Is The Honda CRF250L A Good First Motorcycle? Could it be The Best Beginner Motorcycle?

Hello everyone and welcome back to the dork side. It is I, your friendly neighborhood dork in the woods, and today I want to talk about whether or not this bike, the Honda CRF250L, is a good first motorcycle. That's right everyone, I am the dork in the road and I want to be your internet riding buddy. And I'm better than your regular riding buddies because I'm available whenever you want and I come with the mute button. So please don't hesitate to subscribe and click that notification bell so you know when I post awesome new content just like this. So I have owned this Honda CRF250L for two years now. It is a 2016. It's got about 2,000 miles on it, mostly because I pretty much only ride it in the woods like this and on the trails. Doesn't get a lot of street riding. It's gotten some. I rode a lot on the street at first, but I have two other motorcycles and so I ride them on the street a lot. So anyway, I've logged some seat time on this bike. I've spent a lot of time on it, and just to be clear up front, this is my favorite motorcycle. If I had to go down to one, it would be this one, and it's not a competition. I wouldn't hesitate to sell the other two and keep this one. I love this bike for a lot of reasons. I did a whole video on why I think a dual sport is a great first motorcycle, so check that out if you're looking for a first bike and you want to know about dual sports in general rather than this bike specifically. So it's not a secret that I think it's a great bike and I recommend it to people a lot, but is it a good first motorcycle? Is it a great place to start for someone who's never ridden before? And there's two things, if you've seen my other videos. So I did a video on the Grom. Is the Grom a good first motorcycle? And I did a video on the Versys. Is the Versys a good first motorcycle? And in those videos, I talk about two real factors to consider if a bike is good for you as a noob. And the first factor is, is it too intimidating? Too powerful? Is it dangerous for you as a rider with limited experience? Is it too much bike for a brand new rider? And two, is it something that you'll be able to keep for a long time or is it something that you'll quickly outgrow? Because there's lots of bikes that are great to start on, but they're not bikes that you'd want to keep. And so the ideal beginner motorcycle is really good in both of those categories. So let's talk about the 250L and let's talk about whether or not it is easy enough for a new rider to handle. Would it be too much for a new rider? And I like to rate those two things out of 10. So on a one to 10 scale. So in terms of ease of riding and easy bike to learn on when your skills are undeveloped and you're new, I would say this motorcycle is a 9.5. And that is high praise. 9.5. It's not too powerful. It's forgiving if you make stupid mistakes. It's very forgiving of the types of mistakes that noobs make when they're still learning clutch control and braking and all of those things. It'll never surprise you with its acceleration. You'd have to work really hard. I mean, you could wheelie it if you revved it up all the way and dropped the clutch, but in general, it's pretty forgiving. It's lightweight. The brakes work well. It is just an easy bike to ride. It really is an easy bike to ride. It's not intimidating. I think it's a great first bike on that score. It's very versatile. It's forgiving. It has a great suspension. I mean, not for dual sports, but compared to other motorcycles. So, you know, if you're doing, if you're hitting potholes and stuff, if you're not road aware, it is, it's a good bike for that. It's not expensive. It's an easy bike to get into. And I recommend it for sure. The great thing about dual sports, unlike other bikes, street bikes and stuff is they're kind of made, they're designed to be beat up a little bit. For example, I've dropped this bike. I don't know how many times on the trails and it's great. I haven't had to do any repairs. There's a crack in the plastic over the muffler and obviously the hand guards are scuffed up. I probably would have broken a lever or two if I hadn't had them, but for the most part, they're very forgiving and they're tough and cheap to fix. A full set of plastics for this bike is a hundred dollars. So even if you did make a mistake, it would be a lot cheaper to fix it and get it back to new condition than it would a street bike, a more expensive bike, a bike with a lot of fairing, something like that. So in terms of, is it easy enough to handle and easy enough to learn on forgiving? Yes, I think it's really, really good on those scores. 250 is a great place to start. 20 horsepower, great place to start to really learn the basics. And because it's a dual sport, you don't even have to start on the road. You could practice in a field until you get the hang of it and the tires and the traction and the suspension is not going to let you down like it would on a street bike in that situation. The reason it's a 9.5 and not a 10 is that it's a little bit tall. So I think the seat height is 32 or 33 inches. I don't remember exactly. And so if you, if you're a shorter rider or you have a short inseam, it's a little bit, that can make it a little bit unwieldy until you get used to it. If you're trying to put your feet down a lot and you can't get them all the way down, that can be intimidating for a new rider. So that's the one caveat is it's tall. It's pretty tall for a brand new bike and new riders really want to feel comfortable putting their feet down. I really did. It's why I started on a 500F because I felt really good about being able to put my feet down solidly. But as soon as I got a little bit more competent and really started riding more, I realized that that's not, there's a thank sign. That's not as big of a deal. If you, as long as you can get your toes down or the ball of your foot down, and I totally can on this bike and it's much taller. So 32 or 33 inch seat and I have a 30 inch inseam and I can get my feet down. I'm pretty comfortable unless I'm on uneven ground. I don't, I don't even have to think about putting my foot down. It's just fine on this bike, but just a consideration. So if you're looking for a first motorcycle and you are not a tall person, uh, I would definitely sit on a 250L or maybe if you want a similar bike, that's a little shorter, look at an XT250 or TW200. Those are both Yamahas. They have a lot lower seat height. The second part is, is it a bike you'll keep forever? Does it have staying power? Are you going to outgrow it? On one hand, it depends on what you plan on doing with it. But on the other hand, uh, there's very little you can't do with it. So because of that, I'm going to go ahead and say 9.5 as well. 9.5 in terms of, is it a bike that you can keep? Because it can do a lot of things. So the exception, we'll start with the exception this time. The reason why it might not be a forever bike for you is, uh, if you really just want, if you decide you really want to ride on the highway long distances a lot, it's not super comfortable for that. You have a freeway commute, you can do it, but it's not comfortable. And, and you're really not utilizing all the many benefits of this bike. So why I think it's an excellent forever bike and one you want to keep for a long time, even if you start on it is because of its versatility. And this applies to a lot of dual sports, but this one in particular is very bulletproof. So it's low maintenance. It costs very, it's very inexpensive to own. I pay less than $50 a year for full coverage, full coverage insurance. It's not expensive to buy. Um, it can take a beating. It's cheap to repair. If you need it to be oil changes and maintenance are easy. It's got plenty of power. It'll do 65, 70. You can ride it on the highway, but you can also slap better dual sport tires on it like this, like 90, 10 tires like I have and ride it in the woods like this. You can go out on the trails. If you've seen, uh, like just a couple of weeks ago, we went to Huckleberry flats, I was taking it off jumps and riding slick, muddy trails and doing steep hill climbs. So I always say this bike does everything. Any other motorcycle can do 80% as well. And then I stick by that. So that's why I'm a huge dual sport advocate because you don't know what you're going to want to do as a new rider. You just don't know. Like when I bought this bike, I envisioned a lot of things, but I did not envision putting in the back of my truck and riding in the woods and on the trails all the time. I didn't envision how much I would love it and ride it and all the different ways I would ride it. And so I just didn't know. And so it's nice to start on a motorcycle that no matter what you decide, what kind of rider you decide you want to become, you can do it with, with a few limited exceptions. And even then it can do the things like touring. It just isn't comfortable. That's why I love the two 50 L. That's why I think it's a bike that you'll keep for a long time because it'll do whatever you want it to do. It'll last you forever and it won't cost you very much money. In conclusion, if you are a person who is considering getting into motorcycling and you want to pick up your first bike and you're considering the CRF two 50 L, uh, it is really hard to go wrong with this bike. It really is. Unless you just have absolutely no intention of going off road ever. And I mean like across the field, across the parking lot, uh, gravel parking lot, even that kind of thing, you'll just never go there. Then I guess maybe there are better starter bikes that are only on the street, but in terms of versatility and ease of handling and just fun and the potential for fun, you can't beat it. It's a great bike. So that's my take. What do you guys think? Other two 50 L owners? What do you think? Good first motorcycle? Would you recommend it? Why or why not? Let me know in the comments. Uh, if you're a person considering the two 50 L, what are the bikes that you're looking at? What are we comparing it to? Let's talk about it. So that's it for this video. So I just want to say, thank you very much for watching. I appreciate you. Please don't forget to like if you got some useful information or you just enjoyed listening to me ramble on. And as always, please do not forget to be excellent to each other. Thank you. Dude. So fun. Water. Oh, that's wet as hell. Oh, that's deep. I was not expecting it to be that deep.