Cycle News - Archive Issues - 1990's

-----------------------------------------" ·RIDINGJMPRESSION,·: 1996 Honda CR500R that reduces friction and extends the service life of the fork oil The new forks are held in place by a wider set of triple clamps which were, in fact, introduced last-year. To accomodate the broad clamps, a wide front hub and large-diameter front axle complete the front end. Out back, there are plenty of tricks as well. The new Kayaba shock now features both high- and low-speed compression-damping adjustments. The adjuster is located on the shock resevoir, with the high-speed adjuster mechanism located "inside" the low-speed adjuster "nut. ' Revised compression and rebound valving round out the shock improvements. As for the rest of the bike, the 491cc engine remains unchanged, as does the steel frame. The plastic body work now mimics the '95 race team bikes, being white, black and flourescent red with flourescent yellow highlights. The new seat cover actually features a dual-thickness vinyl. The black portion of the cover is 20 percent thicker than the rest, and more resistant to knee-brace abuse. Other changes include a longer locating pin on the air-filter element cage, which is claimed to make it easier to reinstall the filter in the airbox after cleaning. The handlebar controls are now silver, rather than black, and the number plates are white instead of red, making it possible to slap numbers on the bike right from the get-go. MAGIC By Donn Maeda Photos by Kinney Jones ad news, Honda CR500 owners: the 1996 version of . the King CR is here. Oh, we know what you're thinking: "My open bike is good for at least another year, open bikes don't wear out and they don't change much from year to year." True, for the past several years, all that Honda CR500 owners needed to do to make their bike look like the latest was slap on a new set of graphics, a seat cover, and maybe a set of radiator shrouds, but 1996 is different. No, Honda didn't change the motor there was no need to! The Honda CRSOO engine has been the undisputed king of the open class on a motocross course for several years, and realistically, the CRSOO is without a serious MX rival. Though. Kawasaki and Mike LaRocco captured the last-ever 500cc National Championship title, the big green bikes are better suited to off-road applications and are rarely seen at local MX races. So, did they change the chassis? Guess again! With the exception of a gusset here and there, the CRSOO frame has remained the same for years. New plastic? well, Honda ad execs would probably argue that the black radiator shrouds, white number plates and new seat cover qualify as new bodywork, but they're not fooling anyone. The biggest CR looks archaic in comparison to it's smaller 125 and 250cc siblings, but for the number of open bikes that Honda sells, it would hardly be costeffective to throwaway the old molds and start over. So, you ask, what's the big deal about the '96 CRSOO? The forks, the forks, the forks! If anything, the '96 model year will be remembered as the year of suspension improve- 13 2 ments. KTMs come equipped with new and improved versions of :Marzocchi's Magnum 45 conventional fork, Suzukis will be the first Japanese bikes to jump on the conventional bandwagon with their 49mm Showa conventionals, and most full-size Kawasaki, Yamaha and Honda' motocrossers will come with Kayaba's massive 46mm inverted forks. DETAILS, WE WANT DETAILS... . Kayaba's 46mm inverted forks first showed up on Team Kawasaki's works bikes three to four years ago, and in the years since have graced Hondas and Yamahas as well. The standard production fork has been 43mm since '92, and it wasn't until this year that manufacturers decided to make the jump to the bigger tubes. ' On the outside, the upper fork tubes are only one millimeter larger, even though the lower sliders are a full three millimeters larger. Thinner tubing allows the new legs to remain fairly similar in outside diameter, and surprisingly, the larger forks are lighter tl1an their smaller predecessors. Obviously, greater rigidity is the performance goal, and the larger contact patch yielded by the larger tubes results in exactly that. Internally, a larger fork cartridge - up three millimeters from 25 to 28mm - allows for better damping control and a wider range of tunability. Inside, the outer fork tubes have a Teflon coating We won't even bother getting into how fast the CR500 is, how hard the engine pulls or how flawlessly the transmission shifts - we'd be rewriting our '95 bike test if we did. The big news is the new suspension! All of our rides aboard the King CR came on natura I terrain courses namely the legendary Carlsbad Raceway and several burned-out tracks in the local Southern California hills - in our opinion, there's no reason to endanger yourself on a superc.ross-style track on an open bike. Last year, we felt that the CR500's new Kayaba suspension components were a great improvement over the Showa units that graced the '94 bike. This year, the new larger forks yield as great if not greater - a performance gain over the old Kayabas as the old Kayabas did over the old Showas. Did that make sense? Because of the CR500's girth, the increased rigidity is more noticeable on the open bike than it might be on the lighter 250. On Carlsbad's super-rough downhil1, testers were able to bottom out the '95 bike's forks at race pace. Headsha.ke was a problem at times, and one could actually feel the front wheel flexing slightly from side to side. No such problems with the larger versions. The new CR can be ridden at speed on the d"ownhill without a hint of headshake, and although the new forks can still be bottomed out, the sensation isn't nearly as violent. The front end gobbles up slap-down landings up and begs for more, and under hard braking in rough conditions, the handlebars remain steady and stable. We set our forks up

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