Hi All. Not been on for a while..2yrs has anyone seen this M1NSK TRX 300i also available in the uk as a HonleyRX3 imported by Earnshaws of Huddersfield

A little heavy @ 155kg dry but still a dam sight lighter than a GS when you drop it but it has a lot of good quality parts (luggage is a bit naff.. alright for sandwiches !) I'm going up north to have a look soon, Tdamalcolm

Nice looking bikes!
I didn't see any prices posted on the web site. Any idea?

As you say ... bit heavy at 155 kg. for a 250cc bike.
Those crash bars probably add a bit. But it looks GOOD!
Question? Where are the pioneers? :confused1: I'm guessing if these machines are inexpensive then they could sell. VERY hard to break into the market. Takes a decade minimum.

My Suzuki DR650 is 324 lbs. dry, 368 lbs. wet. (147 kgs./167 kgs.)

I see no reason why Minsk can't make a perfectly reliable bike ... but they're 50 years behind the Japanese ... who've been trimming weight off dual sport bikes and improving components since 1970.

The big four push suppliers to improve components too, to make them stronger, lighter and better .. if KYB isn't giving them what they need, they go to Showa. If Denso's ignition have problems, they switch to Kokusan. And so it goes ... F.I. systems, suspension, brakes, engine internal components.

Not sure the Russians have such requirements or are as obsessed with weight reduction and quality control the way the Japanese are.

Bikes today did not come out of thin air ... but were evolved over decades of slow and careful refinement.

The Russians will get there ... but the Chinese will get there first. ... with the Indians right behind them. (Hero, Bahai/KTM)

I've done a little research on these things, they are sold under several brand names, but all made by Zongshen in China. I suppose it's unlikely we'll see them in the USA. I think one of the Chinese manufacturers needs to start building some actual brand awareness, and stop letting every distributor badge the bikes with their name, too hard to keep up with who makes what.

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Andy Tiegs
https://new.horizonsunlimited.com/ts...lsouth-america

Exactly! A few years back you'd see random Chinese mini bike (AKA pit bikes) sold everywhere: street corners, malls, auto parts stores, flea markets. A thousand different brands. The Chinese govt. stepped in and slowed things down but the damage was done.

It's well past time one Chinese company step up and build brand awareness and get serious. At this point no one I know trusts Chinese bikes much.

I remember reading a Brit mag a while bike talking about one of the big bike shows in EU or UK. They said there were something like 20 Chinese companies there. Turns out most source parts elsewhere, add paint and graphics, bolt parts together and VOILA ..."OUR NEW BIKE!" ... very few actually build a WHOLE bike from scratch, let alone the motor. Lots of get rich quick schemes going on, or so it appears.

In Latin America there are also many random brands for sale who's names change with every new boat load of bikes. The bikes are getting better but no one company has emerged to really take the lead ... like HONDA did here in the USA in the early 60's.

The Koreans are doing a better job and Hyosung has emerged as a pretty good bike from a company that stands behind the product ... as has Bahai (India) for scooters.

Here in the bay area we are still inundated with dozens of Chinese scooters ... yet there are few brick & mortar dealers that I've seen. A lot of these scooters are junk, some or OK ... I couldn't even remember ONE name of any one of them. No steady stream of bikes from one or two brands.

The bike got a mainly positive review here...

Honley RX3 - A 250cc adventure bike | Bike Social

Its heavy for a 250 ccm for sure, but man it got the look indeed....

Says it got a 18" front rim - but it looks like it got a 21" in the photos - doesnt it?

I wish Honda could make something similar out of their Crf250L model. 15 litre tank, a little windshield, a more comfortable seat, crash/engine bars and panniers as well.....

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In the end everything will be fine. If its not fine its not the end....

Yes, I could see that with a few Yamaha stickers plastered all over it.

Hard to tell from the pics - or even from the review - how far along the Zen quality spectrum it sits but the specs sound good to me. OK it's a bit overweight by modern standards but it's almost exactly the same as the old Honda CB77 I ran round Europe for years and I don't remember that as being particularly heavy. Be interesting to get one of the heavyweight reviewers to do a side by side comparison with the new CCM (although with all the pre launch tease time we've had that's now starting to sound like yesterdays bike!)

The pick and mix wild west world of Chinese bike manufacturing does sound a bit like the UK situation back in the 20's, post WW1, with companies buying in Villiers engines, Sturmey-Archer gearboxes, Webb forks etc and just making their own badges. Or post WW2 in Japan before the big four emerged in the early 60's. Anyone remember the contempt heaped upon the early Japanese offerings or even the dumping compaints about their pricing. Plus ca change, plus c'est la meme chose.

If one dealer in Huddersfield can bring these into the UK via Belarus and sell them for £3500 with (presumably) everyone in the chain managing to chip out their margin on the way I wonder what a bit of direct sales competition could reduce it to? Get it much lower and the bike could almost be a disposable item on a long trip.

Absolutely spot on!
I took a hundred pics of this at the bike show and comparing it to the CCM thought I'd fished a pearl but as usual you get 'ought for nought' it's built down to a price with the sole aim of 'looking like' the real thing

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have fun with your helmet!

I own a Zongshen RX3, which I bought from CSC Motorcycles in Azusa, California. I have now ridden the bike about 9,000 miles, and I like it very much. The bike is very robust, and carries heavy loads with aplomb. The engine is superb, and the U.S. Delphi EFI is excellent. I haven't had any mechanical problems whatsoever, and I am very happy with my purchase.

We'll reserve judgement until you have 50k miles, Spud!

Yuma Simon aka 'culcune'

Early days but the Honley is on my list of possibles for 2017. So far I have two big questions for Earnshaws when I get there

The rear tyre is 15-inch. So far I can only find cruiser tyres, no proper knobbly.
The service intervals seem short, 2500 miles.

This screams commuter bike dressed up to appeal to Charlie's who aren't old enough to have a licence for a GS but maybe that's just marketing that doesn't understand what it can really do.

Andy

Regrettably Honley are off my shopping list. I came out of the local pit of doom (also known as the White Rose Shopping Centre) and there parked next to Cheryl was a Honley 125.

A late 2014 bike and it was dropping to bits. Rust on every "Chrome" surface, spokes you wouldn't trust not to break by looking at them, engine paint that made you think of Head and Shoulders.

I've been a student and kept small bikes outside all year round, but my 20 year old Honda looked better the day we lifted it into the skip than this 18 month old.

Lets hope they sort the tyre sizes and get their materials up to speed for 2020, because for 2017 I'd take a lot of convincing.

Andy

I had similar feelings about a Mash that I looked at last year, brand new as well.
They are not intended to deal with the UK weather but would probably do OK if based in the south of France or Italy.

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Dave

Yea, it's definitely still "early days" for these bikes. The good news is every subsequent generation of bikes seems to improve. Many here may have read various ride reports of guys buying China 125's and 250's in S. America and riding round. Just a few years ago these bikes DID fall to bits ... and not just bad paint and rust.

But they seem to be getting better. I've give them a couple more years. Even then, I doubt they will match Japanese fit and finish or build quality. You get what you pay for.

For me finish and build quality aren't that important if the engine hangs together.
The rest, I can deal with myself, do my own upgrades. Things like crap bearings can be replaced with quality ones, wiring can be upgraded where needed.

Step by step ... the yellow peril is upon us.

Not a lot to do about the fork legs chrome rusting though. At the moment I would prefer a secondhand CRF250L to this, in supplement to a quality issue I don't like China's human rights, equality and actions in the South China Sea.

I avoid buying Chinese whenever possible.

I like the effect the aggressive pricing has on traditional motorcycle manufacturers and have noted with interest the globalisation of factories - but I factor that in to any considerations. I checked out an old Toyota Avensis with an eye to buying and it was simply the worst Toyota I've ever seen with the dash cracked by the sun and a load of rattles - made in the UK....

Chinese bikes, at least in the US, are ALREADY there! The Haosen Hawk is selling for about $1300 to $1400 shipped to your house. Dozens of owners reporting good things about them, and some are actually taking them on trails and one guy even took his to a mild MX track (he crashed a couple times, so his broken parts are his fault ). The downside to be seen in the early days--these are NOT California legal as far as CARB--on road or off-road and a few other states, most notably Pennsylvania. Some are still getting plated in New York.

The true test is one guy on Chinariders is planning a trip from the Blue Ridge Mountains of Georgia where he lives, to Yuma where I live, and south to wherever everyone seems to ride to here on Horizons--tierra del fuego. He already bought his bike and is playing around with accessories for a long trip, and has upgraded his sprockets from the stock off-road oriented 15/50 to 17/45 and the stock carb to a Ebay 'Mikuni' as even the ebay 'Mikuni' carbs allow the jets to be played with (using Mikuni jets) while the stock PZ-30 Keihin clone carbs do not. Since he has about $1500 into the bike up to this point, he plans to make it a one way trip and has even called the trip a 'ride and dump' as he plans to fly out of Argentina.

Since I have had success with Chinese bikes as commuters, I am contemplating buying one and riding with him from Yuma through Baja to Cabo, and back, alone. Then again, I might find someone coming north to ride with. I am quite confident that my bike won't have major issues if any at all--least of all the engine. Keep in mind, we aren't planning US interstate speeds, nor planning on recreating either of the Baja 1000 races--the SCORE or the newer 'retro' one that has been revised not too long ago.