VOLUME 57 ISSUE 48 DECEMBER 1, 2020 P65
The Honda CT125 is back/new for 2021. Turns out
Herb was onto something all those years ago
BY RENNIE SCAYSBROOK I PHOTOGRAPHY BY DREW RUIZ, VIDEO BY JORDAN POWELL
B
ack in 1960, there was a Honda dealer in Boise who was
selling far more Honda 50 step-thru motorcycles than a dealer
nestled in the mountainous ranges of Idaho had any right to.
That man, Herb Uhl, had noticed the rugged ability of Honda's
50 before even Honda had. (To be fair, Honda had only been in the
U.S. for one year at that point.) And he had been taking The Little
Bike That Could and throwing a few choice mods at it like knobby
tires, removing the leg guards and fitting a larger rear sprocket to
turn it into a trail bike.
Buyers were snapping these things up left and right, and it even-
tually came to the attention of Honda in California, so Herb sent
one of his creations to the U.S. HQ for a bit of analysis by Honda's
Jack McCormack, then sales manager of American Honda.
Herb Was Right
