HONDA TRAIL 125 HUNTER CUB FIRST RIDE REVIEW | How does it handle backroad riding?
Вставка
- Опубліковано 25 сер 2024
- This is the first ever ride on my 2021 Honda Trail 125, or CT-125 to the non-US market!
After hitting the water management canal levees in my first video , I emerge on the backroads and start the break-in process of the CT-125 modulating the speeds, changing gears, and discussing my thoughts and initial impressions of the bike as I do so. I really enjoyed my road stints on the Trail 125, the bike is very composed and felt solid on the road. It's not the same feel and overall experience as when on a Grom or Monkey, which is surprising as this bike is essentially a rugged scooter!
If you'd like to see my other Honda Trail 125 Videos, I have a lot of content so far:
Honda Trail 125 Hunter Cub Walkaround Series:
• 2021 Honda Trail 125 I...
ALL Honda CT-125 Hunter Cub and Trail 125 Videos:
• Honda Trail 125 Hunter...
My Motovlogging Setup:
amzn.to/3snmr3F
amzn.to/3aR8jtQ
amzn.to/3bzho9x
amzn.to/3pNuu8b
amzn.to/3bE1Kts
The awesome Honda Hoodie I wear while riding when it's chilly:
amzn.to/3uBskMT
I read somewhere that one purpose of the heel toe shifter is for when you’re wearing dress shoes or leather formal shoes . Instead of shifting using your toes and scuffing your shoe, you can just use the heel shifter to shift up. In Asia this is most useful as this is their primary means of transportation. they use this for job interviews, or any formal occasions requiring the use of a nicer pair of shoes.
Correct
My wife is from Philippines. Been over there three times. You would not believe the motorcycles. Main mode of transportation. They have what they call tricycles. Its a motorcycle with sidecar for taxi transportation. The heel toe shifter is on every auto trans bike. Honda 150 motorcycle is used alot on the tricycles. Its standard shift. They still have the old Yamaha two stroke bikes but new factory production. Honda makes a bike called a wave. Tried to buy a wave 125 but won't ship to USA. Its 100cc and 125cc the 125 will get up and go very well. Scool kid's have uniforms and dress shoes. Alot of them ride the Honda auto bikes.
I've heard this a few times after posting a video mentioning I didn't know the purpose. That's pretty cool and I'm glad they kept it on the bike for authenticity!
I too have spent time overseas..
There's a Bazillion super cubs over there.
I also ordered a Trail 125, should be here in about a month.
@@John5XR I heard it was so you could wear flip flops but that works too
Great 👍🏼
The Ct 125 makes everyone sit up straight. As they should. I installed a gear indicator and totally changed my experience on the trail. I love my 2024 Honda Trail 125.
Another great video. Thanks John.
Glad you enjoyed it
My new Foreman shows what gear I'm in and now that you mention it I do find myself glancing at it pretty frequently. Never knew I needed it, and I guess I don't, but it's nice to have.
Yeah, the only time I realized I needed it was when I came up to those intersections and found myself taking off from dead stops in 2nd. The other thing that makes it tough to know is you don’t wanna downshift when you’re at speed or else the rear tire will chirp. So to avoid this, you downshift when you’re coming to a stop, which is where you lose track of what gear you’re in
Coming from the world of Harleys, most of mine are older, and did not have gear indicators, my new CT 125. Reminds me of the good old days, makes you a bit more intuitive, i.e. counting your gears, not to have an indicator is not the end of the world
I have a heel/toe shifter on my Valkyrie and love it! You will learn it and once you do you will probably get to like it as well.
Think you said you are in Northern Florida? Am impressed by the almost total lack of traffic!! Love it. Use the toe to up shift and the heel to downshift. Tap with the toe of your shoe/boot.
That is one cool bike ! We love our Monkeys but if I would have known that was in the works I may have waited.
I have both in stock condition and without modifying the engine, suspension, seat, or tires on either... in my humble opinion the Monkey is a better 'on road' experience. Of course the Trail125 can be modified to be more comfortable and geared differently to perform better 'on road'. Off road the Trail125 wins easily in the 'off road' arena, which is whats its made for. Maybe you guys could add just one to your garage since it can be made to carry two up? Take turns riding as the passenger 😉.
I've come to love the heel shifter after riding the bike in close quarters situations and when carrying loads on the rack. I wouldn't be without it now. I'm in Central Florida, St Cloud to be exact. I'm lucky enough to live in a small pocket of tourist country that's light on traffic most days. The roads I hit in this video were rural communities that still have property and dead-end roads. If you're in the Keys as your name suggests, I think the Monkey is the ultimate Keys bike! The Trail would be useful if you wanted to load the rods and tackle box up and bridge fish for some Tarpon though, toss up!
I agree 100% with Finding Neutral!
@@John5XR No longer live there. Was born and raised in the Keys but up in Central Florida now as well, near Mt. Dora (which is named after my great great grandmother!) My family goes back at least 6 generations in Florida.
Both my wife and I love our Monkeys! If you look at my channel on UA-cam you will see them the day they were delivered!
Very cool! My Dora is a central Florida gem. Great riding roads there too.
I am short'ish, 5'7 and I have the same thing, sitting back on the rack sometimes. Nice ride, I added my newest last night.
I guess the seat is just pushed forward a bit too far. I am appreciating the large rack though, I use it quite often and am ok with sacrificing the seat room.
@@John5XR Agreed. I went through a fancy handbill wooden crate, a tough box and finally found a milk crate gives me the best utility for errands and fishing, the main things I will use it for.
Nice! I’m gonna be pumping out a bunch of #shorts videos that highlight the random stuff I do with the bike. You’ll get a kick out of them!
On semi automatic you rev match by pressing down shifter pedal , hold it down while flicking throttle then let up shifter pedal and should smooth out down shift like if had a clutch lever
I’ve pretty much perfected it since this ride, I’ll have to do another video showing the technique!
Only things I've heard about why a heel toe shifter is used on this type bike is for ease of use for flip flop folks or for not scuffing up your work shoes toe area? Great episode and narration.
A lot of people have mentioned this to me since my walkaround video on it, and I'm gonna definitely highlight that in a future video!
@@John5XR Cool. Ultimately no matter what it boils down to the heel toe shifter is part of this bikes vintage charm 👌. Right up there with its oversized rear rack and snorkle exhaust.
That’s a great way to put it, “vintage charm” describes the Trail and the Monkey perfectly
A bit late for a comment, but I’d love to see a comparison from the CT to the monkey. I know they are two different bikes, but I assume a lot of people will be on the fence between the CT, monkey, grom, cub, adv, etc. Maybe like a video of the pros and cons of each bike would be really cool too see.
This. Trying to decide between the trail 125 or the new grom. Been back and forth more times than I can count.
I plan to do a huge comparo between the Grom, Monkey, and Trail here soon. Lot's of planning needed for that video though...
Learn to change down through the gears properly as you break and you will have no issues. On the old Honda centrifugal clutch models, the heal shift helped bang down through the gears this way, so not sure the point of it with the now reversed shift motion...
I agree.. a gear indicator should be included for an extra 100 bucks… good for safety
Awesome video...what kind of red gloves are you wearing...nice match!
Thanks!! They are Fasthouse gloves, love them (and all the other Fasthouse gear I have for motocross)
It doesn't take off with much torque compared to the monkey because it's running all different ratios the gearing and the size of the wheels all factor in
With that theory, it should as the gearing is lower than the monkey (14/38). The auto-clutch trans I feel softens a bit of the directness the manual clutch provides, but it’s the same engine power wise
lengthen out seat by cutting some pipe/ AC line insulation and place over rack bar.
That's an idea!
Hey mate thanks for posting. Agree with your wife in regards the need for a gear position indicator as the little donk does not have the torque to pull away comfortably in second gear without clutch slip. Recently fitted a GCraft (Webike Japan) gear shift guide / support to the gearbox output shaft which definitely improved the shift quality and directness. It's been the most worthwhile addition I've put on mine. They are a great little bike and was worth the six month wait I had here in Oz. Safe travels.
Thanks Patrick, when they’re right you better admit it, right?! Lol. Interesting about the shift support, I’ll look into that
I’m interested in trading my triumph in for some info these smaller toys. It’s in between the grom for getting around town. And the Trail for getting around on the logging roads, of which there are thousands of miles around me. I’d be interested in the monkey as well but I tried to dwindle the options down. What do you think?
Excellent question! If I had to only pick one, I’d go Grom with offroad mods. The Trail handles Offroad just fine, but I think the Grom is more fun to ride overall, especially on the road. The monkey is best on the street and you’ll be afraid to ride it hard or fall offroad because it’s so pretty
The logic of the shifting dilemma is to drop it into neutral when stopped, you get the light. then move into first ONLY when its time to move forward. So the idea is to always shift into neutral. That's the safety logic behind it.
You should always be in gear when stopped so you can launch quickly in an urgent situation.
@@meuhey Yeah I don't really drop to neutral in real world. However, your urgency implies you put this type of bike in heavy traffic situations which you should not do as a habit. This is something you ride on country roads or fire roads. People just don't respect anyone on the road let alone a bike this size.
when you downshift you should release the shift lever slowly... simple imagine it is your clutchlever thats how those semiclutches work..... when you depress the lever the clutch opens when you release it it closes.. try it ;) btw this works also in 1st gear when you standing and want to let the clutch fly (to get a punch for wheelie or what ever)
Excellent advice and I started experimenting with this after this video. I have it down pretty good now and will do a follow up video
@@John5XR very cool... im looking forward for your videos :D love them !!!!!
Other countries get a CRF150L, maybe that would be a minidual sport that I can take on that would kind of feel like this Trail 125.
Something I just came up with.
That would be a fun bike! I had my time with a DRZ400S and hardly used it, the dual-sporting here in Florida is more or less dependent on how close you live to a trail system, and I live far from any
Looks like another fun bike.wheres lars dog.he'll run that track with you.😁😁😁😁😁😁
Lol, Klein doesn't get to run the track with us anymore, she gets too close to the bikes and starts nipping our legs now! You'll like the video that's being released at 5pm today, it's at Lars' but no appearances by Klein unfortunately.
Thanks for mentioning your height. Im 6' 2'' and was wondering if i could fit. Need a small commute bike for side streets. Hope it works for me
the bike handles taller riders easy, and I'm going to try turning the handlebar mounts around to push them forward a little to make it a bit more roomy. The only issue I see with being tall is that I end up sitting on the grab bar a bit more often than I'd like.
so probably comfy for someone who is 5'5"?
super cub tells you what gear you are in, not sure why they removed it from this one other than to make the gauge cluster smaller.
Florida cold is very different than NJ cold. Better and more mild lol
Can you mod the dash or add gear indicator to this??
Oh I’m sure, maybe some day
zip tie some neoprene to the rack so your tailbone doesn't hit metal.
Hey John Are you going To get Honda Super Cub?
No, most of my riding is offroad, so the Super Cub wouldn’t really get much use in my garage
If you blip the throttle a bit on downshifting it gives the gears a chance to mesh, reducing the bump. Like double clutching an old non-synchro Land Rover or Jeep.
No gear id is my one and only complaint about this motorcycle.
It would be very to have. There’s an aftermarket one I might try on this bike
What's your opinion monkey vs ct125
Ooof, great question! Two very different bikes and that surprised me honestly. I expected the Trail to be smaller, which is was not. This bike rides like a big bike whereas the Monkey rides like a mini-bike. Probably mostly in the tire size and wheelbase. The Monkey to me is more of a "fun" bike, with the clutch and smaller profile, allowing it to wheelie and zip around a bit better. The Trail is my go-to bike in the garage though after only a few weeks. I use this bike FOR EVERYTHING! Carting boxes from the front of our house to our shop in back, I carried an extension ladder the other day, a leaf blower, about 60lbs worth of car parts stacked two USPS bins high about a half-mile from our racecar shop at my parents down the road to my shop, etc... Hell, I'll even take the bike to the shop from the house simply because I'd rather not walk, it's just that damn easy to ride! However, it can't wheelie, the power delivery is a bit soft, the seat a bit hard and too far forward, and grips a little too aggressive, making it "not as fun" as the Monkey. It's almost apples to oranges at this point as both bikes seem to have two entirely different purposes in life. I used to try and use my Grom for the things I do with the Trail, but couldn't with the clutch and no storage space. The Monkey I couldn't use at all for this stuff because I didn't wanna scratch or scuff the nicely painted metal parts. The Trail is a workhorse and I use it as such, and is mostly what I needed in my garage. So, put it this way: The Monkey is like a Miata (relevant because I race and sell Miata parts) as it is fun, sporty, looks cool, reliable, and comfortable enough to commute in, BUT, you end up using the old F-150 all the time because you can jump in and out of it with muddy boots, throw a bunch of crap in the bed, don't care if the kids jump all over it, can sip your coffee in one hand and not have to shift gears, jump in and out quick, and don't care about running through a ditch or two.
Long opinion and mostly a long analogy, but if I had to choose one bike to have, it would be the Trail based on what I do with bikes and where I ride. If I lived in a city and could have a sub-50mph commute, the Monkey 1000%.
@@John5XR you pretty much summed it up. Thanks. I hate my seat on the ct it is definitely too far forward and hard as a brick. I done a 50 mile ride day before yesterday and my butt was killing me. That's why I was asked about the monkey. I was thinking of getting one.
How much do you weigh? Sorry, normally inappropriate but I'm 250 and want to know if I can ride to the store with it.
Keith, the monkey seat is extremely comfortable. I agree about the trail seat, and my rear end hits the rack bar too
No worries Kristomat, I weigh 200lbs abs yes of course it’ll take you to the store. It probably won’t take you to 55mph, but so long as the road is slow, you’re gonna be fine
How tall are you John?
Nevermind. Lol. Just heard
It's geared for the dirt.
Yeah my super cub has the same engine size but is way faster. I can easily do 55 on it!
Interesting. I am 200lbs too though, which makes a huge difference on these 125’s
@@John5XR The cub and grom have the engine tuned to get up to higher speeds faster not all that slowly stuff like the monkey or trail.
Could be the gears too, the trail has tall gearing whereas the Grom/monkey/super Cub don’t
@@John5XR look at the suzuki van van 200 it’s a little bigger and 199cc for just a little more then the Honda. Mini moto.
I’ve scoped out the VanVan and TW200’s before, but really don’t want another dual sport after my DRZ400S. I just never used it, whereas I use the mini’s all the time, road or dirt
I am from india my height 4.5 i need this bike in india please my help when this bikecome india
I wish I had that kind of influence!
If I had one first thing I'd do is grind off that heel shifter.
I actually love the heel shifter when I thought I wouldn't. I find myself using it on nearly every upshift
Your wife is right
aren't they always though? lol
So much whining about minutia
It’s a review, maybe the whining is my thoughts on what I might not like?