thank you hello and welcome back welcome to my 12 month 12 000 kilometer review of the
Honda CRF 300 rally it's going to take time it's in this short video just to let you know
what it's like living with a Honda 300 rally what's worked what hasn't worked what's broken
and how I find it after 12 months of use so let's get into it first question I get is
how's the bike been have you had any issues with it have you had any problems and the answer to
that is bike's been great I've had zero problems with it there's people out there that have done
more kilometers in a year more kilometers on their bike probably a lot more I don't think there's
anyone out there that's given their bike a harder time than I have I've loaded it up I've taken it
through the desert I've raced it I've crashed it I ride it hard every day and nothing's gone wrong
it's Honda it starts every time it does what I want it to do it's just been great so for any
naysayers out there that say it's only a little bike you can't do anything have a look at my other
videos it's done everything and I haven't had a problem with it yes it does have some performance
mods it has CBR 300 cam some air box mods Inlet mods and a matching 550 performance tune
but that's how I like to ride I like to ride probably a little bit faster than most I like to
ride in the mid to top range probably more in the mid-range so that's how I've got the bike set up
some people have reported having clutch problems with them
some people are swapping out the clutches for CBR clutches or CRF250 clutches on the older
rallies this bike's got the slipper cut slipper clutch I've had no problems with it this is still
my standard clutch I've beat the heck out of it I've taken through the desert I've raced it
standing clutch is still working fine for me so I can't say what's happened to those other people
but I've had no problem with the standard clutch so for me the Honda reliability is one of the
reasons why I got this bike and it's for me it's lived up to its reputation a quick rundown
of what mods I've done to the bike besides the performance mods the rest of the mods are pretty
much discomfort mods so I've got a sick Concepts Comfort seat I've got a mesh cover on it I've got
Pro Taper bars in the Henry Reed Bend I've got Pro Grip soft rubber grips on there I've got some
added bar weights just to keep the vibrations down and pretty much get through all the vibrations on
the fridge I've got Bark Busters on there I've got a bash plate uh biggest Mod's probably my
tower that I put on for racing so I could have all my rally gear on there now it's stripped back
for what I call Adventure Mode just minimalistic with everything I need there tell me what's going
on the bike what speed I'm going and to navigate and it's in a really neat package for anyone doing
any serious riding suspension setup is where you need to spend a little bit of money so there's
plenty of people out there that do suspension setup mine was set up by a local suspension tuner
and it's been awesome so if you're going to use your bike load it up or a bit of a quicker Pace
than just cruising definitely get your suspension done the bike's much more enjoyable and much safer
I've got my little bag on the back so that's my my sort of day day bag I've got um what do I have in
here I've got my tools I've got two tubes I've got a little electric pump I've got a first aid kit
um that's pretty much it so that sits on the back if I'm just doing a day ride that since on the
back of I'm doing anything more than a day Rider camping I've got other luggage that I throw on
this setup works really well it's out of the way I don't like keeping too much stuff on me
or my bag I do carry a backpack with some water a couple of little things in there
but I like to keep all the weight off me and this is what I find works really well
all right as you may be able to see I've given this bike a hard time and it does
show some scars of 12 months of hard riding and a few crashes
so in my rally racing career which I got second by the way I did have a crash I hit a fence and you
can see the results of that there's some scratches with a fence went across here and I hit the deck
that's probably some amount of what happened in that crash so just basically the hitting a wire
fence did most of the damage some of the other scratches you can see around here here and here
from my last video where it was supposed to be an easy ride but it was anything but an
easy ride so we did cop a little bit of damage and scratches from that but
I accept that it's a dirt bike I use it hard it's going to pay it's gonna pay you some penalty with
a little bit of cosmetic scratching but nothing's broken nothing's stopped working so it's going
great I've gone through a fair few sets of tires in the last 12 months I pulled the stock ones
off pretty quickly and I went to some Michelin starcross five tires and I use them for the desert
and I really raided them they worked awesome for the desert I did about 5000 K's on them
never had a problem Michelin have now changed to us starcross six those fives are used in the soft
compound michelin's now gone to a starcross six and instead of having soft medium and hard they
have soft medium or medium hard so I tried soft medium and while they did work well in the dirt I
found they wore quicker than this old starcross five softs on the road so what I'm trying now
just spurned on a set of Dunlop 952s so these tires have been around for a long time and
I've run them probably 15 years ago on my old xr650 and they used to last a while on the xr650
so I'm expecting good things for them on the little CRF 300 rally uh so far this is my first
ride with them just done Road case to get here a little bit of bush track there I can't really
comment yet but so far so good I'm more concerned about the durability over performance so I need
them to perform to some extent I need them to be good off-road but for me because I do a lot of
kilometers I need them to be able to be durable and handle the road handle the very conditions
from rocks to sand mud so I'll give these a workout and we'll see what happens I'll report
back in a little while I've got some rides coming up so hopefully I'll be able to report back soon
but there we go I've got the Dunlop 952's I've got a 120 width here with the Dunlop 952 and they
must measure their tires a little bit differently because it's not too wide it actually looks good
suits the bike I think and you can see there's still a little bit of talcum powder on there
for when I put them on but yeah very happy with them so far on the road that's the front
front looks good performs and handles quite nicely on the road let's see how
how it wears I have been told I'm not sure if it's true but I have
been told these are the same compound as the Dunlop 606 which do wear really well
one of the biggest changes for me I have a 15 tooth front sprocket if I run 15 40.
and that gives me a slightly taller gearing so that's with my setup that's how I like my
gearing it gives me nice spread of power puts me in the torque band pretty much everywhere
so what is this talk band I thought I'd just stop and explain it for you so you can see here this is
a dino readout from 550 performance with a CBR 300 cam Inlet mods and the 550 performance tune
you can see here the talk band that I'm talking about is right here we're at maximum torque and
your power is still increasing so from just after 5000 revs up to 8 000 RPM that's the torque band
and that's where I like to ride you've always got power for overtaking Foothills and it just makes
life a lot easier and more enjoyable now with my gearing and performance mods people always
ask me what does it sit at on the freeway how many revs are you doing at 100 kilometers an
hour okay I'm going to use this graph to show you so at 100 kilometers an hour I'm at 6000 RPM
110 kilometers an hour 6500 RPM at 120 kilometers an hour I'm sitting on 7000 RPM so you can
see with my gearing I'm still in the middle of that torque curve at all those speeds and I've
got power to overtake the bike's got power and everything just works really well that's pretty
much it for my review The Bike Works awesome I've had no dramas there's nothing more to say
thanks for watching I'll see you next time
test test test test test one two this is my bike over here some stuff this is a bag
cool tank all right
thank you