I liked the CRF right off the bat when I found my 30-inch legs could climb on without a running start(even though Honda’s specs say seat height is 34.7 inches), and once I was in place with the springs compressed a tad, ground contact was easy.
In fact, the springs felt so soft in the parking lot, a couple of us feared we would be in for grief off-road. Not to worry:
The damping people have done good work with the bike’s 9.8 and 9.4 inches of travel(front and rear, respectively), and the claimed 320-pound-gassed-up CRF maintained level flight over some gnarly, rocky fireroad at a pace designed to keep me in the saddle(luckily I’d left my knee guards at home and had that for an excuse).
The CRF is not a competition bike, but some pretty competitive fast guys who passed me weren’t holding that against it as they whipped by. At the end of the day, there were no wadded CRFs, which is highly unusual for this sort of press junket and a testament to the little bike’s off-road prowess.
In fact, I’d been on the same trail a few months ago riding an old XR400R with knobbies, and I have to say I didn’t feel too much less in control of the CRF on its dual-purpose Dunlops. Instead of the quickish 94mm of trail of an XR, the CRF gains a little more stability with 113mm of trail and a longer wheelbase. For off-road novices, that’s a good thing. What the CRF lacks is the low-rpm chuggability all the XRs were famous for. Luckily, the clutch is really light and the six-speed gearbox is agreeable enough, because you will find yourself downshifting to get it on the pipe again
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