Going Strong: JuanVerde?s Honda XR650L street tracker
Some motorcycles are a flash in the proverbial pan, abandoned after a couple of years on the market. Others linger in showrooms for years, until stocks are depleted or the tooling costs are paid for.
Then you get the bikes that sell steadily, year after year. The Ural has been produced since 1942, with minor updates every few years. The Royal Enfield Bullet entered production in 1948. Then you get the Japanese workhorses, like the Kawasaki KLR650 (b. 1987) and the Honda XR650L, which has been rolling off the assembly line since 1992.
This businesslike street tracker shows the enduring appeal of the XR, and comes from Texas-based ?JuanVerde? (identity withheld by request). The builder may be pseudonymous, but his talent cannot be hidden?he?s already built several sharp-looking customs, and this XR650L is his second crack at the model. ?I did a similar build a couple of years ago, pre-Covid, that made the rounds,? he tells us. ?This is kinda the 2.0 version?a bit more refined.?
?I build in my spare time out of my garage and shop in my back yard in Denton. Got my start restoring several early CB750s over the last 15 to 20 years, but now I seem to lean more towards customizing things into my style.?
We?re digging the style here, which is minimal and functional. The bulletproof air-cooled single has been treated to a top-end refresh, plus the famous ?Dave?s Mods? popular with XR650L owners. (Which is essentially fitting new main and pilot jets in the carb, and drilling th...
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