Who's going to do it? Honda CT125
 

Now that here in the US Honda is selling (if you can get one) the Honda Trail 125 is anyone considering one for overlanding or back/dirt road shenanigans?

There are a few small and amateurish but excellent channels on Youtube with early owners upgrading and showing the rest of us what they can do and I do personally love the looks of them - sadly left the UK about 8 years too early before Nathan Millward started his Postie Bike tours!

This bike has the strong appeal of being a wholly inappropriate machine for round the world ADV touring which is exactly why someone is going to do it. Does anybody know who would be contemplating this on a Trail 125 or has everyone calmed down on the nostalgia wave and are looking at the new raft of KLX/CRF300's?

I am very tempted.

Done pretty much all I'm likely to get chance to do, so doing it again with 40 HP less looks like something to try.

Andy

I love the bike. I considered it.

But it's still a pass for me. Too slow for when you have to ride in a long straight line...

I am very intrigued with the CT125. Lightweight, supereconomical (60-65 kms to the liter) and bulletproof engine. For south and central America, for most of Asia and maybe for Africa?(dont really know as I havent been there) it would make a lot of sense. For Europe and north America maybe not, but its all in the mindset of people. It seems to cruise ok up to 75-80 km/h which for most of the world would be enough to keep the average traffic speed just ok.

The negatives are that is seems to be quite expensive for what it is. And the exhaust looks very awkwardly designed...

And its so liberating not to have a 300 kilo/25 k € advbike to be accountable for all the time. Just look at Ed March and his C90 adventures. He travels absolutely everywhere with his C90 (the precursor of the CT125) many places a huge advbike never would be able to go.

I briefly owned a CT110 and had planned to keep either that one or my XR125 but in the end decided to keep the 125, if I did not still own that bike which I have had from new I would seriously consider the CT125 and would regard it as a travel bike.

I love the idea of it.

But - I have a Honda CB125 in the shed for our kids to learn to ride on the road which has the same or similar motor.

It is seriously tiresome on anything other than around town. Not sure how these people do RTW on them. Kudos to them, but not for me.

Regrettably it seems Honda UK are not only not bringing in the CT125 but have stopped imports of the C125 :thumbdown:

This will not result in me buying an Africa Twin or Fireblade as they seem to think it will.

Options for low weight seem to be grey imports with associated hassles, Chinese or Royal Enfield.

Andy

With Kawasaki's new lineup revealed today, including a FI KLR with bold new face with 200+ kg - seems like the only light road bike options that could do trail well would be what? Versys 300, BMW 310 GS, RE Himalayan?

The CT has been an oddly popular post on my website since I previewed it last year, so riders are thinking about it.

https://adventuremotorcyclinghandboo...t125-goodd.jpg
https://adventuremotorcyclinghandboo...ct125lesss.jpg

I certainly agree with the point about speed, one of the reasons I will not be selling my XR125L to buy one but I am not so sure about the forks/swinging arm and footrests simply because my experience of riding off road on my CT110 was that you rarely needed to stand up, stay sat down and plod along through just about anything, it is not a rally raid or enduro bike.

OK so I have been totally taken in with what people have been doing with these in the US to prepare them for long trips, even though I suspect many will not stray too far from their RVs in the campsite and am thinking of trying to get one to the UK where I hope it would go through single vehicle approval, I believe others have already done this.
Ideally I would have a trip to Thailand where I could buy one, ride it around and ship it home at the end which is still a possibility but are there any members out there who could give me an idea of availability at the moment, are they lined up outside of dealers waiting for customers or is there a waiting list?
A few years ago I bought my XR125 new from a dealer in Cape Town still in the crate and had it shipped over which worked well, something like that is a possibility with a reliable contact to see it went well at the other end, does anyone know of someone suitable?

Looks a fab option but
 

It was something I had considered until I got various insurance quotes for it...
More than insuring a T700:eek3:
Brokers excuse? well sir, they get stolen so often that there is a premium doh I'm out!

I am curious as to how a bike not even sold in the UK gets stolen so often but then yes insurance brokers, incidently I added my CT110 to my BMW's classic policy and was as cheap as you would expect to insure, I think an additional £25 admin fee.

If you do bring one in, a quick call to ooracing

https://www.ooracing.com/engines-ooracing.html

will sort out the 'only 8bhp' problem :rofl:



No, I'm not serious ...

Up to 190cc now, I knew there were 140cc but had not heard of larger.