HONDA CRF 450L Two Faces

If you’re as grey around the temples as me, you probably remember the mighty days of Honda’s XR trailbikes. In the 1980s and into the ’90s, and even the early ’00s, XRs were like backsides: just about everybody had one, and enough toilet paper to keep it clean.

The bikes were unbreakable, fun to ride and priced right, making them economical to buy and run. Meanwhile, names like Hederics, Ballard and Bell here, and Ogilvie, Summers and Campbell in the US, took turns at helping to put the capital ‘L’ in XR Legend.

So what happened to the XRs? Ever stricter global emissions requirements and Yamaha’s YZ-F/WR-F ‘newgeneration’ kicked the Red Riders in their reproductive organs. Honda fought back with the liquid-cooled CRF250X and CRF450X enduros, but they never quite recaptured the mass appeal of the XRs.