Trying to get your hands on a Honda Trail 125? Dealers say they can’t get their hands on bikes to sell to us Canadians. So what if we asked them to bring in another bike that’s almost the same thing—the Cross Cub?
Most readers will remember Honda’s old CT90 and other similar bikes that Honda sold here in Canada for decades, and sold around the rest of the world for a lot longer. The new Trail 125 has a similar look, but a new engine, derived from the Grom. The Cross Cub 110 has an older engine, which appears to be pretty much the same thing that the old Cub-style bikes had.
It’s a 109 cc horizontal laydown OHC single-cylinder, but unlike the older machines, this bike has electronic fuel injection—most likely, EFI is required to meet emissions standards in many markets.
The 110 engine isn’t as powerful as the Grom-derived single, but it still makes 8 hp, and that’s supposedly good enough to push this bike to 85 km/h. The light weight (105 kg—but we aren’t sure if that’s a wet or dry weight) helps here.
Of course, these bikes are made to be loaded down. In Asia, small moto shops are filled with bolt-on bits for these and similar machines, so you can load them up with anything from groceries to touring luggage.
Honda exports these bikes to a wide range of countries, but China is one of the most important markets, because that’s where they are actually made, but subsidiary Sundiro Honda. Even the Japanese domestic market machines contain a lot of parts from the Chinese factory, which are shipped to Japan for assembly.
That keeps the price down, of course. So if you could buy one of these at a lower price than a Trail 125, and it was actually available, would you be interested?
Probably shares parts with the motor in the Honda ATC110 I had as a kid in 1986.
I’m sure you’re right. What baffles me is that dual clutch transmissions have been a thing since 1961. Honda even makes them for their big bikes. I surprised they haven’t simply scaled theirs down for these little utility bikes. Surely it would increase the sales take rate. It’s only a matter of time until a competitor does, then Honda will be caught short.