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Howdy y'all! Another Two Wheeled Texan here offering some insight to the newest US market Honda, the 2023 XR150L!
Some quick background to my riding and riding view: I've been riding **** near all my life, since the training wheels came off the bike and I could say BRAAAP!
About 5 years ago I finally stepped into adventure and dual sport cycling after years of scooters, sport bikes, and dedicated dirt bikes. I'm currently downsizing and consolidating to a few choice rides and think an XR150L may fit some light duty riding I'd enjoy! My current stable has many scooters including an ADV150 (AMAZING) and a few larger CC scoots purely setup for street use (quite fast little bits they are), and I am the proud owner of a 2015 Honda CB500X and a 2009 Yamaha XT250, both incredible on/off-road bikes and they serve very different functions. The Honda is setup for touring and comfort, room to pack some gear and head out camping and traveling. The Yamaha is a little rowdy for what it is and is just a **** mountain goat! Goes over, under, around, and into about everything! What I wouldn't mind is a quiet urban curb bouncer allowing occasional trail use, good and easy down dirt roads, easy to move around at a camp site and light enough to easily carry on any SUV hitch. Enter the XR150L!
A coworker has wanted to get a bike after years of my moto vacations, pictures, and stories about rides and trail adventures. Thankfully he's listened and purchased a smaller bike that is easy to manage, will teach great fundamentals, allow muscle memory to form, and shouldn't intimidate him all while being cheap and quite capable! He's the proud owner of a 2023 Honda XR150L! Now some will nay say the 65mph top speeds and its lower 15hp to 270lb power to weight but the reality is that it's well sorted and allows standard street speeds without needing 100% throttle. The bike rides plush and the brakes are good, maybe too good! Each shift is smooth and leaves no guess work that you're in gear and on your way to the next, throttle input is progressive and you can easily modulate either more needed power or what you're comfortable with as a new rider. The low weight and good center of gravity keep smaller, lighter, and new riders upright and able to easily foot work the bike around with confidence, good skills to learn using clutch and throttle feathering without being over powered.
I've only put but 10 miles or so on his bike but I can report it's a hoot! The comfort, the size, the room as a 5'11 265lb rider was just great! I ran down some dirt paths with larger loose rocks with ease, standing or sitting the bike soaks up most of the uneven sections and only at higher speeds do you feel you're over powering the suspension. At slower speeds, still fast enough to keep momentum, the suspension does well. I was happy to see I could get up some hills with loose ground OK, a little fishtail in 1st gear and WOT but she got me there. Found a few small sections with good rythem and got the wheels off the ground, landing smooth and easy and the only complaint there is the tiny stock pegs... Easy fix! Out on the road it's exactly what you expect 15hp to be, slow and will get there when it gets there hahahaha! But as a long time 125cc-250cc scooter rider I am used to this and really enjoy riding the slow bikes fast! Ya know, the smiles per hour over miles per hour! But seriously it's great at 55mph sustained speeds and tackles mild hills at speed quite well. He and I rode about 110 miles on his first real outing and it was great seeing how well he kept with me on my modified ADV150. It's quite a bit faster than stock now and has a top speed just over 75. Granted I was not hauling *** and forcing him to try to keep up, but in normal traffic and getting to speed the XR150L did great and I would not hesitate to put everyone on one!
Tonight we tossed on some hand guards that were universal and required a little ingenuity and patience but turned out well worth it! The stock lever tips need to be cut off and ground round, the stock throttle tube must be opened up to full inner diameter, the new grips were measured and cut to fit (no sticky throttle), and a little bolt massaging was required to clear the brake banjo bolt.. Next week we'll get to the new larger pegs, H4 LED headlamp bulb, and maybe some blinker mods. Sorry, I tend to type long posts but I hope a few of you enjoy what I had to share, find some answers to questions you might have had about the XR150L, enjoy others simply sharing 2 wheeled stories, and can benefit from the mods going on Clayton's bike that maybe you'd like to do as well! See pics, and till next time keep em rubber side down friends!
Some quick background to my riding and riding view: I've been riding **** near all my life, since the training wheels came off the bike and I could say BRAAAP!
About 5 years ago I finally stepped into adventure and dual sport cycling after years of scooters, sport bikes, and dedicated dirt bikes. I'm currently downsizing and consolidating to a few choice rides and think an XR150L may fit some light duty riding I'd enjoy! My current stable has many scooters including an ADV150 (AMAZING) and a few larger CC scoots purely setup for street use (quite fast little bits they are), and I am the proud owner of a 2015 Honda CB500X and a 2009 Yamaha XT250, both incredible on/off-road bikes and they serve very different functions. The Honda is setup for touring and comfort, room to pack some gear and head out camping and traveling. The Yamaha is a little rowdy for what it is and is just a **** mountain goat! Goes over, under, around, and into about everything! What I wouldn't mind is a quiet urban curb bouncer allowing occasional trail use, good and easy down dirt roads, easy to move around at a camp site and light enough to easily carry on any SUV hitch. Enter the XR150L! A coworker has wanted to get a bike after years of my moto vacations, pictures, and stories about rides and trail adventures. Thankfully he's listened and purchased a smaller bike that is easy to manage, will teach great fundamentals, allow muscle memory to form, and shouldn't intimidate him all while being cheap and quite capable! He's the proud owner of a 2023 Honda XR150L! Now some will nay say the 65mph top speeds and its lower 15hp to 270lb power to weight but the reality is that it's well sorted and allows standard street speeds without needing 100% throttle. The bike rides plush and the brakes are good, maybe too good! Each shift is smooth and leaves no guess work that you're in gear and on your way to the next, throttle input is progressive and you can easily modulate either more needed power or what you're comfortable with as a new rider. The low weight and good center of gravity keep smaller, lighter, and new riders upright and able to easily foot work the bike around with confidence, good skills to learn using clutch and throttle feathering without being over powered.
I've only put but 10 miles or so on his bike but I can report it's a hoot! The comfort, the size, the room as a 5'11 265lb rider was just great! I ran down some dirt paths with larger loose rocks with ease, standing or sitting the bike soaks up most of the uneven sections and only at higher speeds do you feel you're over powering the suspension. At slower speeds, still fast enough to keep momentum, the suspension does well. I was happy to see I could get up some hills with loose ground OK, a little fishtail in 1st gear and WOT but she got me there. Found a few small sections with good rythem and got the wheels off the ground, landing smooth and easy and the only complaint there is the tiny stock pegs... Easy fix! Out on the road it's exactly what you expect 15hp to be, slow and will get there when it gets there hahahaha! But as a long time 125cc-250cc scooter rider I am used to this and really enjoy riding the slow bikes fast! Ya know, the smiles per hour over miles per hour!
But seriously it's great at 55mph sustained speeds and tackles mild hills at speed quite well. He and I rode about 110 miles on his first real outing and it was great seeing how well he kept with me on my modified ADV150. It's quite a bit faster than stock now and has a top speed just over 75. Granted I was not hauling *** and forcing him to try to keep up, but in normal traffic and getting to speed the XR150L did great and I would not hesitate to put everyone on one!Tonight we tossed on some hand guards that were universal and required a little ingenuity and patience but turned out well worth it! The stock lever tips need to be cut off and ground round, the stock throttle tube must be opened up to full inner diameter, the new grips were measured and cut to fit (no sticky throttle), and a little bolt massaging was required to clear the brake banjo bolt.. Next week we'll get to the new larger pegs, H4 LED headlamp bulb, and maybe some blinker mods. Sorry, I tend to type long posts but I hope a few of you enjoy what I had to share, find some answers to questions you might have had about the XR150L, enjoy others simply sharing 2 wheeled stories, and can benefit from the mods going on Clayton's bike that maybe you'd like to do as well! See pics, and till next time keep em rubber side down friends!
