Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/125978
r- ------ --------- --- ------------ - ---- - -- -- - ---~ • The Super Rat was definitely a jet, even with a graunched rear brake backing plate. seldom seen thing. On sand type tracks every lap is different, and your bike has to do a lot of thinking for you or you will be pouring sand out of your ear before you know it. The fro nt forks and the rear shocks are built by Kayaba, The fr ont forks have 6.0 inches of travel and the rear has 4.0 inches of travel. My riders are all pro riders and they pretty well know what works and what doesn't, After about 15 minutes of smashing the bikes from one wh oop-de-doo to the next the front forks started topping and bottoming out. Back at the van and a little shop talk, I decided to change the fork oil. The oil that we drained out of the front forks smelled and looked like fish oil. We pulled the fork caps out and drained the forks, then I took some pre-mix and poured it in to each tube and flushed them o ut, making sure there was no oil left in them. Then broke out my baby bottle and filled each tube with six ounces of HRL Molly Blue Medium. The next step was the rear of the bike. The frame has two positions for the top mount of the shocks. The shocks come mounted in the back position . 1 m oved the shock forward to the front mount which would soften up the rear suspension a little. Back out on the track and some more hot lapping. With these two changes the bike was completely different, whoop-de-docs were taken in stride and lap times were much faster. Back at the shop 1 broke out my scale and protractor to see what was different between this bike and the father of the Super Combat, the Combat Wombat. With no disrespect to Dad I found that his son was different but in ways much the same. The Super Combat frame is a double loop engine cradle design. The engine sits lo w in the frame, almost 2.5 inches lower than the engine in the Combat. With this lower C.G . the bike's handling will be more predictable when you hit the rough stuff, or set it up in a power slide where you need to be in con trol from start to finish . The front suspension specifications of father and son are the same with 5 .00 inches of trail, and a r ake angle of 29.3 degrees. The tank on the Super Combat is the same tank that they had last year and the year before, except they have left the chrome off and painted it orange. This tank is all Hodaka but I feel that it's time for a change. The tank is made o ut of steel and fo r an endur o bike or a desert bi ke its seve n po unds of weigh t an d two gal lo n capaci ty (en o ugh to run Out of the box and ready to race - almost. Hodaka at last geU seri o us about an air cleaner. Disregard cosme tic ti n ning, n ote the two up pe r mounts. time getting so me traction and Larry managed to reach the first tum sec ond fro m dead last. Halfway through the first lap the shifter case screws came loose and a sto p was made to tigh te n it up (fault of mechan ic fr om a sp rocket change j ust before start of rna to ). Back underway again the rest of the bikes started to fall by the wayside as Larry kept passing bike after bike. He was matching built horsepower with his stocker and out-riding them in the rough. Hitting the turns he could hold his bi ke tight in the turn an d d rive under them. When the need was to go on the outside full locked power slides did the job. When - the checkered flag came out the 125 Hodaka was in sixth place. Next moto again the Hodie had problems getting out of the hole and was dead last into the front turn. Reasons - (1) Bike is a little on the pipey side and has to be on the boil or else. (2) Larry had been riding a 450 Maico up 'til today's race . With the bike underway, it started taking the 125s in stride. When the checkered flag came out Larry was in third place and felt if he would have had a couple of more laps to go, may have caught and p assed the lead ers. Co nclusion of a racing day with a box stock 125 Super Combat: On a short tight course, the Hodaka Super Combat can and will go as fast as anything out there. If there was such a thing as a race for stockers, I'd have to put my m oney on the Super Co mbat. " Super Rat MX a 60 mile hare and hound) may be to your advantage. Motocross tracks are not 60 mile loops and every 20 pounds on your bike equals one horsepower, so don 't fill,your tank to the top for a 10 minute moto, Nobody b ut nobody wri tes up spec sheets on their bikes like Hodaka does. I'm not going to go into those details because you can go into your local Hodaka dealer and get the specs for the Hodaka of your choice. Part numbers for these sheets are as follows: 125 Super Combat PN 210107, 100cc Super Rat MX No. 210 106, Comb at Wombat, ask for field manual, an d t he Wombat En duro No . 21 0209. Proof of the puddin', race t ime Sunday When we arrived at the ra ces and unloaded the bikes we felt a little bit out of p lace. The 125 start line looked like an American Honda sellout with 90% of these Expert riders mounted on Hondas and the other 10% made up of assorted Yarnahas, Suzuki , Kawasaki and a few European bikes for flavor. Larry had the feeling that he was bucking a loaded dice game with the only Hodaka on the line and it box stoc k a t that. Off the line the Hodaka had a har d The 100 was as I had suspected fr om the first day, a rocketship. All you have to do is ride it. Off the start line there was a crash and the Hodaka 100 suffered a broken rear backing plate unknown to Butch the ri der. After he got the bike up and restarted he figured it out all by himsel f when he hit the first turn that he had to slow down for and found himself off of the track. With no rear brakes he came from last to win the moto. No reason to race it next moto; the point was made that it could and would handle the job. As it looks to me, Hodaka has co me out with t rue racing machines tha t have to take no back seat to any other bike on the market. With a price tag of $9 95 for either a 125 or 100 they 're not cheap (but what is today). At least you get what you pay for: a real racer that all you have to do is tum the throttle on and ride it. In the upc oming issu es we will look at ways of making them better, inside an d out. • ........ 33