2002 Honda Transalp XL650V

" Er…what is it mate? " is a reaction I’ve had more than once. Honda’s water-cooled V-twin ‘dual sport’ machine has a large following on the continent and has been around for nearly 15 years, but still sells fairly slowly over here.

So why buy a machine that looks like a dirt bike, but has a lazy engine and a half-fairing?

I wanted a bike I could ride to work all year, and that could cope with weekends and occasional tours. I am 6’ 6 " and, ahem, apparently still too short for my weight.

This somewhat narrows down my choices. Sports machines force me to ride in a French toilet squat, while my budget and need for everyday use limits how many cubes I can have.

Enter the Transalp. Smoother than a single-pot thumper, it’s 55bhp motor is flexible enough to hoof through the rush-hour ballet and to drag my carcass around at motorway speed. City clutch slipping is avoided by virtue of the motor’s low down pull, and you can slip by many a petrol station with about 200 miles of tank range.

Perhaps a minus for those not overly blessed with legs is the 843mm seat height. From this perch you get commanding view of commuter’s evil antics and hedgerow lurking tractors.

This altitude does mean that when stationary you become aware of how high up all that heavy petrol is, but the top-heavy feeling evaporates as soon as you start to move.

Even though it is tall, and has mud-plugger stylee Bridgestone Trailwings, you can chuck it about quite a bit.

For dusty Mediterranean biking the OE Bridgestones are well suited, but I would prefer more road-biased rubber. The riding position is relaxed with little weight on the wrists, and although my helmet roars a bit the fairing does a good job at deflecting the weather that keeps this such a green and pleasant land.

The weakest link is the seat. For a bike that suggests traversing the Alps, the seat leaves me yodelling well before I need to fill up. I’ll admit this may be due to my consumption of ‘all the pies’ as much as the nature of Honda’s foam.

The Transalp is easy to ride with a lofty seat. It isn’t knee-down, and a 650 will never be a top mile eater. Where the Transalp scores is in its ability to ignore road surfaces and weather conditions, be happy on A, B, and urban roads, and to cope with these everyday.