Test
By Chris Jonnum
Photos by Kit Palmer
ond a PR h oncho Pet e terH or st
mu st have thou ght us a bit od d .
When he phon ed us to offer this
bike to test, we were absolutely ebu llien t in our acceptance, despite the fact
that the uni t has cha nged only minim ally in n earl y a d ecad e. "Yes! Pl eas e !
Thank yo u! When can we ge t it?!" we
enthused, no do ubt prompting terHorst
to pull the receiver away from his ear a
few inches an d then scratch his head in
perplexity. Even as a staunch prom oter
of all th in g s H o nd a , he h ad to h ave
wo nde red abo ut our excitement for the
unassuming d ual-sport machine.
. You see, in our eagerness to ge t our
hands on Ho nda's other 2000 XR650 - the
all-new, wa ter-cooled , aluminum-fra med
XR R - ,:"e id t effven hear the Llwhen
dd hn'
F
ter H650 t rna e is a er. ortunate y, we
ors
had some d ual-sport ridin g planned, and
. the R wi ll just have to wait a bit more.
As men tio ned above, th e L h as n't
changed mu ch since its introduction as
a n ea rly '93 mod el b ack in spri ng of
1992, whe n it filled a brief, post-N X650
void in H ond a' s b ig- bore d ua l-s port
slot. The bike is pretty stra ightforwa rd,
with the ages-old ai r-coo led XR mot or
and a familiar chassis, bu t the new 2000
H
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12
Though it' s easy to forget about in the
hoopla over the new XR650R,Honda's
trusty XR650L Is still a competent dual spo rt mo unt.
2000 Honda XR650L
