From the moment myself and AAB Editor at Large Dave Darcy first rode Honda’s Dakar-styled CRF300 Rally, both of us were smitten. Sure, we’re like the majority of Aussie ADVers and log the majority of our miles on larger-capacity bikes, but there was something about the little red rooster that got under our skin.
The 300 Rally looks a million bucks and you’d be forgiven for thinking it had just rolled out of the parc ferme at Dakar. It’s light and lean (by big bike standards) and while it’s no raging powerhouse and is sprung softer than your grand-daddy’s favourite couch, the 300 Rally imbibes a feeling of fun if you have any sort of hankering for a small-capacity adventure machine. Which we certainly do.
So it’s no surprise that it was a proverbial light bulb moment when we turned to one another one day and said, “Hey, why don’t we see if we can get a 300 Rally from Honda and turn it into an AAB/MAD TV project bike build to see what we can make of it?”
Now, the only issue was that Honda’s 300L (trail) and 300 Rally models are thin on the ground. Like, thinner than the base gasket of a CR500R. Even retail paying customers have to wait six months or more to get one. So it took us almost a year before an ex-demo model came up at Honda HQ and we could get it. But good things are worth waiting for, and now that it’s here we’re into it boots and all. We’ve been punching out stacks of content detailing all the mods we’ve been making to the bike on Dave’s Motorcycle Adventure Dirtbike TV channel on YouTube, and now we’ve got the first instalment
