Good morning everyone, The Himalayan got collected yesterday for a full refund under the consumer goods act stuff and hats off to the dealer from me speaking to them them apologising and agreeing within one week the Himmy was collected and I was paid same day so I was able to pick the Crf300 Rally up this weekend after getting lucky finding a canceled order.

About 6 hours driving to do now in the Rental Van to get her home. After what happened with the Himalayan's and the ktm 390s pdi or better to say lack of pdi I decided to van this one so I can go through it myself before jumping on and riding.

This is my 2nd Honda as I currently own a
CBR1000RR Fireblade which I've owned since new in 2010 back when superbikes were actually reasonable to buy.

Adventure bike wise I've had so far a
R1200gsa te, vstrom 1000xt, f800gs, suzuki vstrom 650xt (so darn good) ktm390 adv x2 one for me an one for dad both rejected with issues for a refund. Then a r1200gs te Rallye which was just to heavy for my shoulder, an finally the Himalayan which was rejected with issues for a full refund documented in previous posts if you are curious about that.

Really looking forward to seeing what life on the Honda has to offer plan is to ride her to 600 miles then can assess if she suits me or not before I go putting bits on. Which will be rally raid suspension at level 1 first and a seat concepts seat.

Plan is later on in the year to look at getting a Yamaha T7 to sit alongside it so dad and I can compare then we can decide whether to stick with the light is right approach or take heavier middleweight bikes on our trip for my shoulder though i can already tell moving the CRF300 Rally about and loading it it's so much easier like a Yamaha rd350lc


Thanks to everyone for the help and advice over the past few weeks.



So the Honda Motorcycles CRF 300 Rally.

First impressions, just so so light unbelievably light compared to the Himalayan an similar middleweight 200kg+ bikes or the heavyweight like my GS that I had. The engine is really good surprisingly punchy revvy and smooth it took me a few miles to get back into riding a short stroke engine after the longer stroke of the Himalayan then quickly my old two stroke riding style came back even though its a 4 stroke single the engine has a similar fun feel and you can really carry corner speed to much more than the Himalayan.

Very much looking forward to being able to really wind it on after run in, it was also such a difference just being able to hop on the motorway an it surprised me just how smooth it is at 60-70 could sit on that all day long. Just the slightest tingle in the bars but the grips are hard and thin.

It might not have the same emotional memory connection as the Long stroke but from a riding bike point of view I actually prefer it as I was riding quite a nice pace without feeling strained engine wise.


Now let's talk about the two elephants in the room the suspension honda motorcycles honestly what were you thinking ������ you can really feel the potential in the bike, yep its great being able to flat foot and personally I would have preferred less travel on the spec sheet and more usable properly damped suspension motorcycleadventuredirtbiketv called it right with the oinga boinga test haha! Nasa don't need rockets any more could just buy one of these to launch into space of the seat lol.

Oh an the seat ouch deffo needs a seatconcepts just gotta decide between comfort or comfort xl.

Next step is to sell a few things and buy the Rally raid level 1 suspension then I can look at a lightweight luggage and camping setup its all looking positive so far an I really can't get over how light it is.

First impressions though happy its a very different bike to the Himalayan an it's bringing out my older riding style in me from someone who used to do 2k Miles in a week on a 1984 rd250lc can see it's a bike I'm going to grow into riding.

Speaking of which has anyone used the Kodama protection rather than the upper crash bars from an ultra light point of view.




Here's the video from yesterday talking about the issues with the Himalayan and our thoughts the riding clip will be coming probably around Wednesday

https://youtu.be/12vh5n6gZD4

Hopefully if it all works out I'll be going to Norway Iceland and Morocco with dad both on 300 Rallys.