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To be honest it’s the down shifting that confuses the s*** out of me but I would still buy if I had known. So much fun! I’ve only done 50km so far. Love it! just different is all. Curious to know why we have different shift pattern to USThat is really disappointing
Oh well, I’ll get use to it
Yes, when stopped you can go from 4th to neutral but not while moving. Haven’t tried neutral to 4th. Still my curiosity is why would the US have a different pattern? I do think the US would be more in line with a traditional bike being that you shift up to go up in gear, except 1st. It has been over 20 years since I rode a cub In Scotland. To be honest I can’t remember the shift pattern. Whisky dulls the brain.
Some older Hondas have shift direction stickers on them, like the C90 had one on the airbox. You could print one up if you're switching between bikes and want a reminder.Time to start memorizing…
Toe up, heel down
It does beg the question as to why it was felt necessary to mandate a shift pattern rather than leave it to commercial bodies to choose - was there some safety issue at play?
A lack of standardized controls could be the safest issue. You can hop on any conforming USA motorcycle since the requirement and generally expect to understand where the critical controls may be and how to use them. Motorcycle controls were all over the place for many makes and years - foot shifters on the right side, throttle controls on the left, etc.
The previous engines had the same shift pattern with the USA having different. Probably why they stopped selling the CUB in North America if the had to change the shift pattern just for that market. Only guessing here.
Comparing the 2023 USA and Canada models against each other it's not likely to be much difference beyond the shift pattern, stickers, the USA model having a spark arrestor, and the Canadian model having more spare fuses.
Yes, that is unrelated to it being sold in Canada. The videos you have been watching are of the older JA55 model. The easy to spot giveaway is the oil filter cover on the lower right side of the engine, and the cross bar in the silver engine guards. Both are missing in the older videos. The dipstick change happened with the change to the new engine to the JA65 model that you and the rest of the world are getting.
