hairy_apple
Adventurer
When I was a kid, I grew up hearing stories of adventure from both of my parents. From my dad, I got my love of Land Cruisers, and from my mom... my love of the Honda Ct90. Pictures of her living in Borneo when she was a teenager, and the little Honda bikes always made me excited for that kind of an adventure. Well, when I was 12 or so, I really wanted a bike. I talked with them about a dirt bike, vs an old trail bike. Well, being that even as a kid, I loved old stuff.. I wanted an old trail bike. For Christmas that year, my brother and I got a yellow 1968 CT90 to share. He rode it down the driveway Christmas morning, crashed it, and something internal broke on the engine before I ever got to ride it. Bummer. Well, while it was being repaired, my grandparents gave us a CT70 and it ran great. We rode that a ton. Soon enough, the 90 was fixed too and we were ridding them around. I always liked the 90 better, and my brother really preferred the 70. So we just decided that we'd just keep the one we liked better. We rode those little bikes everywhere. Rode the hell out of them. It was a first taste of motorized adventure. Miles and miles of dirt roads were explored on the little bikes. At some point I had crashed it, and broke the key off. So from that point on, I had left the side cover off, so I could just unplug the battery to kill it. When I was 17,my friend and I were playing around on it, and the kick start got caught in the wiring, and ripped half the wiring out of the bike. At that point, I parked it and left it sitting in my parents garage... until last summer.
At Overland Expo, someone had a yellow CT90, and of all the awesome vehicles, it just stood out to me in a crowd of generic looking bikes. My love of the goofy little bike was still there. So, I started thinking about dragging mine out of the garage and using it again. I thought it would be great to throw on the cruiser and use while camping. So, last summer I went and dragged my old bike out of my parent's garage and brought it home. It was pretty sad looking. Years of dust, the wires hanging out the side, duct taped seat. Just.. not pretty. Well, just about that time, a friend of mine who restores Honda 50s and 70s asked me about doing some fab work for him on a custom 50 frame. We worked out a plan, would do the fab work, if he would take my bike and bring it back to life, and we would each pay for parts and materials for our projects, but trade labor. Perfect! A few weeks later.. I remembered exactly why I loved my little bike. It's slow, it's goofy, it bottoms out the suspension on a pebble, but man, what a fun little bike.
Then my wife rode it.. and also loved it. And what fun is one motorcycle anyway. So, soon enough, bought a 73 to go with it. That came with a "parts bike" that I got running in 5 minutes. So, now I had three. Well, I also found two more parts bikes for $30.. can't turn that down. Oh man.. things are getting weird. I might have a problem...
Well, the 73 is a much better bike, the suspension works better, it's faster, it's heavier and feels more stable. It didn't take me long before I realized I wanted to build one of the parts bikes with the newer style suspension for myself... and while I was at it, why not a faster motor.. I am a bit heavier then I was at 13. I had thought about doing a Chinese 140cc motor, but I feel like a huge part of the cool factor of these little bikes, is that mountain goat climbing ability, from the low range. Losing that, to gain more speed, would be a bummer to me. So I started looking around, and found a Honda 125m motor, which I will pick up tomorrow. That should fix most of the issues with these bikes, the stupid 6v, points, etc. The weak points are all gone with the ATC engine, I keep the low range, and it's still all Honda. I will be putting it into a 74 frame, and both the 73 and the 74 will get stiffer suspension.
Most importantly, I've been ridding them all over. Don't have a ton of pictures, because I'm having too much fun to stop and take pictures, but putting the miles on the bikes trying to get anything worked out of them before summer... because we have BIG plans for this summer. I've been ridding a little more each time, the last ride was about 80 miles, some dirt road, but mostly on road. The goal is that this summer, we plan to travel from our home in Grass Valley CA, up through Nevada city, along the old wagon road, Henness Pass Road, into Reno Nevada. I haven't actually plotted out the full route yet, but my guess is we'll be around 150 miles or so, 90% of that being dirt. The idea is that I'd like to have someone meet us in the middle with fresh gas, and food and somewhere to sleep. lol That way we could carry less on the bikes while ridding. 150+ miles on a 50 year old trail bike sounds like a good way to see how much my wife loves me... lol.
At Overland Expo, someone had a yellow CT90, and of all the awesome vehicles, it just stood out to me in a crowd of generic looking bikes. My love of the goofy little bike was still there. So, I started thinking about dragging mine out of the garage and using it again. I thought it would be great to throw on the cruiser and use while camping. So, last summer I went and dragged my old bike out of my parent's garage and brought it home. It was pretty sad looking. Years of dust, the wires hanging out the side, duct taped seat. Just.. not pretty. Well, just about that time, a friend of mine who restores Honda 50s and 70s asked me about doing some fab work for him on a custom 50 frame. We worked out a plan, would do the fab work, if he would take my bike and bring it back to life, and we would each pay for parts and materials for our projects, but trade labor. Perfect! A few weeks later.. I remembered exactly why I loved my little bike. It's slow, it's goofy, it bottoms out the suspension on a pebble, but man, what a fun little bike.
Then my wife rode it.. and also loved it. And what fun is one motorcycle anyway. So, soon enough, bought a 73 to go with it. That came with a "parts bike" that I got running in 5 minutes. So, now I had three. Well, I also found two more parts bikes for $30.. can't turn that down. Oh man.. things are getting weird. I might have a problem...
Well, the 73 is a much better bike, the suspension works better, it's faster, it's heavier and feels more stable. It didn't take me long before I realized I wanted to build one of the parts bikes with the newer style suspension for myself... and while I was at it, why not a faster motor.. I am a bit heavier then I was at 13. I had thought about doing a Chinese 140cc motor, but I feel like a huge part of the cool factor of these little bikes, is that mountain goat climbing ability, from the low range. Losing that, to gain more speed, would be a bummer to me. So I started looking around, and found a Honda 125m motor, which I will pick up tomorrow. That should fix most of the issues with these bikes, the stupid 6v, points, etc. The weak points are all gone with the ATC engine, I keep the low range, and it's still all Honda. I will be putting it into a 74 frame, and both the 73 and the 74 will get stiffer suspension.
Most importantly, I've been ridding them all over. Don't have a ton of pictures, because I'm having too much fun to stop and take pictures, but putting the miles on the bikes trying to get anything worked out of them before summer... because we have BIG plans for this summer. I've been ridding a little more each time, the last ride was about 80 miles, some dirt road, but mostly on road. The goal is that this summer, we plan to travel from our home in Grass Valley CA, up through Nevada city, along the old wagon road, Henness Pass Road, into Reno Nevada. I haven't actually plotted out the full route yet, but my guess is we'll be around 150 miles or so, 90% of that being dirt. The idea is that I'd like to have someone meet us in the middle with fresh gas, and food and somewhere to sleep. lol That way we could carry less on the bikes while ridding. 150+ miles on a 50 year old trail bike sounds like a good way to see how much my wife loves me... lol.