Fast enough to turn back time

Hey there, time traveller!
This article was published 18/10/2013 (4692 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

I am 12 years old. Three years of successful wheedling, pleading and just generally being a major pain in the you-know-what has seen my lovely parents park a minibike under the Christmas tree.

Not just any minibike, either, like the balloon-tired, Briggs & Stratton-powered piece of malarkey that my friend Ned McGee’s parents foisted on him. No, this is a bright, lime-gold, yes-it-has-a-transmission Honda. And not just any Honda, but a shiny new CT70, which, if you’re of a certain age, will recognize as the entry-level ride of our generation.

Heck, if you’re of a certain age and reading a column about motorcycles, you might have even learned to ride on a bright lime-gold Honda CT70.

The next five years were a blur of two-wheeled adventure. Daylong sojourns through Northern Quebec (gas tanks strategically located along our route so we could make it home), learning to slide the rear wheel (not easy when said rear wheel has but five horsepower with which to break traction) and trying, for the first time, to jump a motorcycle (without the benefit of anything recognizable as suspension).

That CT was everything that was good about motorcycling and, truth be told, everything good (incredibly reliable, impressively frugal and virtually indestructible) about Honda. Nothing I’ve ridden since — mega-motored superbikes, couch-comfy tourers or leaping motocrossers — has supplanted my love of that old Trail 70.

This’s why, as far as I am concerned, the most exciting motorcycle launched this year — hell, the most exciting motorcycle launched in the past 10 years — is Honda’s Grom.

As modernized as this MSX 125 may be (with its fuel injection and new-fangled disc brakes), underneath its modern veneer beats the heart of my trusty old CT. It’s almost exactly the same size, the tires as diminutive as the original, the engine is one of Honda’s ultra-ubiquitous horizontally splayed singles, and the transmission has but four gears. (Many of you older types may be thinking of writing to remind me that old CTs had but three gears and an automatic clutch, but a few four-speed/manual clutch models were imported to the Great White Frozen North).

What’s more important is that, in spirit, the new Grom is exactly the same bike. Riding this little Honda for a few days brought back floods of memories of all those youthful adventures because, as slow, gutless and no-frills as the Grom is, there is nothing on wheels more adept at jumping curbs, snaking through traffic and just generally flouting the law.

If you really need technical details to sell yourself on the Grom, the 124.9-cc four-stroke pumps out about 10 horsepower through that four-speed transmission. Flat out, following an old Econoline van, feet hooked over the rear tail lights like Rollie Free at Bonneville, it will do 119 kilometres an hour. Without a wind block and sitting bolt upright, you might see 100 km/h, but only if the road is perfectly flat.

The street-oriented tires (Honda Canada should have imported it with off-road tires like the original CT) are 12 inches in diameter and are 120-millimetres (130-mm in the back) wide, which means you can toss the Grom into corners as hard as you would any skateboard-sized motorcycle. Neither its engine nor its brakes — teeny, tiny little discs, by the way — are likely to overwhelm traction.

There are passenger foot pegs and, yes, the seat will fit two with the caveat, of course, that both of you have been to the gym recently and really, really like each other.

Best of all — and this was a point I stressed to my parents so many, many moons ago — the little Grom is dirt-cheap. Honda Canada’s $3,199 asking price is a pittance for the smiles that the Grom is virtually guaranteed to return.

If the people who are lining up — and sales here and in the United States are said to be very brisk — have half as much fun as I did way back when, the Grom will be the best thing to happen to motorcycling since Harley met Davidson.

I defy anyone to take a scoot on the little CT, er, Grom and not be instantly transformed into a grinning idiot. The Grom’s little engine may boast only 125-cc, but it’s fast enough to turn back time.

— Postmedia Network Inc. 2013