Are California bikes different?

[Andrew27]

Oh boy, I can hear the jokes about California being "different" already. But seriously, when I looked at buying a bike from Janus Motorcycles, they have listed some as not legal for sale in California. So does that mean if I buy a new Honda 125 in, say Colorado, can I register it in California? What would be different?

Thanks,
Andrew

 

[dmonkey]

The Honda CT125 is the same across the USA market, 50 state legal. Older Janus bikes were not CARB (California Air Resource Board) approved so they were not sold in CA since they couldn't be registered there. Newer Janus bikes are now CARB certified and meet the necessary emissions requirements to be sold and registered in CA. That was likely just an oversight on Janus' part being a small motorcycle manufacturer.

California will be more strict on aftermarket mods like exhausts though (which are mostly illegal for street use, with few being EPA/DOT approved and legal other than the slip-on type). For this reason people in CA often install mods that they can... ahem... temporarily revert when they need to be in compliance.

 

[Andrew27]

Great explanation, dmonkey! Thank you for explaining this. The search goes on for a CT125 for sale in the Western U.S...