fyi found an interesting article on the origins of the CG125.
Honda Worldwide | History | CG125 / 1975
At a time when 2-strokes were still dominant looks like H thought it all through from the very start as a '3rd world mule'

Must be the most copied 125 engine around.

__________________
Morocco Overland 4 (2025) • Trans Morocco Trail

That's a great article and gives some insight into the thought processes behind the CG125. Almost disappointing that it came from the minds of a few key players rather than (as I imagined Honda worked) a corporate engineering juggernaut identifying market sectors with ruthless efficiency and producing designs for those sectors through devolved and dispersed responsibility - Manhattan project style. The only chink in their armour being Soichiro Honda's disdain for two strokes.

With the background of the SE Asia market in mind I can see why they produced what they did but I remember the CG being introduced into the UK in the mid 70's and the ridicule + puzzlement that accompanied it. Honda had just seen off the British bike makers and their superannuated 30's designs by way of high tech, high quality, modern bikes and what do they then introduce - a pushrod single with less performance than a BSA Bantam.

The ability to keep going with just the rain from the monsoon to lubricate it was a big advantage over the OHC CB125 (that I had). Those things may have produced a lot more power but they were really sensitive to lack of oil - or dirty oil - or the wrong oil or .... In no time at all the cam bearings were shot and you were in the hands of either Honda, who charged close to the price of a new bike for a replacement cylinder head or (if you were really, really desperate) Jock Kerr Motorcycle Developments who err ... advertised repaired heads. Fortunately I dodged both bullets when someone stole mine.

I suppose that's where the two strokes had an advantage. With pumped oil there was no forgetting lubricant for years on end and there's not much chance of recycling used two stroke oil so it was always fresh. You could cut it with white spirit (as we were once offered in Morocco) but it's not that hard to spot from the smell. With decent lubrication and a half decent design the Japanese two strokes were almost unbreakable - something I found out last weekend when I took my 60's design Suzuki B120 on the Stella Alpina. You would not believe what I did to that bike to get it and me to the top of the mountain and it just kept going. Not only that but it kept on going afterwards, close to flat out, to get me back to the UK and is still puttering around here none the worse for it - and it came as standard with a flat tank for the extra child. Whatever Honda produced was going to have to go some to beat that, and the CG obviously did - particularly in the long run when stuff like pollution started rising up the political agenda.