| Feature:
X-TREME X-CITEMENT
2005 Honda CRF250X
Story by Tom Van Beveren
Photos by Mark Kariya
For years, if you wanted a good all-around dirt bike that was stone-axe reliable, had a decent powerband, and could climb just about any hill around, you had to look no further than any of Honda’s famous XR lineup of four-stroke motorcycles.
 They’ve been around literally for decades, and have won not only numerous off-road and enduro competitions around the country, but the admiration of anyone smart enough to purchase one of these excellent bikes. After all, all an XR ever required from its owner was an oil change on a regular basis, a simple valve adjustment every now and then, and fresh knobbies.
Oh sure, Honda also produces lighter and faster dirt bikes (the CR and CRF-R line-up), but these were really designed for the rigors of motocross use. The higher-ups at Honda even made a decision to keep these screaming stadium jumpers out of professional off-road racing, and required that any factory team involved in cross-country and desert racing events use the bigger, heavier XR as its racing platform.
Honda has dominated off- road racing on the left coast for the past few years with the XR650R (a large displacement, XR, that is also the only liquid- cooled XR ever), but the competition in off-road racing has been growing tighter every year, especially since KTM got serious about winning. Honda needed something new.
A few years ago, Honda started replacing its XR line with its new CRF four-stroke motorcycles, which were a blend that incorporated the venerable XR engine in a sleeker, more CR-looking chassis. These bikes not only replaced the XR 50’s and XR 80’s that were so popular with the small-stature crowd, but introduced a few new models as well--models like the CRF150 and CRF230. Many even included an electric starter, so the wife and kids wouldn’t have a hard time learning to start a four-stroke, which usually requires learning a rigorous starting “drill,” especially for the larger displacement models. For 2005, Honda has taken the change one step further and has dropped the XR250 and XR400 from its model lineup. The only remaining XR for 2005 is the XR650R.
Interview:
DYING TO RACE DAKAR
Story by Anne Van Beveren
Photos Courtesy Scot Harden / KTM
The Dakar Rally has always been killer tough. But now it’s a different sort of deadly.
In the last two years, the ultimate test of man and machine has claimed the lives of two of the best rally riders of this generation—Frenchman Richard Sainct, a three-time winner who died at  Dakar in 2004, and two-time winner Fabrizio Meoni, who crashed and died on January 11, during Stage 12 of this year’s rally. Meoni’s was the second death in two days at this year’s race, which also claimed the life of amateur racer Jose Manuel Perez, and brought to 11 the number of motorcycle riders who have died racing Dakar.
“Meoni crashed at 185.4 kilometers on the Atar to Kiffa stage. The route book showed two bumps—nothing severe,” said Scot Harden, Vice President of Media Relations for KTM North America, who raced Dakar for the second time this January. “Meoni was battling with Cyril Despres (winner of this year’s race) for the overall lead at the time. Despres was on the road just slightly ahead of him and Meoni was off to his side a little bit. Nearest we can tell, Meoni was doing something with the route book when he hit the first bump and got out of shape. He hit the second one and went down.”
 The problem probably wasn’t the bump so much as the full load of fuel that the racer was carrying.
“He had just taken on fuel at 175 km, which means the bike was fully fueled, and that adds as much as 115 pounds,” said Harden. “When you add 115 more pounds to a bike that’s already fairly heavy, the margin for error becomes very slim and, if the bike gets out of shape, if something goes wrong with a full load of fuel, you’re in trouble.”
Ask the Sergeant:
Dear Sergeant:
I live in one of the canyons off Mulholland Drive and our road suffered a minor mudslide during the recent storms. Cal-Trans came out and put up “Road Closed” barricades at the point of the slide. This closure was about half a mile from the main road but to get out of the canyon going the other way added about 10 miles to my commute to work. The slide across the road was only about 40 feet long so, for two days, I rode my DRZ400S to work and simply rode over the dirt obstacle. Obviously, this meant going around the “Road Closed” sign. They have since cleaned up the mess and the road is again open. There are sure to be more mudslides in the future so what kind of trouble am I looking at if a cop sees me do this. I thought other Southern California riders might be interested in this topic as well.
Walker Brown, Los Angeles
Lets start with the cold hard facts, then look at how things work in the real world.
There are a number of agencies and codes applicable to this situation, including the Department of Transportation, the California Vehicle Code and local authorities, but the primary law regulating road closures is Section 21461 of the California Vehicle Code, which is simply “Failure to obey a lawful sign, signal or device.” If there is a barricade with a sign attached saying “Road Closed” you can go no further. As soon as you pass that barricade you are in jeopardy of being cited. It has been my personal observation that judges are not very flexible regarding people who violate road closed signs. If you were cited you could argue in court that the obstacle was not a problem for your dual-sport motorcycle and that your bike was, in fact, designed and built to do exactly what you did! This could also be argued by the guy driving a raised four-by-four truck. The trouble is, the judge must consider the unknown factor. Sure, your bike or truck can make it over the pile of dirt, but how do you know that the pavement has not been undercut by water and that is the real reason the road has been closed.
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Scuttle Putt:
Get out and vote on March 8 and it might just pay off next time you get your motorcycle serviced. That’s the day the race for seats on the L.A. Community College Board will be decided and casting a vote for Gerald Perttula will help keep vocational programs that provide us with mechanics alive.
Perttula is running for seat six on the seven-member board and his support for increasing vocational training and expanding on-line classes are a plus for budding bike mechanics.
For 11 years, the Northridge resident has worked with children in the Court School system—kids who need education while in the custody of the Probation Department in Juvenile Hall and other facilities, and he’s glaringly aware of the need for vocational classes.
“Most of the children are behind in their reading by six grades or more. They read at a third to fourth-grade level and, in general, that will limit their career capacity and their learning capacity unless there’s some kind of intervention,” said Perttula. “I was looking for colleges courses that some of our kids could take and I noticed that some schools had a lot of classes on line, some had almost nothing. Some were spending a lot of money on redeveloping the buildings at the site but they didn’t have a strong information technology site. That made me want to investigate how money was being spent. I found out that money was sometimes well spent with the community colleges and sometimes it seemed like it was being spent in a capricious way or a way that wasn’t serving the students.”
Project bike story:
BIRDS OF A FEATHER
Story and Photos by Reid Libby
It was one of those rare afternoons that are hard to equal. Weak, winter sunshine strobed softy down between long rows of old pines as we chuffed along some backwater blacktop in alta Pasadena. It wasn’t quite the blast up to Newcomb’s Ranch that had been suggested, but we had to make do. Just about any road worth riding in sodden So.Cal. was closed to due to rain, snow, mud or a combination of all three.
Usually, my partners for that ride are of the sporting persuasion, say a nimble, Nipponese single or perhaps an ace of bass, Latin V-twin. This day’s trip, however, was to be a bit more laid back than I am accustomed to. I was ambling about on the back of a half-liter, single-cylinder MotoGuzzi Falcone, the perfect foil for the “when you absolutely have to be there before the next guy” sort of ride.
What this half-century vet has to offer is a chance to absorb some of the sensory stimulation that is lost when the needle swings towards the fast side of the speedo and total concentration is  demanded (not that any of you would ever participate in such delinquent shenanigans). It is an easy going accomplice whose only demand is that the rider relax and enjoy the experience, all the while going about its assigned tasks without the muss and fuss that is often part and parcel of the vintage experience.
Way2go
ABSOLUTELY FONTASTIC
Story and Photos by Bob Kaufman
As the American home of each of the big-four Japanese motorcycle manufacturers, it would make sense that Southern California would be a major stop on the AMA Superbike tour every year. And it seems that it finally is.
 Why do I say “finally” when we have had Superbike racing here for most of the last decade? There were the L.A. Motorcycle Weekends at Pomona. But Pomona is set up for drag racing, not road racing, and the riders weren’t exactly thrilled about flying around at 150-plus on a makeshift track in a parking lot.
Then there were the AMA races at Willow Springs. Willow Springs, known as the “Fastest Track in the West,” is a genuine roadracing track, where some of the most advanced cars and motorcycles in the world are tested. It’s also close to Edwards Air Force base, where some of the world’s fastest and most advanced air vehicles are tested. But the remoteness that makes the high desert ideal for testing works against it as far as accessibility is concerned for much of the L.A. basin’s population.
About eight-and-a-half years ago, I did an interview for Free 2 Wheel with Sam Bowlby, who had big plans for a world-class roadracing course near Lake Elsinore, which happens to be a lot closer to my own home than Willow Springs or  Pomona. Bowlby was ready to go but at the last minute, the deal to buy the land fell through. The idea didn’t die with that, however. Another group followed with similar grand plans, but, frankly, there was a lot of opposition. Whether it was due to the opposition or something else, nothing came of that effort, either.
But all was not lost. At about the same time, Roger Penske was pursuing plans to build a super-speedway in Fontana, about 40 miles north of Bowlby’s site. Of course, a superspeedway is a big tri-oval meant for NASCAR and Indy cars, so there still seemed to be little hope for a replacement for the world-famous Riverside raceway that closed in 1988.
But super-speedways—like Daytona for example—have huge infields, with plenty of room to build a proper set of turns and chicanes. When the California Speedway opened in 1997, it didn’t have a road course, but by 2002, it did.
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