This little gem is motorcycling in its purest form: Honda CL500 review

Honda and 500s go together like Morecambe and Wise and chips with mayonnaise, that fabulous Dutch invention.

If you really want to annoy a Dutchman, tell him the Belgians thought of it first.

Whether it’s the naked CB500F, the adventure CB500X, the sporty CBR500R or the CMX500 Rebel cruiser, they all have one thing in common – they’re a perfect instruction to motorcycling for newbies with the ink still wet on their A2 licence, but spirited enough to be fun for more experienced riders.

It’s a formula that works – Honda’s sold 133,000 of them since 2013, and while adrenalin junkies may mock 500c machine as dull, especially from a company such as Honda known for safe, predictable machines, the truth is that they’re great little bikes.

And now to that pantheon of dinky delights, you can add the CL500, a scrambler-style naked with light off-road aspirations.

Which suited me fine, since the week before on the launch of the Multistrada V4 Rally, a 275kg beast with heavy off-road aspirations, I’d fallen off, thankfully on nice soft Sardinian sand.

On the road, the Rally and other high-tech machines handle well because of a million gizmos such as cornering ABS and traction control, but the Honda doesn’t need any of those because it’s simply perfect by design.

It’s very telling that the design team all look about 12, and even the oldest is only 36, but that hasn’t stopped them adopting the ancient Japanese obsession with detail in the search for that perfection. They tried 20 different types of rubber for the footpegs, for example, before choosing which gave the best feel.

The first CL in 1962 was a 250, then 350 in 1968 and 450 in 1970, and the design of this latest 500 variant harks back a bit to the 1970s, with its flattish seat and high scrambler-style exhaust.

Climb aboard, and you feel instantly at home, with decent mirrors and a simple circular dash, the only minor complaint being that it proved difficult to read in sunlight, even after adjusting it to maximum brightness.

There’s also no rev counter, although the engine lets you know it’s time to change up by transmitting a strange tingling sensation to your nether regions when you’re thrashing it too much.

Mind you, some people pay good money for that sort of thing. The tingling, that is, not the thrashing.

There’s only one disc up front, but since the bike only weighs 192kg wet, it’s more than enough, and there’s lovely progressive bite and feel from both front and rear brakes.

With that weight in the middle of the bike and low, the handling’s as light as the shadow of a feather falling on a lake by moonlight, but twist the throttle coming out of a corner, and it can fairly crank on a bit, with a surprisingly meaty snarl from the exhaust like a kitten wanting to prove it’s actually a tiger.

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For heavier riders, firming up the rear suspension preload sharpens up the handling even more.

After threading seamlessly through the Seville traffic and escaping to the sun-kissed hills beyond, what a simple, glorious joy it was to fling it around bend after bend without a care in the world, while a brief foray off-road ticked its scrambler credentials.

Not only is it the cheapest of Honda’s 500 family, this little gem is motorcycling in its purest form - a fabulous combination of being incredibly easy yet fun to ride.

In short, it’s a winner as much as chips with mayo. Ask any Dutchman.

I’m all pumped up

With the contact patch between bike tyres and the road so much smaller than on cars, tyre pressure is crucial.

Yet most of us check our tyres at filling stations, which creates two problems – first, you should check pressures when the tyres are cold, not after riding to a filling station, and secondly, the gauges there are notoriously unreliable.