Honda CL100
Fun on the road, and fun on the grass
SOME CLASSIC MOTORCYCLES ARE FAST, AND some are ponderous. Some snap round bends like switchback cars, and some run on rails. Some snarl, and some thunder. Some are huge behemoths, and some are as lithe as a racing snake. And some are just a hoot.
This little Honda CL100 definitely fits the final category. The pint-sized trail bike is just grin-inducing. You can chuck it about on the dirt, slide it sideways on the grass, thrash it unmercifully on the tarmac... and it’ll keep coming back for more. With a frankly ridiculous redline and dry weight of a Tesco sandwich, the little Honda was a prime example of the adage ‘It’s more fun to ride a slow bike fast than to ride a fast bike slow.’
As well as stuffing the little single-cylinder engine into hundreds of thousands of road bikes, the lightweight ohc motor powered two sorts of offroader in its early days. There was the SL100, which was a proper off-road mini-missile, and the CL100 street scrambler.
The SL had genuine pretensions to be a useful off-roader and was described by magazine as being an “absolute zonk”, whatever that means, and a “boondocker” that could be “handled with wild abandon, slamming over the hoop de doos.” The SL had a real cradle frame and a 21-inch front wheel, which stretched the ground
