SUZUKI TS100L
Small is beautiful when it comes to classic trail bikes!
Steve Cooper’s buyer’s guide on the tiddler trailie.
Classic trail bikes are popular and becoming ever more so. Don’t believe me? Then get this. Last year within the Vintage Japanese Motorcycle Club’s machine dating team more than 40% of the bikes requiring proof of year of manufacture were off-roaders. That’s two out of every five machines with a dirt-based bias; now tell me trail irons aren’t becoming ever more prevalent. Even if Suzuki didn’t start the craze for properly-designed, Japanese, off-road bikes they certainly got in on the ground floor. Yamaha’s DT-1 may very well be the first Japanese machine truly aimed at off-roading but the Suzuki brand had successfully sold dirt orientated bikes for years. Hillbillies, Challengers and many more were road machinery magnificently converted to mud-pluggers and forest fire-road tackle; Suzuki already knew what made for a good trail iron. So when it launched the TS250 (in answer to Yamaha’s DT-1) the company was already working on a raft of purpose-made trail bikes and it knew it could sell innumerable smaller models to novices, folk who weren’t interested in outright speed, those short of limb and younger teenagers. The Suzuki TS100 had a ready-built market before it left the drawing board. It’s a poorly kept secret that most trail bikes were originally laid out to suit the needs and dictats of the American market. Looks sold and it can hardly be a coincidence that the TS100K was launched looking remarkably like a genuine Suzuki moto-crosser.
Resplendent in ‘Desert Yellow’ and named the TS100K Honcho, the bike was an instant success. And it remained on Suzuki’s sales list from 1973 through to the early 1980s when pressure against two-strokes finally saw it deleted. Amazingly although the machine’s silhouette changed some over those nine years the basic design varied little which goes some way to demonstrating just how good it was from day one. At its heart was a punchy and willing 97cc, disc valve two-stroke motor. Suzuki had fine-tuned the art of rotary-valve induction courtesy of ex-mz racer and mechanic Ernst Degner and they used that knowledge to devastating effect. Even now the apparently humble and almost inconsequential motor will surprise you with its willingness and instant drive; nothing this small should have this much liveliness. Aesthetically the TS100 Honcho was styled with drop-dead gorgeous looks and it retained that jaw-dropping, in-your-face, exhaust system for most of its life. That, ‘out-down-along-then-up’ matt-black system came with a double saw-tooth chrome heat guard in ’73-’75 and many would argue the later, less ostentatious ’76-’77 guard sold the bike cheap. The ’76 and ’77 models were effectively transition versions moving away from the glam rock styling graced with chrome and polished alloy towards satin black wherever possible. For the final three years of the Honcho’s life it went all modern, high tech, with the rear half of the exhaust system tucked behind the right-hand frame rails and side-panel. The logic was inescapable; tucked out the way the exhaust system facilitated better ground clearance which was fine and dandy but just how many TS100S were actually used off-road and in anger? From the 1978 TS100C the bike took on an altogether more stripped back, utilitarian look, aping the enduro bikes of the day. Suzuki was keen to maximise return on its design so the bike was updated with more angled rear shocks, a cow’s lick front guard and simple graphics; this was how the bike would look when the axe fell in 1981. So why would you want a TS100 today? If trail bikes interest you but you’re not after something large the little Suzuki is a good enough place to start from: assuming you want a stroker. The motor is a peach that consistently punches above its weight. Arguably the TS is less moped-like than the comparable Kawasaki KE100S. Brand loyalty would be the ultimate arbiter between the TS or Yamaha’s equally competent DT100. If you genuinely expect to use a Suzuki TS100 hard off road we’d respectfully suggest that you look elsewhere and ideally at something more modern. Yes the bike has an off-road ability for sure but it wasn’t designed as a genuine, do-everything, trials bike. Furthermore would you really subject a little classic like this to hard physical abuse? The TS100 will take you around country lanes, allow you to ride gently off road and get you back home with a huge smile on your chops and surely that’s what these bikes were all about? Our thanks to Peter Brown for access to his bike: www.classicmotorcycleservices.co.uk