CRF250L / Overview

A new dual-purpose, multi-role motorcycle: sharp on the street, fun on the dirt

The essence of what makes a true dual-purpose motorcycle has long been in Honda’s DNA. In the late 1970s the XL250S was launched, a bike providing genuine on-road usability with excellent off-road performance. The entire XL range that followed became legendary, and proved that bolting an economical and easy-to-use single-cylinder four-stroke engine into a competent chassis, created a bike that was useful, versatile and, as riders the world over found, fun.

Exhaustive discussions within Honda R&D took place about the creation of a brand new dual-purpose machine. The company’s long history – in off-road competition and dual-purpose machinery – was a useful touchstone when development of the bike first began, and inspired the team that worked on it from the outset.

Looking to the needs of customers came first. While some riders insist upon competition-level off-road performance, many others value ease of use, practicality and convenience. For weekday, urban use they wanted a tough, practical bike with cutting-edge off-road style. But, come the weekend, it needed to provide a ticket to ride, wherever they wanted to go, on or off-road.

Honda’s new dual-purpose platform was always viewed by its development engineers with global perspective, as a bike for the whole world. It not only needed a powerful and frugal engine, its chassis also had to have a broad and capable range. The bike was to be affordable, offering high quality and outstanding value for money, with low overall running costs a priority.

Perhaps most important, and a driving force for the engineers working exhaustively to deliver such a multi-faceted motorcycle, was to produce something that could connect many people to Honda, and help them realise their dreams in a way that only a motorcycle can.

The CRF250L is that motorcycle.

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