Honda Monkey
You can commute on it, even cross continents on it. But best of all, you can have a big grin on it…
WHO DOESN’T LOVE a little yellow Honda? No-one seems capable of looking at the new 125cc Honda Z125A Monkey without smiling. ‘It feels like you could use it to commit a robbery,’ says road test editor John Westlake after riding it ten miles home and back, ‘and your victim would be charmed.’ Everyone who encounters it has a better day. Even crime victims apparently. Riding it provokes an even bigger grin. On the daily commute you amuse yourself in congested traffic by bouncing over kerbs, wriggling under car mirrors, doing gratuitous feet up circles and practicing stoppies and doing skids, just for the hell of it. B-roads, A-roads and dual carriageways are flat-out fun, all the way to an indicated 65mph, and because third and fourth (top) gear are quite close together you can shuffle between them to maintain progress. It’s that much of a hoot. Family, friends and neighbours will demand to ride the Monkey round the garden, and then they’ll be booking their CBT. Which is fine, because aside from its comedy value, the appeal of the Monkey is that it is engaging and easy to ride. The controls, from the brake action to the switchgear, clutch to gearchange are so sweet, so utterly intuitive, so… Honda… so that anyone and everyone can and will want to ride it. Sitting close to the ground gives an amazing sense of confidence and relaxation but the Z125A isn’t as small as it looks in pictures. Sure, the 776mm seat height means that getting feet flat on the floor won’t be an issue for all but the most diminutive, but the riding position isn’t ridiculously cramped. At 5ft 10in I felt fine on the 30-minute ride to work and you can guarantee that, even as we speak, adventurous types are planning to take them on round the world jaunts. The new bike is inspired by the 1960s Z50A Monkey, but is no slavish clone. 12-inch wheels (they were only eight inches on the original), disc brakes front and rear (with ABS only on the front so you can still do skids), upside down forks with alloy yokes, simple digital dash and LED lights mean that it’s an accomplished and well equipped 125 for the 21st century. But, but, but… it does tap perfectly into the feel of ‘old’ Hondas. Nostalgia alert – it takes me back to being a 16-year-old in the 1970s and my Honda SS50ZB2 sports moped with its cable operated disc, chrome mudguards and yellow paint. On one level the 2018 Monkey is nothing like it, but there is an authenticity to the construction that makes it feel completely right. Of course the chrome mudguards, round mirrors, ‘Wing’ badge, the piping on the seat and the colour help that feeling. So does the engine layout. The engine follows the laydown cylinder pattern that Honda have been making since the 1950s. First as a 49cc ohv unit with three-speed auto clutch and an iron barrel and head (as was used in the Z50A). It got an overhead camshaft and an alloy cylinder head in the 1960s, and capacity hikes to 70, 90 and 110cc, plus manual clutch options, powering everything from the million selling Cub to the terrifying balloon tyred ATC trikes. The first 125cc versions appeared in 1984 For the new Monkey the 125cc engine is mated to a four-speed gearbox (it really doesn’t need any more ratios) and conventional clutch, rather than the semi-auto threespeed device in the step-thru Cubs. The engine delivers a claimed 9.2bhp. That’s (just) enough to push the Monkey up to mid-sixties mph, and obviously you ride everywhere flat out. It’ll overtake trucks on a dual-carriageway, but that apart you get used to being at the front of the queue, and amused, rather than at the back and frustrated. There are other, faster and more capable, cheaper and better equipped, 125s, but there’s nothing that makes you grin like this. You’ll smile at the petrol station too. Honda claim 189mpg. Anything to complain about? Ben Lindley, our analytical staff writer, reckoned the gear change was ‘a bit woofly’. We think that means that it lacks precision. Bike’s designer Paul Lang, an aficionado of small, folding Honda motorcycles, doesn’t like the fact that it’s neither small, nor does it fold. He doesn’t like the lack of pillion pegs either, though he does like it being a Honda with the quality that brings with it. As a second bike, or as a start in motorcycling this thing would be ace. I’d quite like one in my garage, to turn the ride to work into an amusement. My daughter would like one in my garage so that she can get her CBT and get out on the road.
‘Amuse yourself bouncing over curbs, doing feet-up circles…’