For decades, the notion of a two-stroke Honda road bike was unthinkable. Honda was steeped in four-stroke development and a world leader in the advancing technology that had made it a powerhouse in both motorcycle Grands Prix and Formula 1 for cars. Soichiro Honda himself, who abandoned the chairman’s seat in 1973, considered two-strokes inferior and refused to entertain the thought of his company embracing such a move.
However markets are markets, and one such was the rapidly emerging off-road scene, particularly in the USA, where sales of motocross, enduro and trail bikes was very big business as the ‘seventies unfolded. And so, as Soichiro departed, a milestone was reached with the first production two stroke to wear a Honda badge, the CR250M Elsinore. Thus began a string of such machines in various capacities, but the sacred domain of the road models remained staunchly four stroke.
Then in 1980, another milestone was quietly reached, when the H100 appeared – a simple twostroke commuter built to a price, with 11 hp on tap,
