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Gearing ratio/fuel economy (Please help)

Im.Crenshaw

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Mar 26, 2023
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I want to make my bike more practical for me. I'm 145 lbs. I don't have a lot of places to do serious off roading here, but I do have a lot of highway. I'd like to change my sprockets so that I can go 70+ mph, and
possibly get better fuel economy. If I could do that, I'd be able to ride my bike waaaay more often than I am currently. What size sprocket should I get? Also, Where do I buy it?
 

oldskool

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Dec 1, 2022
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It will take a whole lot more than a sprocket change and even with skill, experience and money, bring lots of money 70+ mph will be a challenge. Even if you do get her up to 70 you may not like it up there and the MPG will suffer. There are no free lunches. There are a couple fellas on here that can give you the low down based on what they have done and what is really the practical limit. Not trying to be smart but you may have bought the wrong bike to fill your needs.
 

m in sc

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no way youre going to hold or legitimately hit 70mph with a stock bike w out going down a very long hill, they don't have near the hp. gear change wont do it alone. trust me on this.
 

Im.Crenshaw

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It will take a whole lot more than a sprocket change and even with skill, experience and money, bring lots of money 70+ mph will be a challenge. Even if you do get her up to 70 you may not like it up there and the MPG will suffer. There are no free lunches. There are a couple fellas on here that can give you the low down based on what they have done and what is really the practical limit. Not trying to be smart but you may have bought the wrong bike to fill your needs.
I was cruising at about 60 stock. I was cruising at 63-65 when drafting off a truck. I got up to 67. I could've gotten up to 70, if the guy didn't slow down.
 

Im.Crenshaw

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no way youre going to hold or legitimately hit 70mph with a stock bike w out going down a very long hill, they don't have near the hp. gear change wont do it alone. trust me on this.
But from what I've heard, the bike is the exact same as a Super Cub, with different sprockets, and people go 70- 75 on those.
 

dmonkey

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The simplest solution to get a comfortable 70+ mph out of your CT125 is unfortunately to trade it for something else that is designed for those speeds.

But from what I've heard, the bike is the exact same as a Super Cub, with different sprockets, and people go 70- 75 on those.
Not just different sprockets, but different engine tuning, weight, tires, and aerodynamics. I wouldn't take 75 mph to the bank, Cycle World put the Super Cub C125 on a dyno and maxed it out around 75 mph without real world conditions. Cozy up for some YouTube top speed runs and you'll see 60-65 mph is a more realistic range, and that the speedometer reads faster than GPS.

Have you noticed that when you're at top speed in 4th gear on your Trail it's not hitting the rev limiter? That's because at peak power it cannot overcome the resistance necessary to go faster, mostly aerodynamic drag - which is why you can go faster while drafting. The reason you can get more speed out of some other bikes by changing gearing, usually dirt bikes, is because they come geared for quicker acceleration and bounce off the rev limiter at top speed. They're limited by short gearing. That's not the case for the CT125, the bike needs more power or less resistance to go faster. Your two goals, increased top speed and increased fuel economy, are unfortunately in conflict with each other. You could absolutely sink time and money into making the CT125 go 70mph+, but that's a rabbit hole of trade-offs that most people would have a hard time justifying.
 
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Lakescout

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Mar 4, 2023
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Wow you bought the wrong bike it's not made for those speeds. If you're drafting of trucks and cars you're riding unsafely to start with. If you notice the name of the bike is trail 125 not Street. Sell it buy a 250 -350 for that type of riding you would be happier.
 

oldskool

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Dec 1, 2022
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But from what I've heard, the bike is the exact same as a Super Cub, with different sprockets, and people go 70- 75 on those.
Honda lists different specs on the two. The SC has a slightly smaller bore and longer stroke than the CT as well as a little higher compression. Even then I don't believe it is a 70 mph bike. Sorry you are not hearing what you want. The trail does what it is intended to do, light trail use, nimble little errand runner that is a 45 to 50 mph machine. You could sell the trail and add far less money than you will spend chasing your tail trying to make it a freeway cruiser and buy a 300 Honda Rebel that is a better fit for what you want to do. Or if you want to do some trail riding a Yamaha TW200 may be a better fit. Of course you will not get anywhere near the MPG.
 

m in sc

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1, 60 on a dead stock bike flatland siting upright? check the speedometer or you changed your sprockets throwing the reading off. Even drafting, down a very long hill gravity powered tucked or drafting means nothing. I tried coming down the LONG hwy 74 hill from the back side of Robbinsville and i did briefly see 67 but, again, thats gravity and was messing with my buddy on his TU250..

2, its different it a lot of ways to the super cub, most notably the ecm is different. we have one of each here in the garage, the sc is my wifes, the trail is mine. Yes, the sc is faster than the ct stock to stock. Have had both ecms in my hand to compare them, and the 21s-22s wont interchange.

dmonkey is right, real world vs dyno theoretical are 2 completely different things. my 4'10" wife, who is tiny and has a very heavy throttle (and gas pedal) tendencies has never seen over (legit) 62 on her super cub. same with another friend of mine who has one, he can hit a legit 60-61 on a stock supercub. since they basically have a 1st gen grom ecm tune, this is on par as they would hit a legit max 62-64 tucked, stock and flat, have one of those as well. (but not stock anymore)

changing sprockets will affect how the speedometer reads, its driven off the output shaft of the transmission. used to see guys put 13t on the front and go up 2 on the back and claim their stock ass groms would go 80 back in 2014-2015 and die on that hill trying to defend that claim. Um, no.


and before somebody raises the elevation q, we are at 750 ish feet above sea level.

as an addendum, i know, for a fact, some of the very early non us spec bikes did run the earlier ecms. so that may play into it as well seeing higher speeds.
 
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Happy Campa

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May 3, 2023
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Does anyone know the transmission gear ratios? I'm trying to use an online calculator to target rpm bands for tuning.
 

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dmonkey

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The gear ratios are in the owner's manual. It's the same gear ratios in the transmissions on all of the modern CT125s.

1st 2.500
2nd 1.550
3rd 1.150
4th 0.923

Stock sprockets differ between the the 2021-2022 (also 2020 abroad, JA55) and 2023 (JA65) models:
JA55: Reduction ratio (primary / final) 3.350 / 2.78
JA65: Reduction ratio (primary / final) 3.421 / 2.714

https://www.gearingcommander.com has the JA55's gearing info available through the drop down menu and may make the math easier for you.
 
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Happy Campa

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May 3, 2023
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Perfect! It looks like the Takegawa Sports exhaust starts building more horse power at about 5,500 rpm. Right were you might want to shift into 4th.
 

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