The right bike at the right time?   Well, there comes a time in your life when the booming four strokes and fire-breathing two strokes have to take a back seat to ease of operation and user-friendly riding.

Right now, I have two bad knees, one of them so bad that the knee will have to be replaced.  Add to that I’m recovering from a stroke,  am over 65 years old, and you can see that the days of the 490 Maicos and CR 500 Hondas are gone forever.

Would I change the last 35 or so years of racing?  Nope.  Not on your life.  I can’t fight getting older, but the  memories of over a thousand races are precious to me.

I still want to ride, but various body parts protest simple things like firing up  a bike.  Right now, sitting in my garage, are a pair of perfectly fine bikes.  Big, tall and powerful.

And virtually useless to me.

I can’t start them up, and if I could, a simple thing like stalling out on the trail could prove disastrous.

I had a friend fire up the big XR and with the aid of a milk crate, I was able to get on board.  The ride was – if anything – intimidating.

I parked the bike, awkwardly climbed off, and stood there, like a lost sheep.   Hell, I still wanted to ride.  After all, I live in Baja, where the trail riding is excellent.  It’s just that the reflexes were not sharp like they used to be.   The spirit was there;  the body just didn’t work like it once did.

THE SEARCH
I thought long and hard – mostly  long -  and then decided to see if there was a bike that would suit my needs.  And the needs were:

• A bike that wasn’t too tall.  I had to get on and off the thing by myself.
• A bike with enough mellow power to take me most anywhere.
• Sufficient suspension so I wouldn’t get beat to death.  12 inches at both ends was out of the question.  Something like nine inches would have to do.
• An electric starter was a must. Easy starting was mandatory.
• Reliable.  The bike had to be ready to go anywhere with no mystery involved.
• Simple.  I did not have the time, patience, or temperament to futz around with it all the time.  Especially out on the trail.
• Air cooled.
• Preferably a four stroke.

Now, where to look.

I checked out all the Yamaha line and the one that caught my eye was the TT225. It had an electric start, which was good.  However, it turned out to be a real porker, weighing in about the same as an XR 400 and having a really junk suspension.  It was also very wide and bristled with horribly out of date components.

Next to get the examination was the Suzuki line.  Their 250 sort of fit the bill, but the bike was heavy and on the tall side.  Also, it cost around five grand out the door.  Electric start aside, it just didn’t do it.  Plus, the next size bike down the line was a 125, which was completely out of the picture.

Which brought us to Kawasaki.  The 300 four stroke is well over 5 grand out the door and doesn’t have an electric start.  Both the KDX 200 and 220 are good bikes, but are tall and manual starters.  Smaller Kawasaki models are rather dated and not worth considering for what our needs were.

KTM made some very serious bikes, like their 400 and 525, but they were way too tall for our requirements.

Which brings us to Honda.

They have a full line up of four strokes, including a 150,  a 230 and, of course, a very serious racer that comes in both 250 and 450 sizes.  The 200 that we knew for many years is long gone.  The 250 and 450 come with an electric start, but are tall and pricey.  Which leaves us with the CRF 150 and CRF 230. 

The 150 doesn’t come with the electric foot, but shares the same suspension and other parts as the 230.  Also, it’s only a 150, which is a bit on the small and under powered side.  Which leaves the Honda CRF 230F as the bike of choice.

It’s based on the time-proven 200 motor, with bigger bore.  It shares a large number of the mechanical parts as the 200.  The best part is that the suspension is in the ball park, with about nine inches of travel, front and rear.  If you’ve ever ridden a 200, you might recall that it was a good bike for the woods.  The tighter the trail, the better the 200 worked.

Consider the 230 a muscular 200.  A real plus is that the sticker price on the 230 is right at $3600.

We picked the bike up at Temecula Motorsports (Murietta, CA) and were treated to first class service.  The bike looks sleek and modern, not stodgy as we used to expect on the old 200 and 250 XR.  It sports the same graphics as the MX bikes and is a handsome bike.

Firing up the CRF 230F is an exercise is patience.  It is one cold blooded sucker!  You just squeeze the clutch in, turn the key under the handlebars to the right, and thumb the button mounted on the right side of the bars.  If it’s cool out, you’ll  need to use the choke  lever.  Honda has several detents in the carb mounted lever.  It takes at least a few minutes before the bike will idle and at least ten minutes of easy riding before it will idle and not stall when the throttle is yanked open.  It seemed to work best when a bit of throttle was used in conjunction with the smallest choke opening.  Try to take off before the motor is good and warmed up, and you will stall.  Again and again.

When I first took off on the 230, I didn’t expect much.  Surprise.  The bike has a bunch  of low end torque!   Still, the power flattened out way early.  A quick shift and the nice surge was felt again.  Once again,  the power hit the flat spot and once more, click the shifter.  There’s a lot of gears, six to be exact.  The ratios seem to be right on the money for west coast riding,  though woods riders will likely want to drop one tooth on the countershaft sprocket to allow use of second gear at low speeds through the trees.

At first I thought the suspension was way too stiff and handling was horrible!  Then I did a quick check  on the tires and found almost 30 p.s.i.  in each wheel.  I bled the tires down to about 14 pounds in each tire and the handling returned!  Now the 230 changed direction easily and the suspension felt much better. 

I confess to being in horrible shape, so did not push the suspension to anywhere near its limits on the first outing.  My first impressions were that the forks were too soft and the rear end about right.  I’ll learn more as I ride the bike and get into some sort of condition.

BITS AND PIECES
Riding the bike is different.  It feels modern and new because the riding position is contemporary.  But the power delivery is something out of a time warp.  You get the feeling that you’re riding a hopped up old style 250 XR.  Something like a Powroll kitted bike.

Sitting on the bike, your arms are low and your hands forward.  The bike is very slim through the midsection and everything falls right into place like it should.

• Clutch pull is very light and the shape of the lever is correct.
• The front brake is powerful.  One simple squeeze on the disc really hauls you down from speed,
• You can’t say the same for the rear.  Unlike the front, the rear is a very dated drum and is on the spongy side.
• To be fair, the brake pedal is nicely shaped and you can reach it and activate it comfortably.
• Shifting is perfect.  The shifter is located just right and a simple nudge is all it takes to get to get to the next gear.
• Bars are nicely shaped and the bars are shod with the excellent Honda waffle-pattern grips.
• The spokes look a bit wimpy on both wheels.  I’ll keep an eye on them and let you know how they hold up.
• There’s no kickstarter on bike, which in the case of battery failure, is a bad thing.  This means that you will have to push start a dead bike.
• The air filter is easy to get to, but the filter itself looks on the small side.  On the 200, for example, the bike would run like crap when it got the least bit dirty.  This thing looks small! We’ll keep you posted.
• I found the saddle on the hard side. Maybe with a bit of time, it’ll improve.  Again, we’ll stay on top of that.
• Oil selection is critical in the 230.  Don’t use any of the so-called energy conserving oils,  and don’t use synthetics or castor based lubricants.
• Removing the spark arrestor is something that many riders do.  We’ll find out what jetting is needed if this is done.

WHAT’S IN THE FUTURE?
It should be more than obvious at this point that we like the CRF 230 and plan to find out more about the limitations of the bike, and more importantly, what the potential is. 

We’ll try pipes, mufflers, shocks, fork stuff and anything that makes sense.  What doesn’t work, we’ll let you know.  What does, will be reported.

In this day and age of slick bikes, mongo sticker kits and titanium this and that, the Project 230 is a throwback of sorts, and one that will turn off the current crop of nose-ringed and tattooed riders.  They will find this bike unsuitable to their long-travel jumping antics.  It won’t make any sense at all.

But for those who want a decent trail bike, or just a bike that’s a joy to start and ride, this just might be the ticket.   Then, this is coming from a broken down old racer.  So take it for what it’s worth.