The Honduro 500

THE HONDURO 500

RIDING IMPRESSION

A lesson in lion-taming

DONT POINT THAT THING AT ME WHEN YOU pull the trigger,” you hear, or “Why don't you just beat yourself with a steel rod? It'll be more fun.”

You get used to it. In fact, you come to expect satirical remarks any time you enter an Open-class motocrosser in an enduro. And with good reason— there’s no better way to become tree Jell-O than to point a 60-horsepower rocket into the woods and light the fuse.

But Honda is looking for a few good men, ones willing to try to harness the omnipotent CR500R for enduro use. To make the task just a little easier, the company is offering a wide-ratio transmission set and a lighting kit as options for ’85 through ’87 CRs. And to demonstrate that a CR500R can be bent into enduro form, Honda’s Gary La Plante did just that.

La Plante’s machine not only has the gear-ratio and and lighting kits, but has two head gaskets to lower the compression ratio, plus a number of bolt-on accessories, such as a larger fuel tank, Bark Busters, an Answer spark arrestor/silencer combo and an XR electronic odometer.

The slight detuning provided by the double headgaskets costs the big 500 very little in the way of horsepower. And, in fact, it does very little in the way of smoothing out the powerband. The big CR still is a handful on tight trails, and it still has a tendency to stall when the speeds are slow. The wide-ratio transmission does allow much lower final gearing, which helps reduce the stalling problem, but has the sideeffect of putting the CR in the most violent part of its powerband in slow situations.

Eventually, though, you learn the best setup and technique for riding the Honda in the woods. The gearing is best left a little tall (perhaps a 50or 53tooth rear sprocket with the 14-tooth front), the idle needs to be turned up, and a ready hand must be kept near the clutch. In really narrow confines, you leave the throttle alone and just ease the clutch in and out to regulate speed. The CR makes so much low-end power that an ambitious right hand can cause nothing but trouble.

If it sounds like the CR isn’t the right bike for tight stuff, then you heard right—only the very best riders can use the Honda’s potential. But give the machine just a little space, just a little wide-open countryside, and watch out; the CR is then in its element. The lowend power of the machine is truly awesome. And, for that matter, so is the top-end. There’s no sand too deep, no hill too steep for the CR. What’s rather surprising is that even in tricky situations like rocky uphills where you would assume that the machine would be a bear to keep straight, the Honda is controllable and tracks straight and smooth. Even the motocross-bred suspension is well-suited for crossing rain ruts and bounding over rocks. And when you consider that the CR will top out around 88 mph (with a 53tooth rear-sprocket), it’s clear that this is a bike best suited for the cactus and sagebrush set.

There’s no doubt that the CR’s place is in the west, where horsepower still rules and first gear is a seldomused commodity. True, with further modifications the CR could be made into a more manageable low-speed machine—some additional flywheel weight and perhaps a pipe tuned for mellower power would do the trick—but that would mean more modifications and more money on what already amounts to a $4300 enduro bike (see the part and price breakdown on this page). That’s $ 1000 more than a Husqvarna 430, the reigning king of the class. Still, Honda is at least showing interest in enduros while the other Japanese manufacturers have turned their backs. And that makes the Honda the best starting point if you want to build the ultimate Japanese enduro bike. But be forewarned: The distance between that starting point and the finish isn’t going to be cheap—or easy.

What it is and what it costs.

Honda CR500R

$2998.00