Honda X-ADV (2019) - Long Term Review

Part 1 - First Impressions

The thing we all secretly love about Honda is how, despite being known for smart, reasonably conservative engineering, considered design and generally being the nerdy-swots of motorcycling, every now and then they build and launch something that is so clearly batshit crazy that you wonder whether they have an official position of ‘Director of Eccentric projects’ who they have to indulge every now and then. From the MotoCompo scooter-in-a-suitcase to early FireBlade. CBX1000 to DN-01, NR750 to Vultus and a dozen daft ideas inbetween, Honda has the capacity to surprise us. So when they announced the X-ADV, a 750cc adventure-styled scooter/motorcycle hybrid on stilts, the only question left to ask was ‘Why does it not have seven wheels?’

Sometimes these hard-to-fathom Hondas are disappointing to ride. But in the case of the X-ADV, it’s the opposite. Based on the NC750 – a bike for which the word ‘worthy’ could have been invented – you’d have been forgiven for expecting the X-ADV to be sluggish, heavy and clumsy through corners. I ‘get’ the NC750 range and the Integra scooter too. I like the easy performance, economy and handling in town, but you rarely get off one and give it ‘that backward glance’ as you walk away.

This bike is very different. The idea of it is so crazy that you have no expectation, just curiosity. And so, when you look down at the speedo to see 80 when you were expecting 60…in the middle of a reasonably tight, B-road corner, it doesn’t take long for curiosity to become respect to become affection – bikes like this shouldn’t do things like that.

Chain drive, but mostly enclosed to keep it cleaner and reduce maintenance

The first thing you notice is the quality. Scooters aren’t usually built like this and if you’ve had any experience of pretty much any other maxi-scooter… ever you’ll recognise how much better-built the X-ADV is. £10k is a lot of money (but the X-ADV isn’t alone among big scoots in charging this money), but the Honda is feels like a very high-quality product.

And, in truth, I’m still not sure if the term ‘scooter’ applies. Scooters have engines at the back, a gap in the middle and CVT transmission. This, er, ‘mongrel’ has the engine in the middle, like a motorcycle, a hybrid manual/auto gearbox that is based on a proper box of cogs and no gap in the middle (more of that later).

Two years ago, this was funky. In 2019 we all expect full colour TFT on our premium motorcycles. ‘G’ Button under the clocks gives more grip off road

Having said that, things move quickly in motorcycling these days and, after a summer staring at bright and colourful TFT screens the X-ADV’s enormous LCD unit looks ancient, is frustrating to navigate and has few functions worth waiting for. The keyless ignition works well though and things like the steering lock show others how easily these things can be done. Fuel filler cap and lifting the seat are easy and obvious operations and there’s enough room under the seat for most commuter-styled full face helmets (those with enormous vents on top might struggle to fit) or a large water melon. There’s also a 12v socket so your melon will be fully charged on arrival.

If you’ve never used Honda’s dual-clutch-transmission (DCT), the first few miles will be interesting. There are three modes; Drive, Sport and Manual. In Drive the transmission changes up the gearbox very early – you’ll be in top by 30mph – and hangs onto the gears for a long time as you slow down. No one knows why it does this – fuel consumption isn’t improved and opening the throttle for a quick burst of acceleration brings a hollow burp of forward motion until the gearbox makes up its mind.

DCT gearbox works well in sport mode, even better in manual

Sport mode is much better; holding onto gears for longer before changing up and changing down sooner. In town we’d use Sport mode, but on country roads Manual mode, where you use the paddles on the left-side switchgear change up and down (there’s no clutch – the rear brake lever is on the lhs handlebar) is best.

There is also a G-mode for off-road riding (for which, you’ll also want the optional footpegs that fit just behind the footboards), which reduces wheelspin off road

The handling is surprisingly good for a fat-tyred feet-forward motorcycle/scooter thing weighing 238kg. Something about the weight distribution, steering and chassis works better than it really should. What makes it harder is that the seating position - feet forward, arms straight, all the weight through your arse – makes it harder to shift bodyweight or even steer the wide bars with any force. None of which seems to bother the X-ADV in the slightest. If it bothers you, then buy the optional footrests (we’re going to try some soon) that should allow more traditional rider input.

It’s early days with BikeSocial’s X-ADV. We’re planning to run it through autumn and some of winter because we think it will make a funky long-distance commuter with build quality to see off the worst that the bad weather can throw at it.

So far we like the tall screen, reasonable weather protection 70mpg consumption and general hilarity of being aboard it. The biggest challenge is getting used to the combination of height and width. The seat isn’t too tall at 820mm, but it is very wide and the positioning of the engine makes it harder to get your feet down than on a more conventional bike.

But, if you wanted convention, you’d have bought an NC750X and saved yourself £2500.

Part 2 - Commuter's Dream?

Let’s play fantasy bike buying. Just supposing you were the kind of wide-eyed optimist that decided living in the place you’d always wanted was worth the sacrifice of a 150-mile commute (each way) to the office, what bike would you choose?

I may be that idiot and did recently spend a whole lot of time working out what the best bike might be for that trip. It didn’t take long to realise I’d need something comfy, with a big fairing, but not so big as to get wedged between trucks when filtering in night time rush hours (have you ever noticed how traffic squeezes itself together towards the white lines when darkness comes, taking a foot of our ‘motorcycle lane’ away?

Clearly my new bike has to be able to cruise easily at motorway speeds with a little in reserve for something I can’t quite justify right now, but I’d also prefer it to do at least 60mpg, not wear out tyres too quickly and be cheap to run. Some kind of luggage capacity for a laptop, change of clothes and a toothbrush too (because some days the weather/fatigue prevents my ageing bones from doing the return leg), shaft or belt drive, (or an enclosed chain), a light clutch and easy gear change and build quality that will see out the other side of several winters regardless of the mileage.

That’s a long list, headed initially by BMW’s largely forgotten K1300GT, followed by their definitely-not-forgotten (and plentiful secondhand) R1200RT, with Yamaha’s FJR1300 in third place.

All three big tourers fit the bill on all counts (apart from mpg and maybe the width when filtering). They’ll all do 50mpg and a half-decent example showing less than 50,000 miles can be bought for £5k…ish.

Comfy, capable and cool too. Is Honda’s 70mpg X-ADV the perfect commuter?

In another world my own 40,000 mile Fazer 1000 does much of that, with half the width, 70kg less mass and only owes me £1650, but doesn’t have shaft drive or luggage. Don’t ask why – and I know half of motorcycling hates this bike while everyone who bought one loves it – but I kept thinking about Honda’s NC750, which costs almost the same when new as a ten year old BMW tourer. And then I remembered the funky X-ADV scootercycle, which is essentially an NC750 with better suspension, build quality that only Honda do, 75mpg however you ride it, a big screen, reasonable weather protection and the kind of ‘what the heck’ personality that makes me chuckle.

Plus, the X-ADV is a cool example of motorcycle-as-utility and I like that. A brand new functional-but-funky piece of properly built urban loopiness for just, er,…how much?

It’s not a scooter, but not entirely a motorcycle either. Scootycle maybe?

The X-ADV’s £10k list price is a lot of cash for a 54bhp NC750 wearing combat trousers. But that’s no more than the top-spec BMW or Yamaha maxi-scooters, a lot less than Yamaha’s ‘don’t-call-me-a-scooter’ Niken and the Honda has a DCT gearbox as standard, which I love. Plus, if you shop around there are pre-registered, zero-mile X-ADVs out there for a lot less than list price

Because it’s a new bike I could borrow one from Honda before making up my mind (and an FJR1300 too, more of which later). So far, it’s working very well some kind of vindication for the idiot who took on Britain’s daftest commute (actually, I used to manage a bloke on a scooter magazine who did a longer trip than mine on a 50 year-old 15bhp Lambretta – that is Britain’s daftest commute).

The X-ADV takes a little getting used to. The riding position is quirky; legs forward, like a ski-lift not a chopper. The handlebars look tall and wide but are low enough that the mirrors high-five the vans when filtering.

That’s it as far as the niggles go though, once you’ve got used to the position, every trip on the X-ADV is an exercise in relaxing efficiency, stunning economy and madcap passive-aggression. Somehow, you discover it only takes 54bhp to be at the front of every queue.

It’s easy to forget that for many riders getting around on two wheels is a simple matter of utility. Just because the daylight disappears for a few months doesn’t stop motorcycling being the smartest way to get from here to there. Bikes like the Honda make this practical because they just get on with it, while resisting the urge to dissolve at the first sign on salt.

Yes, the headlights could be better (could be much better in fact) and the width of the seat and full-length running boards makes its 820mm seat height feel taller than it is. Our bike has Honda’s heated grips fitted, which don’t so much heat your fingers as prevent them getting too cold (there’s a big difference). Which might sound like a bit of a moan. Niggles would be a better word and they all disappear when, at the end of a biblically-wet three hours in the saddle, I come to the tight, bumpy right hand bend at the top of the hill near my house and glide around it in complete confidence despite the speedo showing a number that starts with a seven.

A couple of weeks on Yamaha’s 144bhp FJR1300 left the Honda feeling a little gutless for the first few miles, but then you get back into the hang of manually changing down gears on the DCT semi-automatic gearbox when you need some extra oomph and settle back into a ride where you flow with the traffic instead of riding the tail lights of the car in front.

What really hammers home the brilliance of the Honda is when you stop to fill up and realise you’ve used a whole gallon less than the FJR1300 to do the same 150-mile journey in pretty much exactly the same time.

If we all bought bikes based on the numbers, then we’d all be riding around on Yamaha Fazer 1000s. In the same way as if we all chose dogs by numbers no one would have the two daft, mis-shaped mutts waiting for me to drip seven counties of rain onto the rug in five minutes time.

Thankfully we have more imagination than that.

Likes and Dislikes

Part 3 - Winter of Content?

Freezing cold or furious storms, the X-ADV has the measure of winter riding

Storm Brendan in mid-January won’t go down in history as one of the UK’s meteorological landmarks, but it was grim enough when looking at it from Peterborough on a Tuesday afternoon, knowing I had to ride 153 miles south…on a feet-first, 54bhp, 238g scootacycle…at the time it was due to batter us with torrential rain and 55mph gusts.

A little under three hours later the wind and rain, a badly misted visor for the last 60 miles and some horrifically stupid car drivers were already a dull memory as I hit the twistiest, most giggly part of my journey home over the whoops and falls of the South Downs and attacked the turns with the energy and daft enthusiasm of an invincible teenager on his first bike.

Putting the X-ADV away in the garage ten minutes later, I had one of those ‘long-look-back’ moments. I might even have said ‘thank you’. This bizarre machine has really got under my skin in the last few months.

Another 153 miles completed without fuss. Horrendous winter weather made simple.

For one thing it makes you think about other things than engine performance. On this bike, with the DCT gearbox the engine is almost irrelevant. I’ve finally realised that ‘D’ mode in DCT should be re-labelled ‘M’ for motorway because that’s the one place it really makes sense – everywhere else I run it in ‘S’ mode. You twist, you go and that’s it. I know a lot of riders who will stop reading here because for many of us the engine is the beating heart etc (other clichés are available) of a motorcycle. Mostly I’d agree, but if your relationship with a motorcycle is functional and you still want something that looks cool and makes you smile like the rider described above, sometimes a placid, predictable, functional motor is fine (I can’t wait till this goes on social media – the responses are going to be interesting).

This bike is different, it messes with my muscle memory and confuses my subconscious riding skills. The riding position is at the heart of it. It should feel like a big scooter but, being based on Honda’s NC750 motorcycle means the engine is two feet further forward than it would be on a scooter, sitting where the step-thru gap should be. So you sit on a tall-ish, well-padded saddle, with feet forward and hands grabbing flat, wide handlebars. It’s closer to a cruiser position than a maxi-scooter or adventure bike.

The footboards make the riding position half scooter, half cruiser. Weird…but you knew that already

You can’t use your weight to put pressure through your legs to add control on a wet corner. And because the weight distribution lets the X-ADV handle more like a bike than a scooter, you take liberties that would benefit from such additional control.

In time you adapt and, after three months I’m comfortable chucking it into greasy corners knowing there’s enough ability in the chassis and Bridgestone A41 tyres to get me out the other side.

So, if you’ve always fancied a tall-seated cruiser that handles like a half-decent roadster, with the practicalities of a scooter and looks like an adventure bike, Honda has just the thing.

75mpg saves me almost £20 a week in fuel compared to the Kawasaki Versys 1000 I was riding last week

The performance is better described as ‘adequate’ than ‘exciting’ for a 750cc engine, but then again, at an easy average of 70mpg the fuel economy can only be described as exceptional and the build quality is stunning, as it should be for a bike costing £10k.

There’s one thing I’m still struggling with; very slow riding and coming to a halt. The wide handlebars and bulky handguards are set low enough that they bother car mirrors when filtering. This makes getting through the queues harder than it should and, while not having a clutch lever is more relaxing in traffic, the pick-up point between no-drive from the DCT and drive is intrusive at filtering speeds, making it less smooth than it should be. Plus, widest point of the X-ADV’s bodywork is at the exact same spot where your legs need to be to get them on the floor at a junction. Your feet are already a long way forward and the width of the engine in just the wrong place combined with a relatively tall seat means getting your feet down feels clumsy. It’s easier in jeans than bulky winter trousers on top of two layers of thermals, and I know that no one buys a bike for how easy it is to get your feet down. But if your daily ride involves a lot of traffic, junctions and lifting feet up and down in many layers of bulky kit, I’d suggest you buy an NC750X instead.

Honda heated grips are warm, rather than hot. Keis heated clothing wires in via the 12V socket under the seat (which can store enough ginger nuts to keep a squirrel happy all winter)

Apart from that I love it. In town or the backroads, the X-ADV nips and tucks through traffic and scratches surprisingly well. Out of its comfort zone on long motorway trip it prefers being ridden gently, focussing on average speed, not tailgating. The reward for this saintly behaviour is 75mpg and a riding heart rate half that on any other motorcycle.

And the enormous space under the seat plus optional Honda top box adds more useful storage than side panniers without further compromising the X-ADV’s ability to filter.

Seriously, you should try one.

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Drive chain is partially enclosed which helps keep it clean in winter but makes lubing it more awkward

2019 Honda X-ADV - Technical Specification