bumberson1
New member
I just picked up my new 2023 Trail 125 3 days ago. I'm 64 years old and I feel like a little kid with a new toy. I'm in the Austin TX area. This is going to be fun!
Honda Trail 125 Forum
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Newbie here
- Thread starter bumberson1
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m in sc
Well-known member
sweet. Enjoy!
Kev250R
Well-known member
Welcome to the madness and have fun!!
Jeffro71
New member
Picking up my ct125 this Saturday. Use to have a ct110 years ago that I drove everywhere. Really looking forward to it. I can get a used 2022 ct125 for about a grand less than the 23 they have. But I’ve read up on some differences (oil filter more torque etc) and wondering what the opinions are here ? 22 vs 23 ?
I'd go for the 23 with the upgrades, especially if you plan to keep it for years.
If you have plans to run one of the much larger displacement big bore kits then the 2021-2022 model has the advantage as the updated 2023 engine is physically not capable of having a significantly larger bore cylinder installed on it. This has come up with for @wndrsloth who has a 2023 with an older engine swapped into it specifically to be able to run a 181cc BBK.
Other than that IMO buy based on your cost and color preference. The stock upgrades aren't major and though the paper element oil filter surely improves filtration for such a low volume of oil, it doesn't spare you any recommended maintenance and this engine design has historically racked up plenty of miles without it. There's still an oil filter screen and the centrifugal oil filter to be cleaned at a recommended 8k mile interval. 8k miles is also a lot of miles and a long time for most 125cc owners. I have older Cub variants including one from the 60s with less original miles.
Other than that IMO buy based on your cost and color preference. The stock upgrades aren't major and though the paper element oil filter surely improves filtration for such a low volume of oil, it doesn't spare you any recommended maintenance and this engine design has historically racked up plenty of miles without it. There's still an oil filter screen and the centrifugal oil filter to be cleaned at a recommended 8k mile interval. 8k miles is also a lot of miles and a long time for most 125cc owners. I have older Cub variants including one from the 60s with less original miles.
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Jeffro71
New member
Interesting. Not sure if I’m capable of swapping in a larger bore cylinder but sounds interesting. How hard is it ? And cost ? Thanks for the feedback everyone.
Jeffro71
New member
1800$ it looks like. I probably won’t be doing it.
The CT can go 55ish WOT if you are on the flat, don't weigh too much but it takes a while to get there. To me it is a 45 mph bike. It is nimble and makes a great little chore bike. If it is not fast enough for your needs I would take the $1800+ dollars added to the $3900 and get another bike. Yamaha TW 200 is $4900 MSRP. It has twice the HP. It is more of a 55 to 60MPH bike with some reports of 70 WOT at sea level.
Not trying to talk you out of the CT is a great little bike that does what it was meant to do, putt around and pull light chore duty. Just go in with realistic expectations.
There are smaller big bore kits that cost around $100 + shipping for the kit alone, but to really make use of it and do it "right" there are other upgrades needed that can run the price up. For a 181cc bbk it certainly would not be on the cheap with everything you'd want to swap out to reliably accommodate that change in displacement and performance.
Friends, this is Sound advice..
SneakyDingo
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It's... half sound advice. Get another bike? That's good advice. $1800 + $3900 = $5700, and you can buy a lot of bike for $5700. That's scraping the KTM Duke 390/Svartpilen 401/CRF300L range, and is definitely XR150L + tax + mods range.
I'm not gonna shit on the TW200 too much in this post, but I've said it before: there's a stack of owner reports with problems on TW200's when running at high speed, and for sustained high speeds. Former user imacbo on this forum sold his CT125 for a 2022 TW200, and then promptly blew up the engine doing 60 mph runs on the first major outing.
I solidly agree on getting the bike designed for the purpose you have in mind, or accept that you're gonna be really good at mechanical work and modifications. Or buy two bikes.
Interesting. They have been making the TW200 for over 35 years and it has a legendary reputation. They must be doing something right
Little_Thumper_Boy
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YepInteresting. They have been making the TW200 for over 35 years and it has a legendary reputation. They must be doing something right
Kev250R
Well-known member
TW200 Owner here. I've owned three of them, my current one since '08, it has 11,000 miles on it, half of which were put on by it's first owner who used it exclusively as a commuter bike (it didn't have knobbies on it when I got it, it had 'typical' street MC tires) so I know it saw a lot of street use.
Since I've owned the bike it has seen times when it's had to hold 60 MPH (with the way I currently have it geared that's basically WOT) for long-periods of time, often while pulling a grade (Teton Pass between Victor, ID and Grand Teton Jackson, Wy comes to mind). It always sounds like it's seconds from self-destructing, but it doesn't.
One thing which will kill a TW engine is using the wrong oil filter. There are two OEM Yamaha Oil Filters which fit that bike, however one of them does not have holes in the base of it, the correct one does. Put the one with no holes in (which is a common oversight, other then that the filters look nearly identical) and you'll cook the top-end of a TW engine in short-order. A lot of Dealers don't know or pay attention to this and sell or put the wrong filter in. It happened to me once when I bought a replacement filter from a Yamaha Dealer and realized when I got home (but thankfully before I'd installed it) that I had the wrong filter.
Other then that, much like the engines in our Trail's they seem to be very bullet proof. I have a morbid curiosity about just how long mine will last. Even now it doesn't use an appreciable amount of oil and other then being hard to start when cold (a trait it came to me with; I've decided to find it charming) mine runs well.
Since I've owned the bike it has seen times when it's had to hold 60 MPH (with the way I currently have it geared that's basically WOT) for long-periods of time, often while pulling a grade (Teton Pass between Victor, ID and Grand Teton Jackson, Wy comes to mind). It always sounds like it's seconds from self-destructing, but it doesn't.
One thing which will kill a TW engine is using the wrong oil filter. There are two OEM Yamaha Oil Filters which fit that bike, however one of them does not have holes in the base of it, the correct one does. Put the one with no holes in (which is a common oversight, other then that the filters look nearly identical) and you'll cook the top-end of a TW engine in short-order. A lot of Dealers don't know or pay attention to this and sell or put the wrong filter in. It happened to me once when I bought a replacement filter from a Yamaha Dealer and realized when I got home (but thankfully before I'd installed it) that I had the wrong filter.
Other then that, much like the engines in our Trail's they seem to be very bullet proof. I have a morbid curiosity about just how long mine will last. Even now it doesn't use an appreciable amount of oil and other then being hard to start when cold (a trait it came to me with; I've decided to find it charming) mine runs well.
SneakyDingo
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To be honest, I've been surprised and slightly confused at the people saying their engines were failing on the TW200's. This isn't a design that's weird, unique or otherwise special, and the problems that arise are pretty much things I would expect to happen on the CT125 engines as well. Of the 4 that I'm familiar with, 3 failed with root causes as oil seals either failing, leaking or the magic dinosaur sauce otherwise escaping. The one that was a catastrophic failure of some part through the side of the engine which could happen to anyone pushing engines hard. The consistent thing was they were all on TW200s being ridden at speed, for "long" periods of time, even if the engines themselves weren't that old. The one with the catastrophic failure was ~11,000 hard miles of 60-65 mph runs twice a day for 20 mi of freeway commuting, and we've seen that even these CT125 engines will need some extra special rebuilding love if you ride them WOT for 25k miles. I think the thing that did it for me was Bo's TW200 was 1) very new, only a 2022 model with barely any miles, and 2) that it didn't have any aftermarket mods that you could point the finger at, the engine itself was relatively stock.
HOWEVER... this is also to consider engineering mentality. Use those (or really most) kinds of bikes for how they're designed to be used and they'll probably run for ages or forever. Do the right maintenance, with shorter intervals and a closer scrutiny if needed; service it with the the right parts, and keep an eye on things (also accepting that things do fail eventually), and you'll probably have a relatively happy, problem free life.
Little_Thumper_Boy
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Agreed. A similar case of false conclusion was spread around a few years back, also born out of anecdote, exaggeration and rumor, was the DR650’s “3rd gear grenade” issue; a stretch of internet embellishment that spawned from a few handfuls of isolated incidences to generalize that the fleet of tens or hundreds of thousands of bikes were eventually doomed to blow up. Many folks avoided the DR650 based on that very misinformation. Statistically it was bunk of course – but it’s like superstition or something, it spreads and leaves impressions on folks.
The TW200 is wildly popular around here (western US mountain states) and there are droves of the things ridden in the deserts and hills. The fact that they still run after the beatings and neglect I’ve seen them served is nothing short of miraculous IMO. Heard stories like drunken hunters taking turns pinning the TW’s throttle WFO continuously in 1st and 2nd gear in a deliberate effort to blow it up, just for the heluvit. But they just keep going… Though I haven’t owned one, I’d have no problem recommending a TW to someone whose situation is a good fit for one. Our family does own two of the TW’s sibling, the XT225, and could recommend that, too.