Lately I’ve been seeing a lot of motorcycles with (what appear to me to be) small wheels. These are some examples.
At first I thought they were what we used to call minibikes, but they seem to be street legal and highway capable.
Any bikers around here willing to give me a compare and contrast with more standard bikes?
I’m guessing, at least in part, it’s aesthetics. They like how it looks.
Also, if this article is correct, the smaller wheels mean less inertia so you can do everything faster. Accelerate faster, brake faster, corner faster etc.
I think it’s the “more fun to drive a slow car fast than a fast car slow” ethos, plus the lack of intimidation. Crash a liter bike and you’re probably going wayyy too fast to walk away plus it’s a lot of money. Crash a Honda Grom? You might be in the hallway of your office. You could pick it up and carry it. I ride a full-size 300cc 2 stroke dirt bike that makes 50hp. That can be kinda scary. These things seem like toys and can be thrown around like a toy, and if you are ATGATT you’re not going to get very hurt. Unless you take them in traffic. Please don’t.
They’re effectively overpowered motor scooters. It’s aesthetics over actual performance. With a side order of cheaper to buy and insure. Until the reality catches up w the insurers’ loss experience.
And if it makes you feel like a kid again and giggle? Priceless.
Yup!!
For a guy that’s 6’3" tall, none. None at all. I would be resting my chin on my knees.
So, the bikes with small wheels are smaller powered? Like 125cc?
Back in the day, smaller powered bikes were either what we called minibikes
or dirt bikes
10 Classic Dirt Bikes That Paved The Way For The Off-Road Motorcycles Of Today
GROM owner here. Yes, 125CC. It’s also a blast to ride and the perfect commuter/get around the city bike. At least for me (I don’t take the highway to work). The draw for these is that they are less intimidating, cheaper to buy, maintain, and run, and fun to ride. They are not mini bikes, as they are fully street legal (aside from being too small for highway use) and capable of reaching 50 mph. They are not toys. They are also not just cooler-looking scooters, as they are 5-speed and do require shifting.
Another advantage for the smaller wheeled motorcycles like the GROM - I needed a new set of tires this season, and the GROM wheel uses scooter tires. I can get a performance scooter tire (Pirelli Diablo Rosso Scooter) for $85 each (same size front and rear) as opposed to Pirelli Diablo Rosso 4s for the bike I previously owned (Honda CBR-600), which run about $200+ for the rear and $180+ for the front tire.
I must’ve been mistaken. I thought yesterday I saw one on an expressway. I definitely saw one (driving aggressively) on a major road where cars generally exceed 50 (traffic permitting).
There’s a pretty active GROM modding scene where they boost the performance to get higher speeds. I don’t think any of the mods increase the engine size so technically they are on the highway illegally even if they can achieve freeway speeds. Personally I think it’s crazy - I wouldn’t want to ride a GROM at 70+ mph, let alone on a highway.
So, GROM is a specific model of Honda? Is it your understanding that ALL “motorcycles” I see with small tires are in the 125cc range?
I’ll keep an eye out for when/where I see these small wheeled bikes. I find the increasingly varied styles of vehicles - including e-devices - somewhat confusing. It used to be easier to tell what was and wasn’t street legal.
I just quickly glanced at Honda’s mini bikes. They’re all 124cc, even the ones with “125” in the name are 124cc in the specs.
My state, Wisconsin, it’s considered a “moped” if it’s under 50cc or under 130cc but an actual moped, with working pedals.
So that wouldn’t apply here, but I wouldn’t be surprised if, in other jurisdictions, that 130cc threshold was the cutoff for having to have a driver’s or motorcycle license.
ETA. I didn’t pick through them, but a quick Ctrl-F search for 125 and 130 got some hits on this page:
With one exception, I’ve ridden nothing but 180 mph liter bikes since 2004. The exception was the Grom I had for a couple years. That thing was a riot around town; so easy to throw around. And unlike a liter bike, I never felt like it wanted to kill me.
I’m sorry, you’ve ridden what?
A “liter bike” is a motorcycle with >= 1 liter (1000 ccs) of engine displacement. AKA a crotch rocket. Extreme performance … as in 200+ horsepower in a ~400lb machine. The most difficult part of riding one is keeping the front wheel on the ground and the speeds below 100mph. Before you get to the other side of the intersection.
I guess I’ve just never heard the phrase liter bike before, but also, I’m still not sure what you meant by ‘180 mph liter bikes’.
When I took my motorcycle safety class, the instructor warned about exactly this. He was saying that a lot of new riders go out and get a crotch rocket, at least in part, because they’re smaller, lighter and seem like they’d be easier to handle than a big Harley. The problem is they’re so light and so powerful it’s really easy to blip the throttle and have the bike take off without you or to hit the brakes and go over the handlebars. A bigger bike, for all it’s power, has a lot more inertia that will help keep it from getting away from you.
I’ll take his word for it since I’ve never ridden a rocket. All but about 20 miles of my riding experience was on a 750 Honda Shadow (and the 20 miles was split between a tiny little Honda Rebel and a huge HD Classic Glide (or one of the huge ‘glide’ bikes).
It wasn’t my phrase. That was @Capn_Carl.
But it seems clear enough to me that “180mph liter bike” means “A motorcycle of more than 1 liter engine displacement capable of speeds in excess of 180mph.” Those are the kinds of bikes @Capn_Carl has ridden for the last 20 years.
Except when he tried one of the little GROM-type bikes. Which he also found fun, albeit in a different way.
Better than I could have explained it.