If there’s one segment in Indian motorcycling that’s been picking up pace over the last few years, it’s the adventure bike one. More and more riders are heading off the beaten path in search of adventure and two-wheeled thrills, but they also want bikes that are easy to ride on tarmac, and on an everyday basis.
The market has responded with a wide array of options at different price points, from the Hero Xpulse to the legendary BMW R1200 GS series, and the number of entrants in this segment is only going to grow. The Honda CB500X is one among this number, and I can tell you right up front that it’s a wonderful machine – with one very prominent flaw, which I will elaborate more on later.
The CB500X has been around globally for about seven years. Having been envisioned as an easy-to-use tourer, and when you look at it, you realise that Honda has gotten its proportions just right. It’s hefty without being mountainous and yet compact enough to not be intimidating to someone who’s not used to adventure tourers. The seat is 830mm tall, but it’s at its slimmest near the fuel tank, so it’s easy to grip with your knees.
I’m just over 6 feet tall, but I venture that shorter riders will also be comfortable on this bike. The riding position is commanding and upright, with the windscreen doing a good job of protecting you from buffeting; it’s adjustable for height via some bolts.
Fit and Finish
As you would expect of a Honda, the fit and finish are both excellent, and the angular elements on the body look smashing, along with the LED lights. There are, however, some cost-saving measures on it. For example, the digital instrument screen is LCD, rather than TFT, and the swingarm is a box section unit. Further, you don’t get features like cornering ABS and traction control.
The heart of the CB500X’s matter is its 471cc parallel-twin powerplant, which produces 47.5 hp and 43.2 Nm of torque. These aren’t record breaking figures by any means, but as is so often the case with Hondas, it’s about how those figures are used, not about outright performance.
There’s enough low-end grunt to lift the front wheel up during hard acceleration in first gear, for example, and the power appears in a butter smooth and linear manner right through the rev range. There’s also enough tractability to potter around in 6th gear at just over 60 kp/h, so the engine is capable of a wide variety of functions, depending on your mood and/or the riding conditions.
Refinement levels are top notch, and it’s only when you near the engine’s redline that you’ll feel vibrations – but you’re not going to rev it that hard in most cases anyway. The exhaust note isn’t raucous, but it has a nice, bass-heavy boom to it. The gearbox is just as smooth as the engine, with a light clutch and not even a hint of a mis-shift at any point.
Dual-purpose Bike
If you want an adventure bike as an everyday ride, this one will absolutely fit the bill. The chassis is stable and forgiving of pretty much any sort of riding behaviour, and despite its 199 kg weight, the bike doesn’t feel that heavy, which is a boon in urban conditions. Find a highway, whack the throttle open and you’ll easily be able to ride at 130 kph all day without fuss, with the suspension absorbing bumps beautifully.
You can adjust the suspension preload at both ends, too, to fine tune the ride. At the extreme ends of the riding spectrum, such as under hard braking from speed or fast riding through bad roads, you will find some front suspension dive and extra rear shock absorber rebound, but this is only to be expected. In corners, too, the bike is extremely stable and confidence inspiring, and you can lean it into bends much more than appears possible. The Dunlop tyres and brakes do a good job of keeping things right side up.
If you spot an off-road trail and fancy a bit of exploration, the bike is more than up to the task for all but the most hardcore conditions, with the ground clearance and suspension both helping matters along. The suspension travel isn’t at full scale adventure bike levels, but it’s definitely enough to have some fun with, and I suspect many people who buy this bike will do so.
This brings me to the prominent flaw I had mentioned earlier. Despite the fact that the CB500X is a well-built, fun to ride, refined and capable motorcycle (and it’s a Honda, after all), it’s difficult to wrap your head around its Rs 6.87 lakh ex-showroom price, which is frankly way too much.
Consider this – the Kawasaki Versys 650, a similar adventure machine but one that is more powerful and that comes with more and better features, costs Rs 6.94 lakh, ex-showroom, and it’s difficult to recommend the Honda over it. The only way for Honda to popularise the CB500X here is to ensure that they begin localising it to a large extent, thus bringing its price down. If and when they do that, they should have a proper winner on their hands.