I think 250's are great - another rider let me have a go of their DR650 and while the extra power was appreciated I felt like I was sitting on a washing machine. My XR felt a lot smoother and far less vibey. I suppose it depends if your the type of person who likes to 'feel' their bike or not. I think the modified CRF the OP wants is a near perfect choice for Asia, south and Central America and/or Africa.

Only if you try to ride a 250 like a 650. We're talking CRF-L here, not the racing ...X or ...R. I would say the smoothness of smaller capacity singles (as mentioned by rtw) and smaller piston/barrel expansion may all aid longevity. A 250L will also have substantial less mass to push than a 650.

I dont recall reving my old 250L any more than 1000 more than my recent 500X - and neither over 5-6000. Instead I just rode the250 slower and overtook less frequently on the highway.

Steph Jeavons (currently in US) has clocked up 40K miles (65,000km) on her RTW. Engine is fine afaik. She's doing talks in the US over the next few months. I bet the 250L Dutch couple Leonie and Peter are on about the same mileage.

17,000 miles later
 

Hi all, late to this post but what can I tell you? I've been the past year travelling the north Americas on a CRF250L. Utah -> Alaska -> Guatemala -> Mexico. almost completed 17 000 miles this year on this bike since leaving Utah in April last year.

What can I say? I am carrying everything I own in the world on this bike, admittedly not a lot but it looks like a lot.

Issues I've had until this date: a bent front wheel spindle, front fork bushes worn, most likely from a crash or two I had having fun on single tracks.

I have owned a CRF250L for 4 days and done 200 miles and in that time I haven't had a single problem, other than It keeps getting me home before I'm done having fun on it.

Honda CRF250L weakness
 

A heads up about our bikes:
Both over 95.000 km
One bike (Leonies) still runs like new and has had zero failures! It still doesn't use a drop of oil!

Mine (suddenly) started to use a little oil (1l/10.000km) after 45.000 km, it turned out my airfilter wasn't sealing properly.... As a result it lost some compression but still ran fine.

After 53.000 km my camchaintensioner failed, temporary fixed this by welding an extension on it. I was able to find a cbr250r tensioner in Ecuador which also failed within 3000 km ( probably due to a stretched camchain), so I changed back to the extended one.

After 57.000 km the damper in the front fork failed, the pistonband of the dampingrod was torn of. I was able to fix this by having a guy with a lathe make a wider and deeper groove in the piston and I made a new pistonband of a nylon cable-tie (its still there, better dan original!).

After 80.000 I changed the cilinder, piston and rings on my bike and also installed new camchain and a manual tensioner. The piston showed some wear, the cylinder very little, but the oil rings where seized in their groove.
I have since put on 15.000km more and the bike runs like new again and doesn't use a drop of oil.

Other things: all our rims are corroding excessive on the inside, especially near the valve and rimlock holes. This is probably cause by our adventure on the Salar de Uyuni where we got lost and found our self riding trough 30 cm deep brine....
I removed all loose corrosion with a dremel and coated it with some spraycan metalprimer. I haven't checked it again but my guts tell me I the primer is not really going go stop it.

Last but not least: In the beginning of our trip (after 10.000km) we found out that there was excessive play between the front sprocket and the countershaft. It turned out that the splines where worn... I am still not exactly sure how this happened but I suspect the aftermarkec sprocket was from a bad batch as it already had more play than the oem when I fitted it. Ever since I fixate the front spocket with loctite 680, have to repeat every 5000 km or so but the wear on the splines is not increasing anymore.

Peter




www.amsterdamtoanywhere.nl

Peter,
Thanks for the comprehensive review and update on your long term CRF250's.
Excellent! Despite the issues you've had, I'm still impressed overall with the reliability of these Hondas.

That Solar Brine is a killer ... no wonder you've got corrosion. You are not the first to get bit by this. We have similar Salt Lakes here in Nevada, my former XR250 had similar problems. Really bad on Aluminum as well.

The leaking air filter is a good lesson to everyone. In my dirt bike riding days I learned the importance of applying a small bead of grease along the sealing outer edge of your foam air filter where it makes contact with air box. ALL the dirt bike guys do this to give extra protection. IT WORKS!

(No surprise dirt got in without the grease seal)

Before doing this my 2 Stroke race bike engines would only last maybe one season at best. With proper air filter and sealed air box, 2 or even 3 season on one piston, rings, cylinder. :thumbup1: (good synthetic oil helps too)

I think you could write a good maintenance book on how to take care of the CRF250L when on a RTW ride! I'm sure all the lessons you've learned will be shared by others! Not just on the CRF, but many things apply to almost all bikes. Thinking outside the box! bier