We stumbled across a few CRF250 Rally "grey imports" earlier in the year in PRC by total surprise (was politely asked not to take pictures and must have been really in my friendly weekend mood, as did not take any). Well ~ disappointed somehow as wasn't impressed with overall cheaply build quality and weight-size-power after a test ride... Definitely needs a engine displacement upgrade and some suspension tweaks. Hey ~ its my own personal opinion and feedback, yours may vary ~ over and out....

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Somewhere down the road in China since '89 ~ along the route I've learned the hard way that pleasing everyone is impossible, but pissing everybody off is a piece of cake....TBR

I maybe in the market for a 250 ADV bike that will handle a trail better than my XR650L.

I like my 650L, but it's certainly no lightweight bike and on tight trails it requires more skill than I have. You also need a step ladder to get onto it. But hey, it's a 20 year old bike.

The 250 Rally is looking good for me. It's not a feather weight (158KG wet) but for a ADV I think that's pretty light weight. The suspension does appear poor but it is a cheap bike.

The 2018 CRF250 Rally comes in at just over £5500 OTR. That's CHEAP !! Very cheap.

The WR250R was £7500 when you could still get one. That's A LOT of money for a bike that isn't that much better.

I can't think of a non-specialist Enduro bike that came with anything but crap suspension. You can't globally sell a bike with suspension that suits every rider from 50 - 150KG. It's an impossible task. So manufacturers don't bother.

Whatever ADV bike you buy, you HAVE to consider spending money getting your suspension re-valved, re-spring or replaced entirely If you're going to push it. If you're prepared to spend £500-£1000 on your suspension then I'm sure you could TRANSFORM the CRF250 Rally into a very nice handling trail bike. The rally has 43mm Showa forks which are up-rated from the 250L so the journey is half way there.

Some will say "My bike's suspension is great out of the box". And for most people who do nothing but roll up and down a motorway with touratech junk bolted to their bikes, It's probably true. But that's not really ADV riding is it. That's touring. Or just giving their Ebay stickers a day out..

Rally Raid will no doubt be having a go with the 250 Rally. It will be interesting to see what they do with it.

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

Actually, for me the WR250R had pretty decent suspension in standard form for my lardy 210 lbs. (95 kg.) with gear. In fact in my research I found many WR riders pretty much leave the forks alone. The rear shock does need a bit of help ... but both shock and forks are better than CRF250L ... standard vs. standard.

Hopefully the Rally version is better. It certainly wins in the looks dept. No denying that.

Possible good news for those 250 fans in the UK ... Yamaha has NOT discontinued the WR250R. There will be a 2018 version ...

Apparently Yamaha initially had planned to discontinue the bike but thought better of it (must be a story there..) ... and now it's officially back in
production! I wonder if they will begin importing it to UK/EU again?

I would not buy the CRF Rally until you at least get a test ride on the WR250R.
I was really surprised how much better the WR was than the CRF250L ... and not just HP either.

Look them both over carefully, get reviews and rider comments. You may be surprised. I'd sooner have a used WR than a new CRF.

I spent quite a bit of time looking up comparisons of the 250L and the WR250R.

The summary was always that the WR250R was a slightly better trail bike but the motor needed to be revved a lot where the 250L has more low down grunt.

The biggest factor will have to be price. If the WR250R is still around the £7500 mark then I just can't see how they will sell units against the 250L which is around £4800 and the Rally which is around £5500.

That £2000 price difference can buy you a complete over-hall of the Honda's suspension, a 280CC rebore and a host of other goodies. And that would blow the Yamaha out of the water, I'm sure.

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Did some trips.
Rode some bikes.
Fix them for a living.
Can't say anymore.

It’s a shame that all manufacturers still make bikes that are aimed at buyers who are never going to go anywhere on it, meaning they’ll never know that the tank is too small to give a realistic range, the suspension is crap and probably won’t last the duration of any trip oveseas and the electronics will probably pack in as soon as you’re out of range of your assistance cover.

It seems all you have to do is stick ‘Rallye’ or ‘Adventure’ in the model name, a fancy looking paint job and some vaguely off road tyres and the dreamers will buy it.

A bit pessimistic - although I see your point to a certain extend. The Honda Rally is based on the Crf250L/M who has been out since 2012 in Asia and 2013 elsewhere (me thinks...) cannot remember to have seen that it has been reported much electronic problems with these models for example.

Lets face it - theres probably little or no profit to be made if one or several of the major bike brands to develope a real great Rally model. The cost will be too high, the selling price will be to high and there will not be enough buyers.

Its great that many of the major bike brands are making small displacement adventure bikes - but the problem seems to be that they all come in with too much weight and in general components that are cheap and need immidiate upgrading. Out of these new small displacment adventure bikes I think Honda comes in clearly best. Its the lightest of them all, best offroad suited as it has 21/18 rims, BMW 310 GS and Kawasaki Versus 300 has 19/17 and the Suzuki V-strom 250 has 17/17 - and the Honda is the cheapest afaik. Of course handguards and bashplate on the Honda are plastic crap, 10,1 liters of fuel-capacity is not great and if youre really want to push it offroad you will probably need suspesion upgrading.
And Honda has a CBR 300 model and that bike has a 13 liter gastank - so it is difficult to understand why Honda didnt use the 300 cc engine and made a little more effort making a bigger gastank.

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In the end everything will be fine. If its not fine its not the end....

crf250l rally or not is waste of time and money. Pathetic engine, delicate and very heavy bike for 18hp motor with laughable tank range. Honda has lost its edge completely.

I would take wr250r over crf250l or rally any time of the day, and night
although wr is nothing special at all. BTW that rally name is supposed to be a joke by honda,
wonder how they call a real rally bike if they ever make such at all.

If the CRF bikes continue to sell well and if the Rally is also a success, then my prediction would be that Honda will boost the CRF/Rally to 300cc using the CBR engine.

I agree with your other points, it's true sales are too small for OEM to put big money into rally bike. Many say they'd buy it and cry on internet for such a bike ... but when it comes out, and they see the price!!! ... they DON'T buy it!
We've seen this scenario repeat OVER AND OVER ... look at the TDM 850 (in USA). A disaster for Yamaha yet the bike did well in France and EU.

I still believe a 300cc version could happen.

Lots of folk have used the 250 crf's for RTW and the rally offers the same just with a bigger tank and flashier looks.

In the uk you can get the standard bike for around 3k, add a few extras and you have a fairly new do it all bike for about 4.5k.

power might be low but mpg is great and they seem to have proved reliable. All the tests I've read of the rally only mention slightly soft supspension off road and lack of power on it. Suspension could be improved as for lack of power not much can be done there but at least it gives you more time to enjoy the view.

just wish they'd give it a 450 with about 50 bhp

I don't get why it's even called a "rally"....just looks like a trail bike with a dress on to me...I mean it hasn't even got a big tank.
A low powered starter bike maybe, but with a dress on to give it "cred" from a marketing point of view.....Like one of those 125 varedero things with the dummy cylinder thingy to make them look like a big bike...Looks great but missed the mark like so many do. Husky 701 is the closest thing out there IMHO, be awesome if they did an out the box "rally" version of that, with a big tank/s and some fancy lights, without an out and out rally motor obv. keeping the same service intervals...and they're on top notch w/power stock.

"looks great, but missed the mark"? Huh?
why use a sexist stereotype red herring to dis the bike? It's obviously a novice bike and yes ... the "Dress" is all an attempt to give it Dakar rally look like Honda's race bike. What's wrong with that? Big tank? why? The ****ing thing gets over 70 miles per gallon ... who needs a big tank?

I like it and believe it's the perfect bike to bring new riders into ADV riding ... especially Women, whom the industry needs badly. Most are intimidated by huge and heavy BMW's and KTM's ... and few can afford them. So something cheap and cheerful is not a bad direction for Honda to take, IMHO.

Speaking of "afford" ... are you buying that 701 Husky as your travel bike? Planning on riding Enduro round the UK And as a travel bike? Uh, no thank you!

If I had a spare $10K USD to spend on a dirt bike that's likely to get the shit beat out of it ... I'd consider it. Travel bike? Not a chance. Who would be stupid enough to take a bike whose service intervals are measured in HOURS ... not miles?

Despite it's small size the Honda Rally could make a decent travel bike for many. Once on 3rd world roads a 250 is just about perfect. Crossing Australia?
Yes, then you'd need a bigger tank ... but that's about the only place in the world where you would need it.

[QUOTE=mollydog;575473]"looks great, but missed the mark"? Huh?
why use a sexist stereotype red herring to dis the bike? It's obviously a novice bike and yes ... the "Dress" is all an attempt to give it Dakar rally look like Honda's race bike. What's wrong with that? Big tank? why? The ****ing thing gets over 70 miles per gallon ... who needs a big tank?


Yes ....looks great but missed the mark!...Yes that's my opinion of it from where I am standing, yes from my side of the fence, from my current point of view...I don't see why that is a "sexist stereo type red herring to dis the bike"...wtf?...It's just my opinion of it and I don't see how that is "sexist" ...The CRF250 RALLY isn't considered either male or female is it ? I thought it was just a motorcycle and considered unisex. It would be sexist to label it otherwise I think.
Novice bike ? Could be or just a small trail bike or even just economical transport, a great bike for some people for some journeys. Nothing wrong if someone wants to buy one as a novice bike, it'd be ok for that, they'd probably be better off with the standard model though with less weight and less crap to break if they drop it like the screen it doesn't really need etc., but hey if that's what they want go for it Not everyone considering one is going to be a novice though and some are actually looking for something more "rally" and with a bit more "go" but without the highly strung engine of an actual competition bike and my posted opinion of it is not as that of someone looking for a novice bike, more of someone considering the "rally" label.
The "dress"...yes!!...It seems we agree is all about giving it a look, which is what I implied and I don't see the point of it much other than that and I quite like the look. It seems to have added 11kg over the standard model for no real gain other than looks though, which is fine if that's all your looking for it looks ok but 11kg is quite a lot on what is already a fairly heavy bike for it's power output.
Big tank??...yes big tank, they've called it a RALLY ! It's being sold next to the standard model, it's 11kg heavier and lots more money it would be nice if they'd squeezed a bit more (not loads, just a bit) capacity into the tank not just (about) 2.5 litres more than the standard bike.The tank is adequate for most people and most situations for that bike so maybe you don't need a big tank and yes it may do 70 to the gallon but it only holds (about) 2.2 gallon, Honda's own website has conflicting information on tank size. It's not always about what you need either, IMHO, sometimes it's about what you want, especially when it comes to bikes and girls !... that sounds little bit sexist, my apologies I don't mean it that way

I like it too, it's not bad looking, it will be reliable, it's not expensive. I don't want one though, it's not for me or what I do. I agree with the above too mostly, although I don't see it as a big deal over the standard model. Whether or not it's the perfect bike to bring women into ADV riding or if the industry needs them badly is not something I've considered when thinking about possible future bikes for myself but it would be good for that I guess.
I think they should probably have called it something other than "rally" though, I think it waters down the meaning of it.
Yes some are intimidated by large bikes and some can't afford them...although they are selling in quite some numbers.

Errrr....well I'm thinking of getting one yes, I've been looking into them and what's available for them as much as I can for a while with a view to going that way in the future. I actually went to look at a 9 month old one with next to no miles on it at a bargain price that came up near me last week, first chance I've had to see one in the flesh...I'm still thinking maybe I should've bought it but the timing isn't right for me at the moment really. If I go for one it would have to be a 2017 onward because I'd want the motor with the extra balance shaft.
Enduro ??..I don't know who mentioned enduro (not me) so I don't quite know where your coming from but no I've no intention of using one for entering any enduro events.
And as a travel bike ?....err yes, that would be the plan that's why I'd want the later one with the smoother motor...So...Uh, yes thank you !