WOW does that ever bring back memories. I've owned 4 back in the 90s. I had an 81, 82, 83, and 84. Super fast and so much fun. They are without a doubt the hardest thing to ride hard but once you've mastered the technique needed they are the most fun to ride. The 4 I spoke of were all air cooled 5 speeds. In 85 and 86 the last year they were made they were 6 speed water cooled. I'm 56 now and after watching this commercial it reminded me of how much I enjoyed riding them im going to find an 86 in good condition and recapture my youth lol
Were same vintage... I had two 84 200Xs and a 86 250R... Alot of fun and wish I'd of kept them, but they took up so much garage space and I was a MC guy 1st. Always imagined what a bummer it had to of been to of bought a 1984 250R and see the 85 model come out... Id of been bummed, so a leap forward from 84 to 85.
If you've never had this much fun, you need to get out of the house more... I've done this exact same activity on the exact same bikes, & still do it on the 4 wheeled versions...yes, plenty of people have had, & continue to have this kind of fun...
I remember seeing the early ATC's spinning brodies on a frozen lake back in the early 80's. The concept that you could go from snow to dirt to sand to riding through water was mind blowing to me!
Hey we are already talking about the fat kid that is riding a 3 wheeler when all his buddies got cr and xr 80's, or even 125's. This is his chance to show them. Now he's laughing at them and enjoying be dry. This totally is not anything like my childhood.
i had one but it was a 175r racer, and yes it would fuck your shit up if you didnt respect it lmao LOTS of power in a little machine, find one today scraped so you can get the motor and make a gocart holy jesus! lol
A friend of mine rebuilt one, bored .080 over. Grabbing gears, 2nd would throw you off the back. He sold it, because in the mountains it was virtually impossible to ride. These machines are awesome. Respect them, have fun, and be prepared to be schooled! 😂
I lived this. We made trails that are in use 40 yrs later. I also had a Honda oddesy. We were the generation that had it all. We lived through the peak of Western civilization
To be fair the generation that had it the best is also the generation that began this horrendous fixation with regulating safety at the expense of freedom. They have now raised a generation who genuinely believe that freedom is evil. They view those of us who believe that individuals have the capability to evaluate risk without government mandates as extremists and terrorists trying to destroy the little safety bubble they've demanded the government create. After the three wheel federal can you can see how the advocacy groups turned to four wheelers and demanded those be banned. They didn't succeed...yet.
Grew up riding three wheelers. Climbing gravel pits, riding muddy trails, and playing in the sand dunes out at the local dump. Man I had a blast as a kid growing up!
I would give anything to go back one day in the eighties to watch my brother ride is 1985 250R. he could ride wheelies for miles .. still yet today I never seen anybody ride a three-wheeler like him. cops neighbors all try to catch him they never did..
Marco Ceccarelli i have yet to really tap the potential of my 84 R with wheelies. 2 strokes are a but more touchy. But, and a buddy have been practicing on a ytm200 and a big red 250es. We got a straight stretch where we live about 6 miles and my buddy can do the whole thing, and i can get about half that. Theres lots of hills you have to compensate for and also, we dont have rear brakes. So if we go over we cant save em unlike a lot of these kids you see today that milk the brakes. We've been taking videos of it, waiting for the perfect day to get out there and record the whole thing, traffic and wind conditions prevent us a lot of the times.
dosbox907 that's awesome keep on riding. my brother did this in the eighties. now it's all over RU-vid. not only can ride wheelies he jumped that thing and handle it like I never seen. use had to live it to see it the eighties were unbelievable
I prefer trikes. Ive had bikes 4 wheelers nice ones junk ones but i always have some honda trikes around. Just got my boy a 185s to learn how to ride on. He has been ripping bikes and quads for years now he is ready to ride a real machine
"A whopping 6.7 inches of travel". Yeah, that's what she said.... The ATC that started it all right here. We wouldn't have stroker Banshee's, turbo'd 450's, or 4x4 quad's w/ snow plows if it weren't for these. Take a moment to reflect.
@@brockhaffner447 I've owned a couple of Tecates, including a white 4 that was built by L.A. Sleeve and ported by Tony Kelner then done by Cory Sprock that would top 100. My jam is the KXT250b when it comes to trikes.
@Krazy WhiteBoy None of my 350X's ever let me down as long as I kept up on them, even though in my area we trail ride to hill climbs and pound on them hard. They keep the local trails from getting rutted out as well. The latest 450 I had got about 10 rides before it needed a rebuild treating it the same way, even less so with my age. The 350X is king.
@Krazy WhiteBoy If you haven't ever ridden a trike with good power, trust me. My first request from my friends like you were to ""Bicycle" it to get the feeling of what it will do on the trail. You'll find yourself timing inclines and obstacles better. It will 100% make you a better 2 and 4 wheel rider.
@Krazy WhiteBoy One thing I will ALWAYS describe myself as is a BMX rider. Even if you never got into what most call 'powersports', you probably know how to wrench because you can take care of your own vehicle due to fixing flat tires or making a brake cable work on a bicycle. I was the asshole that did double stair gaps and built jumps in the woods to over rotate a backflip on because I had RAD on VHS. All of my friends went to the hospital, so don't listen to me.
"Give your reconstructive surgeon the most challenging jigsaw puzzle ever made...... Your skull, in pieces!!!" - The Honda 250R, Making head trauma fun since 1981!!! 🤕
I almost died pinned under one of these in a snowbank when I was a teen. They don't corner very well at all. Good thing they came back to check on me. Good times.
I had two 185s's, a 200SX & a 250R back in 1984. (We had a placer claim in Alaska) They were among the best days of my life; & I regret every moment I wished to grow older & have those years behind me.
Great promo video. I had one of the original ATC 90's with no suspension and never crashed it or got hurt. But you definitely did NOT want to let your legs get caught up between the backside of the foot pegs and the rear wheels. Eventually, Honda smartly installed guards in that area to keep it from happening.
love these old coms....Took ATV safety in Middle school in 86 ( first thing you learn is...ATV are rider active some have/learn the skill, some dont) put on by Honda and our local Honda dealership, that I work at now.... I also own a 86 200X..
I love how this entire commercial is just about how cool you can be when you own an ATC. There's nothing about saving the earth or self driving whatever.
+Disloyal Dashie Id take a 250r over a 200x any day. But yeah they probably did sell more of the 200x considering it had a much broader market. It's kind of like the Lt 230 quad sport. A novice or a pro could hop on one and have fun with a little bit of know how.
This commercial led to many wrecks.. i love 3 wheelers grew up riding them.. i can just see a young kid watch this back then and try to do what they did.
We got an 85 250r off the showroom floor. We already had an 82 200s I remember my Dad was blown away by the difference! They were worried we'd kill ourselves! Nobody did though! But that trike was a beast! My brother got into racing it for a while but what a machine!
I got one for my bday in 82, I was 14. Wasn't long before I had cut routes through every greenbelt in the county. Id show up at school on it and chain it to the bike rack then ride it across the county to the skateing rink on fridays, keggers on Saturdays.....gotta feel sorry for kids today.... they have no idea of how fun life used to be.😂
I grew up on these when I was a kid. Great fun. Had a honda big red 250 and a Suzuki(or kawasaki) 185 for the gals. I had the 185 when I was 7. It was a blast.
I LOVE these manufacture showroom promotion vids that played in dealer showrooms, back in the day. As for the trike vs snowmobile in this video, the snowmobiler won out -- he got the cute chick. I love Honda bikes but that chick is very fine. I'd rather have her than head off into snowy mountains.
The snowmobile in that section of the video was a Yamaha SRV. the V is the Roman numeral 5, because they were a 540cc sled. they pretty good sled's for back in their day. and the motorcycle from what I could tell was a Husqvarna 250cc enduro. that was a very good motorcycle for it's day.
I was working at a honda shop when these atc250r's first came out .stock out of the crate they would do an honest 85mph top end ..a guy brought me a new stock one and wanted it modified ...i had a cylinder for a CR250R ..so i copied the ports the same for the jug on the atc250r ..we got a 6 peddle reed kit.. went from a stock 28mm carb to a 36 mm carb .i modified a cr250fr expansion chamber to fit And dropped 10 teeth smaller on the rear ... I had a 550 four cylinder dirt bike at that time that would do 115mph on the old haul road of the amax coal mine in stauton indiana , shaun the owner of the 1981 atc250r that i modified using parts he bought and parts of my own , caught up to me and passed by pretty fast while i was topped out ...his stock tires were swelled up at the centers and scrapping on the fenders ..scared me half to death
Did you know a stock 1973 CR250M - 1976 CR250R will bolt on to a stock 1977 - 84 honda odyssey engine cases and about double the odyssey's horsepower ...watched a video of one done at honda r&d school. From a dead stop and then nail the throttle, it stood straight up and rested on the rear roll cage
I bought a brand new Honda 250SX back in 1986, I rode that thing for 20 years, always had a blast....had my share of accidents on it but nothing serious, miss having it to ride.
ATC's were HUGE when they came out. Everyone had one or wanted one. Unfortunately because they had three wheels very inexperienced riders assumed they were safe. This lead to multiple accidents, injuries and subsequent regulations. Honestly, If they brought back the ATC 250R back... I would be the first in line. They were genius.
I had to wait a few years before i got my first atv and by that time the quads were out and i got the 86 or 87 trx200sx. 9 quads later and I'm contemplating on getting my second 400ex lol i already called them " my fun exercise machine" and i considered them a lower extension of my body. The absolute best of times had .
Had these growing up in the 90’s. We lost both our Big Reds to a fire when we packed them on a flat bed trailer and put luggage all around them strapped down. We never knew how the fire started.
A friend of mine had 2 of em. It was cool riding behind him watching him ride the trails in NW Washington in the hills. He could blip the throttle and make a sharp trail corner on 1 rear wheel... left or right. Later he flat tracked em and kicked butt.
True story: my brother and I race motocross for eight years, my brother was actually a professional sponsored by Kawasaki team green. There was a big family reunion and we were at a farm, we didn’t really know that part of the family, but they had a kid that was rich on a three wheeler. He thought he was hot stuff. My brother thought that it would be easier to show him up on his own three wheeler. My brother was wrong. There was a big jump and my brother jumped and made a huge mistake and stuck both feet down. Landed on both ankles with both back tires, look like he tried to rip his legs off. It was terrifying and hilarious. We never tried to ride a three wheeler again after that.
On my 3rd birthday in ‘81 I got my first motorized machine ,Suzuki LT Trailbuddy 50 👌😝🥰. By age 6 I was too big for it and was riding my dads utility Honda 200 ATC . He wouldn’t let me rip the 250R until I was 13 😩🤣😂. Man those were the last of the great times with no sissy ass rules 🤙😎
The widow maker. I parked one in by buddy’s grandmothers shed, without using the door first time I rode it. I thought it would turn just by turning the bars, it kept going straight. My dad was pissed when he had to fix the hole in the shed.
The Yamaha and the Kawasaki brands were pretty damn versatile as well. Most Japanese Brands were elite. They’re high compression engines. My father God rest his soul swore by Japanese engines Especially Toyota.
ATC 250R we raced the baja 1000 in 1982 and if you see the start of the commercial was DEVILS SLIDE in back of Santa Maria . it was very steep and had three sides to it going up the top was near vertical and the back were monsterious sand bowls. not many made it to the top and the bottom was close to the ocean. that first was closed in in ‘88 then Osoflako was closed in ‘90 then oceano dunes finally closed after it was heavily fenced due to saving the monarch butterfly in 2022. peace to team honda its people competitors and many years i had fun on my 250R. i still have mine not running but in the garage.as a memory.
Broke my back on a two wheel vehicle 1987… I met a lot of peeps in physical rehabilitation (phys rehab)…that rode these 3 wheelers. One guy said that one came from 15 ft above him (big sand dune jump) and landing on top of him…while he was on his 3 wheeler.
three wheelers are awesome. if your not an idiot its literally exactly like you see in the video. riding them radical feels so natural once you figure it out.
