I bought my monkey in 2018 and did a ride down through France, Switzerland ( across 5 passes in the Alps), Italy, Sardinia, Slovenia , Croatia, Hungary, Slovakia, Czech Republic,Germany Belgium and back to England in a two week tour totalling 3700 miles and the bike didn’t miss a beat! I wish it had a better cruising speed for motorways but otherwise it’s a brilliant little bike and I’ve now done about 7000 trouble free miles. I can’t recommend it highly enough!
You're right. I just picked up my new Monkey yesterday. On my first long ride today, the first guy I talked to asked me if I wanted to sell it. He loved it. It may not be fast, but it's soooo easy to ride, scoots around the back roads near home, and puts a huge smile on my face. Love it!
I had the 50CC mini trail as a kid. It was the joy of my childhood. It belong to a girl a few years older than me who died and I thought the world of her and that little mini motorcycle. Years latter, I passed it to the girl next door to my parents house to enjoy. She gave it someone else when she outgrew it. Only regret was when my kids got to riding age, it was out of reach to recover. I keep looking at these and wanting one so bad.
I’ll take a Honda mini over any other bike. Some days I wanna ride my 1290 but 90% of the time I wanna ride the grom😂. My only complaint would be that it just need a bit more power. A 150 or 200 could probably fix it but regardless I’ll have a Honda mini forever!
In fairness to Honda, this bike wasn’t built as an off road vehicle. Used for what it was designed for , it is outstanding. The fact that it can take this sort of abuse is testament to Hondas build quality.
Brilliant review and comments about this awesome little bike, done nearly 9000 miles on mine on and off road with zero problems apart from a thirst for rear tyres ……. Or that might be the riders fault!😂 But you sure are right there is something that is really special about this fantastic bike, that riders and everybody who see’s it loves, it’s definitely got the Wow factor!!!👍👍👍👍
I have a 2021 that I have put 2200 miles on so far, all hard use, lots of dirt, no issues, no oil use. I do change the oil well before they say, no filter and an air cooled motor... The crazy riding you do may have over heated the motor, you are hard core!
Excellent, my good man. I like the cut of your jib; you'll go far in this corporation. I watched this not for the Monkey, but because I am getting Grom Fever. I'm about your age & size, so this is interesting. Magic 8 Ball so far say, "Get Some!" [Grom]. From the video it looks like you beat the hard snot outta this mini... possibly why you've had motor issues? I mean.. it IS just a small-framed 125, after all. BUT - Good report. Carry On.
That was actually my initial reasoning for getting the Himalayan, it takes a heap of time to travel any real distance on the Monkey as I have to take the road less travelled everywhere I go.
I like the looks and comfort of the Monkey. I had a grom, it was fun, but I found a deal on a used Suzuki Van Van. So I got rid of the grom and bought the Van Van. The Van Van is like a big Monkey. Comfortable seat, but can haul a passenger and has a 200cc motor.
I wanted to mention the VanVan when I was talking about alternatives, but it’s been discontinued. Sad, as it is a good bike that didn’t get the praise it deserves.
I "wot" everywhere I go. Broke it in same way. Long runs wide open and no issues. Just under 1,000 miles and my blue '21 has taken everything I've dished out like a champ. Hillarious intro btw
I'll second everything you said! I got mine about 2 months ago,,, people are always stopping me to talk about the bike. Of course I've had no issues with my bike as,,, it is brand new. I also have a 125 Trail. Enjoy Brother. Rev
I've had mine for two years with zero issues. I also know people with Groms and zero engine issues unless they start dealing with internal engine components, larger cam, bigger jug etc. Then nothing but issues.
Yep, I've had my monkey over 2 years and have over 9,000 miles on it and no issues at all. But as soon as you start changing internal parts such as a Big bore kit you run into nothing but problems.
We just got them up here in Canada for 2022. I was by my dealer ordering parts for my scooter when I saw that the one on the floor was already sold. Asking one of the salespeople revealed they had already pre-sold 8 and there was going to be a shortage come next spring. And this for a goofy little mini-moto that, Honda badge notwithstanding, has a rather nosebleed price of 5299 MRSP in loonies. There's something about it that seems to make a bike that would make any normal-sized North American male look like a bear on a tricycle riding it absolutely loveable. Personally, if I was ever in a position to buy one of Honda's mini-motos, I'd buy the Trail 125 for the urban-assault underbone look with that thicc rack on the back. But my commuting and riding needs are better met by the BV 350 I already have.
Couldn’t agree more and my 6’ 210 pounds, 44 years as a bricklayer looks absolutely ridiculous on my Super Cub. 😂 I don’t care it’s a fucking blast to ride! Keep on keep’n on Voodoo!
Yep, an exceptionally sweet little bike. I have a young lady in mind who’s mom will only let her get a “trail bike”. I’m torn between the Monkey, and the TW200. I rode my 2004 TW200 for 40,000 miles with no issues, so I’m leaning toward that one. I still love the Monkey, though. I may get one for myself. Happy Trails
Wayne at the Speed Shop in Atlanta put a stock honda cb300f motor in my 2019 monkey. Its running well, fast and reliable. A custom rear rack allows me to carry 350lbs (the wife and a pack easy). We rode it from Utah back to Chicago. Still had guts at 11k ft. Mtn passes. It also has a trailer for camping gear. Then fold down the handle bars n it rolls inside my 20 year old Toyota rav4. It's the Swiss army knife of bikes. :)
@@stefanwalker3810 you tube - moto giant has a short clip of it in the beginning of some of his clips. Im a low tech guy. If u get me an email, I will send u some pics
That chain tensioner button upgrade is a priority, 3k miles and the one I removed was deformed and starting to split just from road riding. 5$ part that could save you $$$ if you are preventative.
I started watching the video and I immediately knew I'd like it, cause that accent is epic. And then I got to the wife part and you had me in tears 😂 Thank you brother for an amazing review. Cheers from Greece man 🍺
Honest Review. Before the Monkey, there was the Mini-Trail 50 & 70. I remember when the changed the Moniker from Mini-Trail to Monkey. I hated the name. I had the 50 and got my license on it when I was 15. It was slow, but rugged and I could ride on it all day long on a tank of gas. It had NO rear suspension. I rode it everywhere. I loved that little bike, and some drug head stole it. At 67 I'd use this for a park bike and forest trails.
I removed the Monkey decal and had a custom Mini Trail decal made for mine. My dad had an old Mini Trail when I was a kid, I never got to ride it as I was only 3 or 4 at the time.
Look at you giving that Monkey a proper thrashing! Your milage comment made me laugh. I have an Indian FTR Rally and get...maybe 100-110 miles out of 3.4 gallons. But 85ft/lbs of torque encourages silly throttle jockeying. I've been looking at the Monkey. I'm in the Arkansas Ozarks and there are so many cool trails I could tear up on one.
Excellent vid - thank you! Loved the cinematography of it, you're very talented with that. More than all though I loved your attitude and frankness. I agree wholeheartedly with your Chimp luv. I have a yellow '22 model and wouldn't swap it for the world. I also have a 1200 Ducati and a DR650 (luv 'em both, lifetime keepers) but I have more fun on the chimp than both of those combined. More fun to ride this small bike fast than the big bikes slow. It makes me a kid again just like on my minibike in 1971. Had no trouble with her at all - maybe they just improved the top end too with the '22 model. Stopped bringing them down here now so have a bit of a collector item😉Thanks again for the vid - LOVED IT!! Cheers from Sydney Australia.
They do get alot of attention...I Have a Honda Dax / st70 replica and it always draws a crowd. I was surprised hearing you thought the Moneky a better bike over the Trail 125...I would have thought the Trail be better for the tracks you use. Good honest review 👍
On the Monkey vs Trail 125- They’ve both got different advantages over each other…. the Trail 125 has the edge when it comes to ground clearance, rack and wheel size but the Monkey has the better seat, tire width and transmission. The biggest advantage the Monkey has (in my case) is it’s looks and charm,… if I had a Trail 125 that had given me the same amount of trouble as the Monkey, Idve sold it by now.
I got a 2020 monkey I love what you do with yours. Mine has a 186 kit in it. Aside from being hard to start compressions too much for the starter. I put 4,000 miles on it last summer I also have a 500 rebel for road trips
loved this vid Uncle Voodoo... why would anyone want to buy this bike?!? because its F'n cool. The part about your old lady whipping your grin off your face after a ride was great to. You really do ride the crap out of your monkey! I have a 2021 in blue! keep the monkey vids coming.
I still remember that gas station episode when you thought you cut some biker off from his pump. Then he came over just to show interest in the Monkey 😅. I'm creeping up on 5,300 miles with no issues and I am 'VERY' thankful for that as I'm not mechanically inclined. I am a gentle street rider though. You definitely did/do what all Monkey riders would love to do, which is take it out for some serious off roading. I still love my 2019 and hope to get many more miles out of it. I hope you do the same. Thanks for sharing 👍 🍌
Im still unsure what the root cause of my problems have been, the only correlation I can make is that a breakdown always follows a long high speed WOT run. So its getting babied for now. Im still torn as to wether I should just trade it in or not, if it can't do what I want it to do then Im just holding onto it simply because Im fond of it. The new RE Classic 350 is tempting me!
@@UncleVoodoo If it were to continue being a pain I'd not blame you for selling. Eventually fondness will give way to being pissed. Wonder if what they did with the 2022's addressed anything remotely that caused any of your bike's issues. Cannot blame you on the RE 350. Looks very sharp.
@@UncleVoodoo Yeah, having ridden the absolute snot out of a PGO 125cc scooter back in the day, doing a lot of WOT speeds is harsh on these little air-cooled engines. My little Taiwanese mule finally blew the cylinder in the NH Presidentials coming back from Maine to Montreal. Uh, that one time not screwing in the dipstick quite right and letting oil stream out might have also cause some underlying problems...*sheepish look*
Your videos are a family event! Another good one it is a cool little bike looks comfortable. I had to Kymco 150 spade. Super reliable. Four valve engine very peppy wonderful acceleration the problem is a seat is too darn hard.. The trails over there look sublime
I have a Vespa 300GTS Touring and it's a real roadable bike. It will do 85 mph and cruise at 75 all day long. But it's only good for highways. You can't go off-road. I had a CT125 and that had the hardest seat you'll ever find on a motorcycle and at 5' 10" it was pretty cramped and the automatic clutch really sucked without that low-range we used to have on the CT bikes. I was thinking about getting a Monkey (I have the CT70 with a 125 Lifan engine, Chinese clone of the Honda Ct70) but after owning the CT125 I'm pretty turned off on the roadability of the 125 engine (The CT is rumored to be a 150 next year). 45 mph just doesn't get me far enough and fast enough from home on 65 mph roads to get to any good riding. I've been looking at this Monkey and kinda wanting one, but not sure I want another 125 no matter how cute it is. I had a Himalayan and hated it for the lack of power (wouldn't do 60 mph into a good headwind) so sold it after 1500 miles. But this Monkey still intrigues me. I wish they'd put a 150 or 175 engine in it so we could do a true and comfortable 55 mph all day long on the highway. Still trying to decide whether to get this or another KLR650.
wow your bike is really unlucky I've hammered my Grom and Monkey fro 20000kms on my grom and 5000 on my monkey and i've modded mine and never had an issue, one is big bore the Grom is stock as a rock. but doing a CBR300 swap on it :) Great video mate, you might enjoy watching some of our videos of Groms/Monkeys down under
You put the big bore kit on the monkey? How is it? I want to but I'm not sure if it's worth it. If I could get to 55-65mph without much effort then it would be worth it for me.
You got a like and a subscribe for just this line "after a ride I come back and it takes 30 mins of my wife bitching at me to wipe the grin from my face" 😂😂😂
I just bought a Honda sh125i. It’s better around town, got storage, steers better with bigger wheels, better top speed and wind protection etc….on paper way more practical. The monkeys staying. It’s getting parked in full view in my gallery for occasional fun runs. I could not reverse them. The sh125i just isn’t cool enough for the gallery.
Great review loved hearing the front shocks bottoming out on the trail ride - but you never mentioned that. I have two 2020 models and 4 gears is not enough even with an extreme gear change and knobby tires it is barely off road capable. I weigh 190-200lbs. The new 2022 monkey's have an upgraded new engine with more hp and 5 speed transmission it should be light years ahead of the first models however Honda should offer a high low option then even the new CT 125 would be a blast. It's the looks that sold me. With new aftermarket knobby tires, Idaho tax, no license plates these two abs equipped monkey's I bought were just alittle over 10,500 dollars - over priced for most people but now line up perfectly with today's inflation
Mine blew an oil ring and melted the top end at about 3k miles. Got a rebuild under warranty and am back to ripping it. Almost at 5k miles now. If it explodes again, i’m either going to big bore it or find a way to mount a small v-twin in it 😈
I bought a Super Cub after this and had no problems, I have to take some responsibility for the Monkey's issues since I did ride the absolute snot out of it.
Hopefully they put a better cam chain and tensioning system in the new ones. It seems to me they assumed people would buy these for just putting around town, running at high rpm a lot is just too much stress for the stock set up. I’m currently investigating hd cam chain set ups to keep my problems from re-occurring.
@@willyanderson2644 so far the Koso tensioner seems to be working fine. I’m only using the tensioner and pushrod button from the kit, not using the washer or lower roller. I used the lower roller at first but it made an intermittent squealing noise so I replaced it with a new stock one.
Love your content. Just found your channel going to subscribe. I love the clip about the monkey putting a smile on your face and your wife complaining. Would you be OK if I use that 10 second clip and posted on my Instagram page? I think it’s hilarious.
I've been watching a lot of Honda XR150L videos and would like your opinion. I know Honda won't let you test ride maybe you can find someone to let you review it ,
You’ve only had that much trouble with it because you treat it like a full on dirt bike which it is not. It’s not meant to take under muddy water like you did and just totally beat the hell out of. It’s a nice combo street and trail bike. Nothing more and nothing less. I’m sure if it wasn’t abused, it would last much much longer.
To be fair with the amount of punishment you give to the little monkey no wonder the engine broke down. You should have a CRF rally for these kind of terrain, especially going deep waters.
What you’re saying just does not make sense. him hitting the trails absolutely should not blow the engine. He must have just gotten unlucky with how his was put together
I love you mate, no homo. Apart from the engine bullet proofness, you're spot on. These mini Honda series are superb, nasty and horrible stock, but I hate them so much I got two of them. I still want to have all 4 of them. 😉
Just found your channel. Was looking up info on FR 1881and you came up. Your doing videos on a lot of stuff in my area. I’m a Jeep Guy and I’ve got some info on a Rail Line you may be interested. It’s near National Forest so there is camping available. If your interested I’d like to get you some info on it. Thanks keep up the good work.
1881 is actually called "Enchanted Creek", prob my favorite local trail... not difficult, just a fun ride. where is the rail line you're talking about?
It’s the old C&O Rail road spur line that come out of Eagle Rock and goes up through Craig Valley in Craig County. Some of it is paved some gravel some two track. You can’t ride on it straight through because some of the old trestle bridges have not been repaired since it was shut down and turned over to VDOT in the 1960s. But you can ride parts of it and it’s pretty neat. You can look it up as the C&O spur line map. Then look at google maps and you can see where it used to run and see the trestles that you can’t physically get to. It’s really neat riding through the canyons that they blew out and moved by hand. And one of the trestle bridges was redone in 2019 and you can drive across it. If you have anymore questions be glad to answer them. I believe your farther North but this is about and hour through the mountains from Boblets Gap. We’ve ran Boblets gap and then headed down 43 over the mountain to Eagle Rock and jump on the Spur line. We enjoy trying to find the history that hid back up in the mountains. Craig County is full of old Iron Ore mines and an old Iron ore furnace.
I see your bike says Mini Trail on the side cover instead of Monkey. I thought Honda was silly for calling it the Monkey since it is a retro of the original the Mini Trail ( I know Monkey was a popular nickname in Japan). Well at least they finally brought the bike here in Canada in 2022. You were lucky enough to get it a few years sooner is the US. I assume you replaced the factory decals. If so may I ask where you got them or did you have them made? I would appreciate any info as I would like to give my new Monkey a name change as well. Thanks. Have fun riding.
There was an eBay seller in the UK named stickerguy01 who was making reproductions of the mini trail badges for bike restorations and I contacted him and had him make these (the reproductions of the original decals are too big for the Monkey side panels). I thought they should’ve called it the Mini Trail for the North American market as well, as that’s what it was called back in the day. here is his eBay page- www.ebay.com/usr/stickerguy01?_trksid=p2047675.m3561.l2559
I’m traumatised for the rest of my life, seeing you trashing your baby through mud water. But I enjoyed your no bull presentation of the Monkey. I have had lots of bigger bikes, but I wont sell my banana yellow 2022 Monkey, its so fun and handy for going around. It has 2200kms in the clock, beautiful city and highway driving only. Thanks for a great video!
I got those from TRex racing, they came with black wind deflectors but I had the white ones on hand www.t-rex-racing.com/Honda-Grom-Monkey-Hand-Guards-with-Barkbusters-WD-p/n48-17handguards.htm
This bike isn't really a made for off roading, the little Z50's were but were much lighter and had little kids on board that didn't bottom out the suspension
I put it on so I could better hear the sounds emanating from the engine itself after repair, plus ill be using some throw over saddlebags in the future so the more heat shielded pipe should be better when using those.
