A few tanks of gas through a 2018 Honda CRF250L Rally

As I rode the “little” Rally, it reminded me very strongly of another item I’ve owned from the time when I was a bit younger and had a new family. At that time, I was selling possessions I had acquired, because that family just kept eating! My trucks and motorcycles were the first to go, as they sold quickly and were worth the most money. Then it was the firearms. I sold off nearly everything, but I didn’t want to be without at least something, so in my trade deal, I worked in an old twelve-gauge scattergun from the 1930s sold by Sears & Roebuck that was made by Stevens.

You might be wondering why a brand-new Honda dual-sport bike would make me start thinking about an old long gun lying in my closet, and that would be a fair question. As I meandered down a two-laner near my house on the Rally, I was trying to figure out how to assess this little machine. I was trying to draw a bead on it, if you will. The Honda had many flaws, but it was doing the things I was asking it to do. And I was asking a lot from an item that was made to be an inexpensive workhorse, not unlike that old shootin’ iron.

I loaded its tail up with gear the day I took it home. It looked rainy, so I threw some waterproofs into a backpack, and lashed it up. (The rain gear is Nelson-Rigg, and the backpack is a Givi, and I love both. Great pieces of kit.) The rear fender is broad and flat, and Honda thoughtfully installed a few pegs that were perfect for said lashing.

I chucked my gear on, and burned out to a meeting I had to go to. Once I was done, it was pouring, and I rode pavement home. The next day, on the way to work, I took the scenic route, and splashed around mud puddles and explored some gravel and dirt roads near Casa de Lem that I’d not been on.

Much like the Rally, I’ve busted clays with that old break-open boomstick, dispatched squirrels, dragged it around the woods for deer, and reached for it more than once when Mrs. Lem woke me up to tell me something went bump in the night. It rode in the cab and toolbox of many of the trucks I’d owned over the years, and was often the best tool for a job because it was the tool at hand. I asked a lot of that thing, and it delivered.

Back to the other tool at hand. The Rally didn’t want to be pushed. Like Spurg, I noted a top speed of 83 on the flats, and I saw 87 for a moment, and at those velocities, the front end has a habit of moving around rather alarmingly. But even though the little two-fiddy’s not made for that kind of riding, it did it. It took it on, and it did fine. It buzzed through my hands, my feet, my ass. The bike was actually pretty happy around 70 or 75, which is far more than I expected from it.

Similarly, off-road, the bike didn’t want to go too fast. The suspension would be comically soft even for someone literally half my weight (140 pounds or so.) The Rally is great for exploring, but balks when the pace picks up. However, the components are mated well to one another. If the engine clearly doesn’t want to be pushed, why should the suspension components be any different? And who cares? I wanted to see some new trails, and I did, at a reasonable speed. This bike, as Spurg noted, sports an additional inch of travel over the standard version, so it just feels squishy with fat Lem on it. It doesn’t bottom out. I could do off-road stuff, I just couldn’t do it at top speed. But is anyone on a 250 four-stroke trying to do that anyway?

My trusty former truck gun danced into my head again somewhere on the pavement connecting the trail to the highway. That old shotgun’s not even a repeater. How basic can you get? Similarly, the Rally has no frills. It has a fuel gauge. I think that’s about the only frill one could find. Other than that, it’s completely barebones. I suppose you could consider the wind protection provided over the base 250L a nicety. It actually works really well. It doesn’t make the bike feel large and, in fact, it’s rather svelte. And I suppose the LED headlight is nicer to have than halogen — it worked very well for me at night.

My old Stevens ran me $45; it’s still the cheapest firearm I ever bought, but as Lance pointed out, that was a very old used example. This Rally was of course brandy-new, but as I’ll point out, at $5,149, it’s one of the most inexpensive genuinely highway-capable motorcycles one could shell out for. Those numbers — 45 and 5,149 — both make the shortcomings of both tools far more palatable, if you’re a buyer in the market for either item and you have reasonable expectations.

One thing that didn’t really tickle my fancy was the mandatory valve check at 600 miles. Now granted, this is a longer check interval than the old 230L, which called for a check at 100! The 250L uses shims under the buckets, whereas the previous 230L was a locknut-type adjuster. The previous adjusters made it easier to change clearance, but adjustments came more often. Now the checks are more difficult, but you're less likely to be adjusting the lash after a check. All told, though, there’s nothing here the accomplished home wrench can’t handle. Even the liquid cooling doesn’t make labor too tough. And the Stevens? Well, a field-strip of that is stone-simple. Kind of like working on a single-cylinder dualie.

That shotgun was the only long gun I had for a while, until I got back on my feet financially. But it spent plenty of time hooked over my arm or laid up on my shoulder as I tromped through the woods, allowing a cash-strapped fella to do the thing he loved. Sure, the equipment was basic, but the results were no less sweet because of it. For someone looking for a good, serviceable do-a-lot bike that’s on the modest side of the money part of the equation, a 250 Rally seems like it could be a very similar tool.

Though the Rally might not be as effective on deer.