I suppose I'm cheating a little - I never actually owned one of these, but I had something remarkably similar - bearing in mind that this was 24 years ago I doubt it's really worthwhile asking for a new category to be added at this stage.
The year was 1980 I was just 18, had been working most of the summer in John Menzies before starting college for the first time, and I was getting sick of having the wee-wee taken from me by my mates down the pub for riding my 49cc slo-ped.
The 'cure' was, or so I thought, one of Mr. Honda's famous single cylinder overhead cam four strokes, and as just over four hundred quid on the road, I thought I was the very epitome of coolness on two wheels!
The particular model I had was a CB100n, and at 99cc exploited a loophole in the insurance rating and was classed as 'less than 100cc' - the result was that it cost me about half the price.
I also got around a hundred miles to the gallon - I could drive for around a week on a full tank of petrol!
Differences between this and the GC125 (other than the obvious extra 25ccs of engine) were mostly cosmetic.
The engine, as I already said, was a single cylinder air cooled four stroke, I think this developed around nine and a half horsepower, it had an overhead cam, which was operated by a chain, which had to be manually adjusted every couple of thousand miles - most of the time it sounded like a coke can full of washers being rattled!
The CB100n was aimed at the 'cafe racer' end of the market - the tank and side panels had been subjected to Honda's 'Eurostyling' formula, developed on the 'Superdream' range a couple of years before, the wheels were chrome plated steel rims, with spokes, and there was a 'top only' chain guard - at the back was a rod operated drum brake (handy in the rain) at the front was a cable operated disk, which, in cold weather, had a nasty habit of filling water which turned into ice, and stopped it working! (more on this later)
Mudguards front and back were chrome plated steel - which rusted after the first time out, indicators were cast alloy, and had a nasty propensity to shatter into several hundred pieces if you were unfortunate to drop the bike (which was all too often on the bog-standard tyres).
There was a bit of a knack getting the engine going - the choke was a little lever mounted on the side of the carb, you tweaked the throttle twice, folded out the kick-start and jumped on it a couple of times - if it started first time, you could drive away with a reasonable amount of dignity, otherwise you had the dilemma of having to work out if you needed more of the same, or decide the engine was flooded, and give it a couple of minutes before trying again!
The bike came with mirrors on tubular stalks, unfortunately, these shook about so much as soon as you went above 20mph that they were as good as useless.
About the second time I dropped the bike, the mirror stalk snapped the casting which it was screwed in to, as this also served as the housing for the switches, it was too expensive to replace, so I relied on looking over my shoulder after that!
Maintenance was fairly easy, I did most of my own, except for one thing - the oil filter was a 'tea strainer' mounted inside a chamber only accessible by removing the right hand engine cover.
To clean this, you had to remove around 14 cross-headed self tapping screws (after draining the sump oil) which were invariably seized onto the engine casing by alloy corrosion from salt water. - unfortunately these couldn't be done with a standard screwdriver, in those days you used an 'impact driver' - shortly afterwards Honda went over to 8mm hex-headed bolts on their new machines. I suspect cordless screwdrivers would probably have helped, but we would have to wait 15 years before they became popular!
I fitted a handlebar mounted fairing, which looked brilliant, but also made the bike look a lot bigger, so Plod used to stop me about once a week to see why I was riding what looked like a 'big' bike with 'L' plates! - still, it stopped me being silly - for a while!
The five speed manual gearbox was pretty handy, although the engine power meant it didn't have enough guts to 'red line' in top gear - I seriously thought of dropping a couple of teeth on the back sprocket (I mean getting a replacement with fewer teeth, than removing the existing ones with a file!) but never got round to it!
The manual suggested the bike was good for 62mph, and although one officer of the law pulled me over and accused me of doing 'about 90' - I was so impressed I nearly asked for that in writing, but thought better of it, I'd had a couple of lemonade shandies that night, and didn't want to get breathalised - people had a more relaxed view of these things in 1981!
I reckon 55 was about the most you could really expect. I still got booked, once, but for 'speeds exceeding prevailing weather conditions' - and picked up my one and only endorsement (I suspect had they charged me and quoted the estimated speed they would quite literally have been laughed out of court)
The CG125 is substantially the same machine, with a slightly wider engine bore. At the time, both models featured somewhat lacklustre rear twin shocks on a floating swing arm. The chain guard was a 'wrap over' fully enclosed affair - given the choice, this would have been better for me, as salt water and grit meant I needed a new one roughly every six months, in spite of liberal quantities of spray-on grease.
The front brake on the CG125 was a drum variety, which, I'd also have preferred - in the second winter of owning my CB100n, I needed to replace the pads, the retaining pins in the front calliper had seized so much I needed to drift them out with a hammer and chisel, and replaced them with six inch nails - there was also an especially nasty ratchet affair which required the complete dismantling of the calliper to release it.
Handling was, on standard tyres, a bit hairy - the light weight of the bike, and a rubber compound designed for long life, rather than grip, meant that the back end could be a bit unpredictable, you didn't get any warning before it 'let go' and when it did, there was very little you could do!
After eighteen months or so, I replaced these with 'decent' tyres and realised what a difference that made.
I managed to pass the old 'one part test' and gained my full licence - the slightly scary thing was this entitled me to get on *any* machine after that, I was sensible enough to step up only to a 250 (see my other opinions).
It's fairly unlikely that you'll find a similar bike to this nowadays, it was fun, it was versatile - not only could I ride it to the to the top of most of the local hills on dirt tracks, but I also went touring on it! Were one of my kids to go looking for a first 'proper' bike, this is *exactly* the sort of thing I'd hope they would look for.
They don't make bikes like this any more - and to a point, probably just as well - the world of motorcycling is a vastly more regulated place, were it up to me, I'd simply say 'stick to one of these for a couple of years, and if you've not had a serious accident, then you can probably handle something a bit more serious' but then again, I was moderately sensible then, and not everyone that young was graced with that much common sense.
So - CG125/ CB100n - excellent bike for learning, or short distance, low cost commuting, but look upon it as a stepping stone to a 'proper' bike.
More details
Purchase Price
£400 (1980!)
Performance
Satisfactory
Reliability
Good
Customer service
Good
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