Honda CG 125 (Honda CG125)

Member Name: Pete Ryder

Product:	Honda CG125
Date:	07/05/04 (9859 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: amazing reliability, humble and inoffensive, cheap to run

Disadvantages: lack of power, suffers scorn from designer bikers

I have owned a Honda CG 125 for twelve years, having bought it, a year old, from the lad next door who had just passed his test and rushed off to buy a big Kawasaki; it was a step on the ladder of increasing power since I had worked my way up through Honda 50s, 70s, 90s and now this.... unfettered (or slightly fettered) power and the world was my oyster! Within six months I had been as far as I could go in this country without getting wet, ie up to Land's End and down to John O'Groats, since I live in Northumberland almost exactly midway in between. Having been to John O'Groats before on a 70 (and round the Irish Coast on a 90) the (relative) speed and ease were exhilarating. The machine was, and is(after 32 k miles) reliability itself - it will cruise in the mid 50s, and hit 70 (once) downhill with a tail wind - but unlike other reviewers I could never coax it to more than 80 odd mpg, even by throttling down and keeping it in the 40s - the 90 used to do 150 mpg. Lack of power means busy motorways and dual carriageways are out of bounds; carrying the wife or a good day's bag of fossils (I am an amateur palaeontologist amongst other things) is a struggle, although the latter complain less than the former. Is this the year for the long awaited step upwards to a 250? I will be sad to part company with such a reliable workhorse.

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