The New Ace CR125 Café Racer Has Joined the Mid Life Cycles Fleet.
We've dubbed it the CR125 because that's what we plan to turn it into - an even closer replica of the fabulous Honda CR110 racer of the early 1960s (or of Honda's own CR110 replica, the Honda Dream 50R of 2004).
Confused? That's understandable - what we have here is a SkyTeam Ace 125, a clever Confucian update on the screamin' twin-cam, 50cc Honda Dream 50 produced in 2004 to commemorate Honda's fabulous CR110 road racer, one of the bikes that put Honda on the road to multiple world championships in the early 1960s.
With a 125cc single-cam engine, the new Ace might just match the performance of the standard Dream 50, but with a few tweaks we expect it to shade this (very) distant cousin and still be road-registered, learner-legal and huge fun. Meantime, it looks great parked up next to our Honda CB125 Silver Shogun caf© racer€¦
The new Ace is ready to ride away for less than $3000, and that's a bargain ride in anyone's currency. Once it's run-in, we'll try a few tweaks to get the best out of it and to address a few of the minor design and build issues that are inevitable in a bike of this price.
After all, when it looks this cool, it's worth some extra time to get it just right.
Way back in 1980 (almost 20 years after it conquered the race tracks of Europe, the USA and Japan), celebrated motorcycling journalist Alan Cathcart tested Honda's CR110 racer. Here was a factory production racer - 50cc, four-valve, gear-driven DOHC engine, eight-speed gearbox. In race trim it produced around 8.5bhp (that 0.5 was important, but it was still only 6.34kW!) at an incredible 14,500rpm.
It weighed 134lb - that's just 60kg.
Like the rest of us, Cathcart weighed a lot less 30 years ago, but his very-fit 72kg body had trouble squeezing in behind the CR110's race fairing. Despite that handicap, the racer had a top-speed of about 80mph (130km/h) and demolished the opposition back in the early-1960s.
Cathcart described it as "jewel-like", and a close examination of any photos of the CR110 racer reveal just why that description is so appropriate.
Now for a quick comparison - the road-legal Ace 125 weighs almost 100kg and produces a quoted 7.0kW (9.38bhp). Its rated top speed is 85km/h. Not nearly enough, even when compared with the road-going Honda CB100 and CB125 commuters of the 1970s, which could (and still can) run at 100km/h-plus. Hence our plans to breathe on the little bugger...
A fairer comparison to the Ace 125 might be Honda's own tribute to the CR110 racer, it's Honda Dream 50 and Dream 50R released in 2004.
The Dream 50 came in both road and race trim, but the road-trim bike wasn't road-legal in most markets (including the all-important USA). A new, crate-fresh Dream 50 bike in road trim sold in Australia last year for $10,000, and that was probably a bargain when measured against overseas prices. With a beautiful but complex DOHC 50cc engine, the road bike apparently made around 5kW (7bhp) and ran a six-speed gearbox.
So the Ace CR125 has a lot to live up to, but it also has a lot of potential. Stay tuned - there's much more to come from this cool retro-caf© racer.
More at: http://www.midlifecycles.com.au and http://www.bayer12.blogspot.com
Confused? That's understandable - what we have here is a SkyTeam Ace 125, a clever Confucian update on the screamin' twin-cam, 50cc Honda Dream 50 produced in 2004 to commemorate Honda's fabulous CR110 road racer, one of the bikes that put Honda on the road to multiple world championships in the early 1960s.
With a 125cc single-cam engine, the new Ace might just match the performance of the standard Dream 50, but with a few tweaks we expect it to shade this (very) distant cousin and still be road-registered, learner-legal and huge fun. Meantime, it looks great parked up next to our Honda CB125 Silver Shogun caf© racer€¦
The new Ace is ready to ride away for less than $3000, and that's a bargain ride in anyone's currency. Once it's run-in, we'll try a few tweaks to get the best out of it and to address a few of the minor design and build issues that are inevitable in a bike of this price.
After all, when it looks this cool, it's worth some extra time to get it just right.
Way back in 1980 (almost 20 years after it conquered the race tracks of Europe, the USA and Japan), celebrated motorcycling journalist Alan Cathcart tested Honda's CR110 racer. Here was a factory production racer - 50cc, four-valve, gear-driven DOHC engine, eight-speed gearbox. In race trim it produced around 8.5bhp (that 0.5 was important, but it was still only 6.34kW!) at an incredible 14,500rpm.
It weighed 134lb - that's just 60kg.
Like the rest of us, Cathcart weighed a lot less 30 years ago, but his very-fit 72kg body had trouble squeezing in behind the CR110's race fairing. Despite that handicap, the racer had a top-speed of about 80mph (130km/h) and demolished the opposition back in the early-1960s.
Cathcart described it as "jewel-like", and a close examination of any photos of the CR110 racer reveal just why that description is so appropriate.
Now for a quick comparison - the road-legal Ace 125 weighs almost 100kg and produces a quoted 7.0kW (9.38bhp). Its rated top speed is 85km/h. Not nearly enough, even when compared with the road-going Honda CB100 and CB125 commuters of the 1970s, which could (and still can) run at 100km/h-plus. Hence our plans to breathe on the little bugger...
A fairer comparison to the Ace 125 might be Honda's own tribute to the CR110 racer, it's Honda Dream 50 and Dream 50R released in 2004.
The Dream 50 came in both road and race trim, but the road-trim bike wasn't road-legal in most markets (including the all-important USA). A new, crate-fresh Dream 50 bike in road trim sold in Australia last year for $10,000, and that was probably a bargain when measured against overseas prices. With a beautiful but complex DOHC 50cc engine, the road bike apparently made around 5kW (7bhp) and ran a six-speed gearbox.
So the Ace CR125 has a lot to live up to, but it also has a lot of potential. Stay tuned - there's much more to come from this cool retro-caf© racer.
More at: http://www.midlifecycles.com.au and http://www.bayer12.blogspot.com
