Anyone make a Dual Sport Scooter?

[leadsled]

Has anyone ever seen a dual sport scooter available? Not for aggressive riding but slow trails seems like it would be ideal for me. Not having to deal with slipping the clutch and the like for slow speed riding. Perhaps something like the old honda trails but with a CVT. I've twice attempted taking my scooter down some trails and the ride is just unbearable. It needs to have reasonable suspension travel and probably pegs in lieu of floor boards.

Has anyone ridden the Honda Trails? The pictures I have seen seem to have the seat a lot closer to the pegs than a typical dirt bike.

[leadsled]

No. I'm talking about the CT90 and CT110. 17" wheels. I def. would not fit on the mini-trail

www.super-cub.net/media/Honda_CT_110_Postie_Bike.jpg

[Rebel]

I'm an old fan of the Honda Trail 90/110, I've owned at least four of them. Taken them on trails in the mountains and the desert. Sometimes they just don't have quite enough power but for the biggest part are up to the job. The dual range tranny works wonders and if you did put a bit larger rear sprocket on it you could probably climb most anything. My first bike was a '64 Honda 90 street bike, it had a pushrod motor instead of the overhead cam but I put a big trail sprocket on it and I could climb until the rear wheel broke traction and started spinning, same with the trail 90/110. So a bigger rear tire would help too.

They do have a manual shift trans, but does not have a clutch to work.

As far as a scooter goes, you have the Honda Ruckus with its clones (and Big Ruckus clones), the Yamaha Zuma, and a TNG Baja a 150cc scooter that Kliffs MadMaxx resembles to some extent. How the suspensions are I do not know, they all have floor boards not foot pegs, but you can always add foot pegs.

TNG Baja



Big Ruckus clone



A 150cc regular Ruckus clone



Yamaha Zuma, now this one with a 2t 50cc is probably the most capable scooter for power.



Honda CT 110, these puppies were still available as off road bikes in the land down under at least I know they were earlier this year.



I had a conversation with an importer of a Cub Clone and was told a 125cc with a dual range tranny was going to be imported next year, that would be exciting.

[leadsled]

I thought about the whole Zuma this but I can't believe its got enough suspension travel to do anything other than make you miserable once off the pavement. Be great if I was wrong.

How does the dual range transmission work on the Honda CT's I see some with 2 sprokets on the back and they have to lengthen the chain to use the big sproket. I assume the dual range transmission is something in addtion to this? You can ride the street in H with 4 gears and the shift to L with 4 gears once you hit the trail?

[Rebel]

The first few years they made the ct 90 it had an extra off road rear sprocket and did come with an extra length of chain to add when you used the larger sprocket, a pain in the rear to use. Then Honda engineered a transmission that had a low range gearing added to it, when that came out they did away with the extra rear sprocket and added a lever to the side of it that you just move from high range to low range and you got the equivalent gearing as what you had with the trail sprocket. If you are familiar with four wheel drive vehicles that were made for off-road use, they have a low range built into their tranny this is the motorcycle world version of that.

Back in the day when I did go exploring on my old Honda trail bikes, I never did hard core riding, just kind of putzing around the desert and mountains. you are right about the foot peg thing, in rough areas it is more comfortable if you stand up and use your legs as shock absorbers.

Used Honda trail 90/110s can run from $800 up to over $2,000.00, depending on the condition, at least in my area. I'd consider another dual sport type bike that might have a bigger motor and be less expensive. I love the trail 90 bikes and would buy one again myself though. They were really easy to keep running and could take a real beating. Pulling the barrel off to put new rings in is a snap, I also bored one out to put a bigger piston in, although it did not seem to help in power for it. I also though about getting a fixer upper and installing one of the linhai 125cc Honda knock off motors in it, they have an electric start and might even come in a bigger displacement now. Now for off road antique dual sports bikes another big favorite of mine are the scrambler series from Honda, they came in displacements up to 450cc, my favorites were the 160 and 305. The 450 just seemed too big and heavy to me.