Honda Farm Bike 'resto'.

[TripleR]

Really interesting bike, I use to ride dirt bikes and had Honda, Suzuki, Yamaha, Bultaco and still have my last a 1975 Ossa 250 Explorer.

 

[Depmandog]

How coincidental. I was perusing TBN with the television on in the background While reading this thread I glanced at the television. The Dog Whisperer was on NatGeo, episode titled Caesar in Oz. Caesar was sitting on the same model of motorbike that you are working on!!

Nice bike!!

 

[alchemysa]

Looks great, I hope you get plenty of hours out of it.
I'm guessing you didn't take any before pictures?
If you have any, post them, pictures of the profect before you started.
Nice work and time well spent.

Sorry, no before pics. I'm a bit funny about taking those. I feel I might jinx myself. But even as a 'before' it wasnt too bad to look at actually. It was just REALLY rusty and had a totally shot seat and muffler. But I was lucky that it still had all the bits and they were all pretty straight. I often see these advertised on ebay or Gumtree classifieds but usually a lot of the pieces are missing. Usually they get passed from Dad to the kids who then strip them and turn them into a 'back paddock racer.' Its pretty rare to find one still with the front carrier and the chain enclosure. This one didn't run when I got it. Turned out it had a bent intake valve so it had no compression at all and wouldn't start. That's probably what saved it from getting totally trashed.

 

[alchemysa]

Please have a look at this link if you like bikes, adventure, determination and eccentricity. This guy modified what we call a 'Postie bike' and travelled 5000kms (about 3000 miles) across Australia via the 'short route'. In other words, he didn't go around the deserts, he went straight across them. Look at the pics and scroll down and you'll see how he set the bike up so he could switch from skinny road tyres to fat quad bike tyres.

Australia: Byron to Steep Point, Honda CT 110 , 5000 km Via the French line , what could possible go wr in Past Ride & Event Reports Forum

A great story and some wonderful pics!

 

[banjodunn]

G'day all sorry to drag up an old thread but this came up in a search for something else AND I had to throw my 2 bobs worth in

Alchemy these bikes were road registerable as my old man traded in a suzuki chook chaser 100 on one his first BRAND NEW vehicle ever and it was registered from mid 70s through until about 6 or 7 years ago.

It is still running looking a bit worse for wear and tucked away in the back of the shed unreal to be able to go to it and put some fresh fuel in it after a couple of years and 2 or 3 kicks and away it goes.

Does not look as good as yours though Alchemysa



Jon

 

[RobertN]

What is a "Chook chaser?

my old man traded in a suzuki chook chaser 100

 

[Scooby074]

What is a "Chook chaser?

Urban Dictionary: chook chaser

 

[alchemysa]

Alchemy these bikes were road registerable as my old man traded in a suzuki chook chaser 100 on one his first BRAND NEW vehicle ever.

It is still running looking a bit worse for wear and tucked away in the back of the shed unreal to be able to go to it and put some fresh fuel in it after a couple of years and 2 or 3 kicks and away it goes.

Jon

You are correct Jon. In my first post I said these CT125's were not registerable but I was confusing it with the farm version of the 'postie bike', which was not available to the public for on-road use. Farmers could buy a non-road version of postie bikes, but only the Post Office could buy brand new road registerable postie bikes. (Back then, all the postie bikes you saw on the road had been purchased second hand from the Post Office.)

Anyway. Don't junk that old 125. They are still worth good money in almost any condition. Mine was easy and cheap to get back into quite a nice condition, as long as you don't look too close.

 

[RobertN]

I dunno, why don't they call it an Enduro? That is more industry term.

My Grandparents had a commercial chicken ranch from '45-73. 60,000 chickens. Never heard of them chasing chickens on a motorcycle. And wouldn't it be easier to call chickens, well, chickens?

And now I see mention a "postie" bike...

Urban Dictionary: chook chaser

 

[alchemysa]

I dunno, why don't they call it an Enduro? That is more industry term.

And now I see mention a "postie" bike...

One could argue that 'postie bikes' kick started, or at least revved up, the dirt/enduro bike business. Honda Postie bikes were bought in their thousands by Australia Post (then called the GPO) as delivery bikes. I think this was in the late 70's athough the the bikes origins were the 60's. This particular version was exclusive to Australia Post, the general public could not buy them, except second hand, when Australia Post sold them at government auctions after they'd clocked up about 10,000 miles. Remember this is back in the days before specialised, affordable dirt bikes were commonly available, so these second hand postie bikes became hugely popular as work bikes for farmers and as fun bikes for the family. Hondas reputation for quality is largely built on the incredible reliability of these bikes. Honda soon saw the potential and began making versions of the bike for agricultural, off road, and sporting use.

Australia Post still uses the latest versions of these bikes. They must have bought hundreds of thousands of them over the years.

I think a parallel story was happening in the US at about the same. A Honda dealer was modifying a similar bike and selling it to farmers. This may well have happened before Australia Post started buying them. 50 odd years later our grandkids are riding the 'grandkids' of those bikes.

See my post #24 above for some fantastic pics of what people are doing with Postie bikes today.