1994 Honda XR100R
Why So Small?
In 1992 After riding 20+ years on the pavement I wanted to ride dirt again. I was working at a motorcycle dealership and dating one of the salesmen, Larry. One day one of the parts guys took me dirt riding and let me ride his Yamaha TY175. I fell down a couple of times but I determined that I definitely wanted to ride single-track trails again.
Larry had a Honda XR185 for me to ride. He took the standard seat off and replaced it with a flat track seat so I could touch better. I still couldn’t touch very well, One tiptoe on one side but it was light and I figured that would be fine. The bike was a little difficult for me to kick start since my legs are too short to get good leverage. If I could get it started by the second kick I wasn’t getting it started.
For two seasons I struggled with that bike and had a lot of fun for the most part but the end of the second season I decided I needed a shorter bike or I was giving up on the idea of riding dirt.
I kept trying to sit on the dirt bikes at work but they just plain didn’t fit me. The only one that did was the Honda XR100. Everyone at work kept telling me it was a kids bike and I needed a bigger bike, not a kids bike. I decided I was about the size of a big kid so I bought it. What a difference that bike made.
The bike is still with me and running like it did when it was new even though it has many miles of hard riding on it. The boyfriend has been gone for many years but we are still friends and I appreciate all the weekends we spent camping and riding dirt.
This bike has served me well. I never got very good at dirt riding but I sure do have fun doing it. I don’t ride single track as much as I once did but I have this bike if I want to and now that I’m retired I hope to do dirt riding again.
About the bike
Honda XR100 is a 100cc, four stroke, single cylinder, 5-speed manual transmission, off-road motorcycle produced by Honda from 1981 to 2003. With an air cooled single cylinder, four-stroke. A 53.0mm bore x 45.0mm stroke result in a displacement of just 99.0 cubic centimeters. Fuel is supplied via a single overhead cams (sohc).
Stopping is adequate even with drum brakes since it only weighs 165 pounds so it doesn’t take much to stop it. The suspension has just under 6 inches of travel and the specs indicates top speed is 55 mph. I doubt that it can go that fast and without a speedo I don’t know how fast it can go.
Motocrosshideout.com wrote: “It’s designed for teens, young adults, women, or any shorter rider that wants to learn how to ride a dirt bike with a clutch. It is big enough for adults to use as a pit bike, yet has a short enough seat height for a kid (just over 30″).”
In the context above I don’t believe the writer was indicating women don’t need a more robust bike, I think they were indicating many women are on the smaller side and are looking for shorter bikes. The spec shows the seat height at 30.5 inches and even a half-inch makes a difference when you can’t touch the ground.
The 100 comes with a 16” back tire and 19” front tire which work well for dirt. It has a 1.5-gallon fuel tank. I was unable to find a rating for the gas mileage for this bike and since it doesn’t have an odometer I have never checked it. I do know I can ride it constantly from dawn to dusk and still have plenty of fuel left.