CR s and the Honda works bikes in 82 personally I think this is my favorite color combination of any of the XR s and I love the looks of these mid-eighties models for 1984 Honda's XR 250r was back with an all-new design unlike previous XR to fifties this new model was based on the smaller more nimble XR 200 platform previous XR s had based been based largely on the 500 chassis which was great for like big wide open spaces like Baja and such but made the bike kind of heavy and unwieldy in the in the trees the 200 while significantly less powerful actually handled better in these situations and was a lot easier to manhandle in the kind of tight eastern conditions you would want the 250 for the side benefit of downsizing everything was a pretty huge significant savings as well and wait the 84 model was a whopping 34 pounds lighter than the 80 to 250 which was a huge difference the new motor maintained the RFE are fvc configuration that was used on the 83 350 and 500 and also maintained the dual carb set up that motor used now that basically was a system that allowed one carburetor to function at low rpms to give you a good response at a certain point the second carb system would kick in and give the motorist additional fuel to give you a good top in pole in theory that was a pretty great system but it could be kind of person taking you to get right it was really easy to get those two carbs out of sync some people weren't super a big fans of that setup but if you got a working right it was a very efficient system on the chassis side of things the XR 250 shared the same 50 3.7 inch wheelbase as the 200 this gave it a very nimble feel excellent turning in the trees but probably not the best high speed stability for going bombing across the desert both bikes shared the same 10 inches of travel in the front and 9.6 9.6 inches in the rear this was obviously short of what you would have found on a motocross bike at the time but more than sufficient for the kind of enduro type woods stuff that you would probably want an xr2 50 for the bike did have a front disc brake for 84 that's what this is all new on the on the 250 rear was still a drum in the shock the pro only did all four compression and rebound adjustability that new but this bench it was still pretty soft on these things I mean there if you're gonna try any jumps you're probably gonna bottom out pretty hard like I said earlier I broke the frame on my two hundred several times my buddy who had a 250-year too after this we broke the frame on it many times any kind of motocross use for these bikes was really ill-advised unless you were going to completely revamp the suspension in spite of the fact that the basic components look similar to what you would have found on the motocross bike that the settings and stuff were way way different and it just wasn't up for that kind of for that kind of use but if you're going to just kind of plunk around in the woods and go over roots and stuff it was very plush and and real good for that while this redesign was considered a success in most ways there was one major flaw with it in four-stroke design there are kind of two separate basic designs for carrying the oil what was what would be known as like a wet sump which is where the motor carries the oil inside of it and a dry sump where there is an external oil tank now that can be employed for several reasons on a race car you'd use that usually to keep the oil cool and also to keep the g-forces from slinging all the oil out of the motor to make sure it gets proper lubrication you can see that in like a Corvette or something on a motorcycle typically it's more of the case if you want to cool it you want to give a little more oil capacity and also give its oil somewhere to go to cool off well these early 80s xrs used a wet sump motor meaning it carried all the oil inside that motor and they suffered from some overheating issues as you can see the motor is air-cooled to start it up with which was really simplistic meaning you couldn't bash a radiator and get stranded but the motors tended to run hot and these early wet sump ones they ran really hot the valve springs were also a little bit soft and once that thing got hot it was really easy to float the valves and Roache the motor so in general while xrs have a pretty bulletproof reputation these 83 to 85 ones were not the best there was definitely some problems there if you ever having to try and buy one make sure you're careful because if it's pretty old pretty chances are pretty good the the valvetrain might be roached on it for 90 85 both the xr2 50 are and XR 200 were back in Honda's lineup with only very very minor updates visually there were some new graphics which I actually happen to love I love this red white and blue Honda wing this was the first year for that design a really great look on the XR s and the CRS that year there's also a set of fork boots that are now blue instead of black and the shock spring was blue other than that it's just minor jetting changes overall between the two years not a lot of difference the motor as you can see you're only put out a very meager output this engine was not a powerhouse man he means by four-stroke standards or two-stroke most 80s probably could give the see of it give this XR a run for its money in terms of total output a twenty point eight horsepower not not a powerhouse but it was a good little torquey motor as before this engine is a wet sump design it's basically exactly the same as what they had in 84 so you had to stay on top of oil you had to watch it like a hawk and be careful not to overheat the darn thing and then wrote your valves the bike continue to be very softly suspended suspension again was tuned for you know off-road use only so it wasn't wasn't up for any serious serious bombing through the whoops or jumps certainly were really not on the agenda bike did handle well like I said the XR 200 and 250 have the exact same chassis they're very very nimble bikes for their weight and size good turning machines good bullets bikes while the 250 was relegated to minor changes for 1985 there was a all-new XR in the Honda stable 485 the XR 350 R was back with a whole slew of improvements aimed at addressing the overheating issues and reliability issues of the earlier machines the new bike had a all new motor in it that used a larger smaller bore on a larger stroke to give it a little more torque and they also went to a dry sump oil configuration which like I said earlier allow the oil to be kept cooler this was a real big improvement because like I said the overheating was a major problem on the 350 as well as the fifty-one other thing they did with this new redesign was to switch from the complicated dual carbs to a single carb it went from the dual carbs of 84 to a simpler single 35-millimeter carb this obviously ease tuning made a lot easier to get the bike to run really well in addition to the motor changes the 85 xr3 50 featured only body work really really good looking stuff at least from my money this is the best looking of any of the XRS ever I love this color combo I love the orange love the blue the yellow plates just everything about it was just great I think by most people's standards is probably the best XR of the 80s this 85 350 was really a great machine in a lot of ways kind of captured the not too big not too small kind of middle weight thing and got a lot of things right in 1985 for 1986 Honda discontinued the XR 350 and poured all that they had learned the year before into an all-new XR 250 our first up on the list of changes for 86 were a all-new motor that was aimed at beefing up the torque on the previously Rev happy 250 learning from what they had worked on the year before how to decrease the bore and increase the stroke of the 249 CC mill overall displacement remained the same but now it was an oversquare 73 by 90 I'm sorry 73 by 59 point five millimeters the new motor retained the air-cooled design of the old layout but it did add an external oil cooler this was an important addition considering like the overheating issues of the previous engine the overall oil capacity was also bumped up slightly but the 250 did not get the external oil tank the 85 350 had used the new long stroke motor maintained the same radial for valve combustion chamber for valve head that are used since 1984 and added a new 30 millimeter caffeine single carburetor to simplify tuning on the chassis side of things the 86 XR 250 featured an all new frame you can see it here superimposed in white over the 85 chassis the new bodywork that went with it was very similar to the 1985 XR 350 bodywork it was all new although I will say I much prefer that looks at 85 like I said this 86 redesigned with the slightly different red and the white fenders I was never a fan of that I like the 85 look a lot better but this bodywork is much cleaner in design in my opinion than what was on the previous the 85 s even though I like the color combination better this this bodywork is better-looking the chassis was much roomier than 85 the bike was larger overall wheelbase was up a full three and a half inches over 85 so significantly larger this was to give a guess the bike a little more you know a little more wide range of use suspension was all new for 1986 as well the forks were significantly upgraded in 85 they had used a 38 millimeter fork the new cobbles were 41 millimeters in size they were very similar and designed to what was found on the 85 cr125 are but 2 millimeters smaller overall a new prolene Greer was also bolted up that ditched the previous steel swing arm for a lightweight aluminum one which was nice something very tricky and similar to what you'd find on the CRS overawed travel was also bumped up from 9.6 inches in 1985 to a full 11 inches for 1986 which are still about you know an inch or so less than what you would have got on a CR but pretty good for essentially a glorified trail bike in terms of performance the new XR motor was not a quantum leap better than previous XR 250 s but it did run better on the trail a horsepower was up a little over one horsepower but the torque curve was much flatter low in power was much better previous one had had like a little dip mid midway through the curve this is a had a much flatter stronger torque curve the response was better the bike ran much cleaner with the single carb it was a much better motor even though on paper it didn't look like it was a huge improvement compared to two strokes of course it was still way down on power any KTM 250 or you know Husqvarna or a converted motocross or certainly you wouldn't want to come up against one of them on the trail it was no match for anything like that but for Plunkett through the trees it was still an excellent little motor for that pretty much indestructible the new oil cooler helped a lot there are much less issues with any kind of head problems and stuff at these overall the motor was a little bit more powerful and a whole lot more reliable good little fun motor like I said you could scream them but jeepers out of it all day long and I would keep on keep on trucking suspension was improved but the bike still was really soft if you were gonna try any aerial antics like this you were gonna come to a pretty strong thud when the XR came down it really was much better for you know kind of Plunkett through the trees at a medium pace any kind of high-flying antics were likely to bottom the suspension out and like I can tell you from my buddy who had one of these it would snap the frame the steel on these is not nearly as strong as what was used on the CRS and the frame would fatigue and crack if you really tried to pound the tar out of him it really wasn't made for that kind of stuff but overall this 86 redesign was a huge improvement in most respects the bike was more reliable it handled better had a little more power suspension was improved really really a significant upgrade in the XRS and actually this basically design would basically stay the same for the next ten years it would also be the basis for the very popular XR 250 L dual sport as well good design like I said not a powerhouse motor but anyway any means not as powerful as the 350 but a really good little middleweight bike after the total redesign of 1986 the XR 250 was back for 1987 with only very very very minor graphic updates the font of the seat is a little bit different and the graphics on the tank are different other than that it is identical in every way to the 86 I do like this graphic a little bit better but again I'm much much much much much prefer the iconic Honda winged logo like they had an 85 I'm not sure why these didn't get it the CRS this year 87 had a really great look I always kind of lamented the fact that the XR didn't get that that color combo in that look they should have kept the orange fenders and stuff and went with the iconic wing in my opinion but anyway I wasn't running Hannes what do I have to say about it now I for 1988 the XR again bold new graph because all of it again don't really care for the the graphics this year that's not my favorite the eighty eight's in general didn't really like the XR look this year you can see the fender is red the seat is still blue and they change the fork boots from blue to red but other than that the motor is a basically identical one thing I do like the 88 bike they kind of change the color of the the side case a little bits a little deeper bronze but again it's all just minor styling stuff mechanically these these three machines are identical 86 87 88 really no differences at all now Friday 9 the XR was back again with what is really just another cosmetic update but for my money this is probably my second favorite XR of all times in terms of appearance this changed to the kind of CR look where it's all one color monochromatic red get rid of the white fenders and stuff brought the Honda wing back to the tank two thumbs up for me on that I like the XR logo it's very CR this year this is what they should have done in 88 and they should have done in 87 was kind of mimic the CR look kept the gold rims on it and stuff like the crs had in 87 but anyway Honda got it right in 89 the whole all the XR has had a real purposeful CR look and I just love the looks of it like I said no mechanical changes but all cosmetic but this is just a really good-looking bike Honda really knocked it out of the park in 89 with all their bikes certainly one of the best-looking ones and right up there with 85 in terms of really you almost could rank it above it really because the monochromatic look is a little more professional than the blue and the orange and all the other stuff they had going on but for me it'd be kind of a toss-up I think great looking motorcycle great looking XR for 1990 the XR 250r was back with some minor and major improvements overall bodywork and frame motor all that stuff was the same but the suspension was upgrade both upgraded both front and rear up front the XR received a all-new 41 millimeter cartridge fork cartridge Forks basically allowed or a more consistent damping a wider range of control over a damper rod style it had been used on the motocross CR since 1986 and by 1990 all the major motocross bikes were using a cartridge design the 41 millimeter Forks on the XR were a little bit smaller than what you would have found on a motocross bike but it did provide a major improvement in damping control in the rear the pro circuit I'm sorry the prolene rear was only subtly changed they had some tweaks to the rear suspension said it's not a big deal the rear exhaust was also tweaked for 1990 to give it a little more power the other major change for 90 was the actual the rear disc brake the additional rear disc address one of the kind of last holdovers from the old XR that were kind of a downer the drum brake worked okay when it was fresh and stuff but if you got it wet or I got hot it got kind of grabbing and squeaky and if you got a really wet it would go away so the addition of a disc gave you more consistent braking control and was not affected by things like water and mud and such one of the interesting thing to point out for 1990 is the addition of some competition suzuki brought out an all-new bike the dr 250 in 1990 a few years earlier all the other Japanese brands had kind of a been in the 254 stroke class at one point you had the xt 250 you had a KLR 250 you had the course the Honda and Suzuki had ADR as well but in the late 80s they all kind of abandoned and left the whole market to Honda but for 1996 use back with an all-new machine much like the XR it wasn't a very serious machine it wasn't a like a race bike by any means although some people did try to race them the XR and the dr were both more trail bike than race bike but a lot of people had fun trying to turn them into serious racers and some quite a bit of money into that I probably fruitless endeavor for 1991 we get a switch from the orange tank to the white personally I'm not a fan of this switch I like the orange tank actually I like all the orange body worked better than the white never a big fan of the white didn't really like the blue side panel either the other difference is we get new disc brakes for a 1991 they switch from a slot style rotor to a rotor with holes in it this is said to improve braking I'm not sure how seems like over the years all the manufacturers kind of switch back and forth I have no idea why one would work better than another I suppose maybe there's a little more surface area but then why do we not just stick with one but be that as it may for a 91 they said that they also claimed to have very bold new graphics although it's saying like I said the absence of the Honda wing is not a good thing the brochure also says they've redesigned the rear hub although I'm not sure if that was just to accommodate the new rotor or if there was some other purpose to it it doesn't really say just says it's redesigned so it must be doing awesome before we move on to 1992 I did want to mention one other machine in the Honda stable 491 the all-new xrr 250 l this was a dual sport version of the XR and was basically the off-road version with blinkers and tail lights the XR actually already came with some of these features in other countries where in Europe and such you could drive basically dirt bikes on the street but here in America we couldn't really do that so this was a really cool dual sport and really the first kind of serious kind of off-road dual sport in quite some time maybe since the early 70s when the DT one was offered earlier excels were really mostly street bike the suspension Hardware all that stuff was you know downgraded from what you would have found on the offer and only version definitely had the XR look but it didn't have the performance of an X R so this XR L was a really cool bike it's a bike I've always wanted to own I almost bought one a couple years ago I still kicked myself in the rear for not buying it but cool motorcycle cool dual sport certainly not up to the same levels as what you'd find on a KTM or something now but for its time a very very interesting model after 1991 there aren't any real significant changes in the XR line for another few years the 92 93 94 and 95 X RS here are basically just bold new graphics or as the brochure puts it aggressive new graphics every years a little bit different you know they kept the same color bodywork even didn't really change it much about the only thing you'll notice changing is the blue on the side plates here get a little deeper they're kind of shifting towards purple purple mania was catching on in the mid 90s and it started to infect the XRS here as well here's by 1995 you can see the side plate is fully purple the graphics are a little more cartoony kind of indicative of the time while this is certainly a little bit bolder it is way way less aggressive than the purple crs this year this year the Honda cr-z were pretty crazy looking they had purple shrouds purple plastic it was just a crazy look I'm not sure what the heck they were smoking over there at Honda 95 but this is the last year for the XR with this body style this basic design lasted almost 10 years here so it's definitely a much more successful than the earlier ones where they were kind of getting retired after one or two so probably one of the most enduring XR designs for sure and definitely one that people think of fondly now for 1996 the XR 250 R was back with an all-new design everything from the fenders to the wheels to the motor was completely new graphics were new I love this look it's a great looking motorcycle it does incorporate a lot of kind of purple but it was the 90s after all in 95 96 purple was still in the motor was redesigned this year it still used the radial for valve combustion chamber design the head design they'd used since the early 80s but the new motor was a dry sump configuration as we discussed earlier that means that the oil was carried in the frame in a separate tank this allowed the Honda to carry both more capacity and cooled better because of this this new model deleted the oil cooler that had been used on the previous XR 250 externally the motor looked very similar to 1995 but internally there were several changes aimed at improving power and reliability in the head the valve timing was new and offered a higher lift to the exhaust valve the spark plug was relocated and shrunk down it was much smaller giving you a little more room for the valves to work the piston rings actually were narrower and lighter as well as the valve stems were also reduced in size slightly to allow the motor to rev Rev a little more freely carburetor was new and it was a 30 millimeter single carburetor so it kept the single carb design of the earlier X ARS the internal parts of the motor were also updated the clutch was new transmission was new the counter balancer and stuff was still maintained but all that stuff internally was new so even though the motor like I said looked very similar to the previous one inside it was all new the motor was actually a little shorter this year too was a half-inch shorter overall they did a lot of things with this new XR to try and centralize mass keep the weight down a little bit lower so like I said shorting the motor was an important important feature there also that's one of the reasons they deleted the oil cooler that was something that set up behind me behind the steering stayed on the steering stem on the previous model so by deleting that that was some more stuff they could get down lower on the chassis like so the chassis side of things the frame was all new and incorporated that oil tank they did have a rear subframe that was removable for the first time earlier XR s did not have this kind of motocross style feature on the suspension end the XR 250 featured all new suspension front and rear the fork was a cartridge design is it had been for the previous four or five years but it was all new it maintained the 41 millimeter design of previous models but featured an all new design that was just made to have less overhang below the axles this was something that earlier kind of conventional forks it had an issue with where they would catch in ruts certainly a big concern on a bike designed to go in the woods and through the mud and stuff so this new design was kind of one of the new-age conventional forks that were very similar in looks to what was used on the 1996 RMS as well kind of a very lower stubby lower end really didn't extend past the lower axle much more than like a upside-down four quarter but the conventional fork provided more flex give me a little more comfort on the trail the XR 250 had a stable mate this year as well the XR 400 which was all new the 400 though used a very similar looking fork but it was a larger and design was a 43 millimeter unit that was actually built by Shah WA the one on the XR 250 was a kiaba unit so even though they looked similar the one in the 400 actually worked a lot better the 400 in general was set up more aggressively than the 250 the 250 remain kind of the kind of the trail but rail bike in the stable the 400 got things like a removable clutch it actually had the oil cooler on it much different suspension a lot of things that were designed to make it kind of more of a serious off-road or the 250 remained you know really a play by cat hard even though like they continued to say you can kind of race it in enduro but if you were gonna ride anything above the novice class even this new XR probably wasn't the hot setup for that the motor was a little torque here down low read a little higher on top peak output was really not much different through the middle a train the same it was still not a powerhouse you really kind of revved her up but if you wanted to plonk around the trees that work well for that a suspension continue to be very soft this new cartridge fork in the front was damp you know set up for really really just kind of plunk along in the roots the shock and back was all new they said it was more like a CR damper but again it was set up so soft it really wasn't was it made for any kind of hard charging if you were gonna do any major aerial work as in previous years with the XR this new one wasn't really gonna do much more than bottom out pretty hard wasn't really made for that kind of stuff it was a great trail bike though really good trail bike the new ergonomic swears much smoother the tank is narrower even though it has the same 2.5 gallon capacity as the old one compared to a motocross bike the the tank was kind of bulb you someone let you slide forward really well I know as once the 400 was out a lot of guys got into kind of turning these things into motocross bikes which you know this is guy remember this is 2 years before the the Y Z 400 comes out so people wanting to race motor or four-stroke motor crossers which was quite a novelty at that time when everybody else's on two strokes they got into kind of converting these XR for hundreds and a motocross errs and a loop created a tank that was basically a modified CR tank you could stick on here to kind of smooth the ergonomics out but compared to previous XR s it was a pretty big improvement overall both the new XR 400 our n then the redesigned XR 250 our were pretty painter step forwards for the XR line both these bikes were hugely popular this year great great machines if you're not looking for something that's a pure racer reliability power suspension on the 400 was pretty good on the 250 definitely skewed more towards a play bike but if you're looking to have something fun that was reliable he wanted it to be a four-stroke and not a two-stroke you couldn't really go wrong with an XR in 1996 unfortunately after 1996 the XR wouldn't receive anymore major improvements it would never receive an upside down fork or every design like a cool motor it basically stayed true to its kind of play bike routes until its final retirement a few years later they did ditch the purple here as you can see the later 90s ones were basically red and black as a primary color still good-looking motorcycles I do prefer here this 2001 here with the Allred look it's reminiscent of the 89 that I loved so much one weird little thing you'll notice here is for some reason the 2000 has a tool bag on it I don't know why only the 2000 has it and none of the others do you'll see here at 2001 they took it back off so anyway somebody in the budget had a tool bag that one year and then it went away 2002 2003 2004 all identical none of these bikes had any difference other than bold new graphics like I said I do like the Allred look but by this point the XR was getting a little long in the tooth in 2004 Honda finally retired the XR after many many years of loyal service it was replaced in the lineup by the all-new CRF 250 X a bike with much more racing pretensions than the XR ever had whether that's good or bad is up to you kind of a bone of contention to some people I'm sure that Honda doesn't build a motorcycle quite like this anymore but in any case the XR had a great run it was a great motorcycle for a long time made a lot of people happy definitely a fun motorcycle over the years it was never much of a racer never much of a high-performance machine but if you're looking for a good solid reliable fund and inexpensive they weren't really expensive two bikes just made for having fun which is what riding dirt bikes is all about in my book the XR was a great choice if you enjoyed this please remember to subscribe and ding that bell let you know when we do another one if you have any ideas on what you'd like to see going forward please feel free to drop me a line my address is at Tony blazer on Twitter and Instagram that's T ony be la z IE art and I do read the comments here too so drop me a line if there's something else you'd like to see me do going forward if I have the information and the photos and stuff to make it work I will be happy to do that so I hope you enjoyed this then until we meet again keep the rubber side down [Music] [Laughter]

Channel: The Motocross Vault

Views: 212,388

Keywords: race, crash, supercross, motocross, honda, four-stroke, XR, XR250, XR250R, ENdure, off-road

Id: n_pD35MFB0k

Length: 45min 17sec (2717 seconds)

Published: Thu Mar 14 2019

Reddit Comments

[u/Occhrome]

He has another for the XR600R line and will come out with one for the xr400r. I love them and glad someone is doing this