View Post

What Do You Want To Know? 2025 Honda Grom

In Japan, Small Displacement by AbhiLeave a Comment

Tomorrow morning I’m hopping on a plane to head back to one of my favorite places in the US: the Barber Motorsports Museum. Every year they put on something called the Small Bore, which is a “weekend-long celebration of small-capacity motorcycling and culture.” This year, Honda’s piggybacking on the festivities to introduce the newest version of their popular small bore …

View Post

1982 Honda Motra CT50

In Dual-Sport, Japan, Small Displacement by AbhiLeave a Comment

In the 80s, Honda offered what they called a “heavy duty” minibike called the Motra. Unlike the Z50 or original Monkey, the Motra was designed to be loaded up with gear and ridden just about anywhere you could imagine. A commonly-shared-but-unverified tale says that “Motra” is a combination of Motorcycle-Truck because the Japanese pronunciation for truck is “Torakku”.

View Post

1971 Rupp Black Widow

In America, Small Displacement by AbhiLeave a Comment

Rupp Industries was based in Mansfield, Ohio, and for nearly 20 years they were able to compete with Honda and other Japanese manufacturers for a share of the lucrative mini bike market. Their top-of-the-line competition bike was the Black Widow, which was based on the Roadster/2. The Black Widow is probably the best-known of Rupp’s creations. It paired a 4 …

View Post

1965 Honda C100 with Roadster Kit

In Japan, Small Displacement by AbhiLeave a Comment

While Honda found success with its small step-through models in most markets, the Japanese marque struggled to sell scooters in the same numbers in the US. Honda looked to change this with the introduction of what it called the “Custom Group”, consisting of four different add-on kits (the Roadster, Rally, Boss, and Student) designed to make little runners like the …