The Honda Monkey is an iconic motorcycle, there’s no doubt about it, but until now its true potential as an off-road great had not been understood.
Discovering the Honda Monkey’s extreme off-road potential is credited to the YouTuber Boonies, who took his Monkey out in the sticks, and put it up against multiple off-road challenges.
These included hill climbs, rocky riverbed sections, and, most importantly, a ‘show off test’.
Now, when you think of Honda Monkey, and you picture it in your head, you might think that the almost complete lack of suspension travel, 12-inch wheels, and sub-10bhp output from the 125cc four-stroke single would make it quite a poor off-road machine. However, you’d be wrong, as proven in the video.
There was one crash involved, but the Monkey’s excellent crash protection meant it had no problems in getting out of the situation.
Honestly, after seeing this video, we wonder if HRC needs to make some adjustments to its rally raid programme. Sure, Ricky Brabec just won the Dakar, and there was a substantial period in that Dakar where three Honda riders were in podium contention, but maybe the Monkey is actually a better off-roader than the CRF450 Rally. It at least seems like a test that should be carried out. In a totally serious and absolutely not comical way.
(In all seriousness, though, when you think about it, you cannot deny that a factory HRC Monkey would be cool as hell.)
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Lead image credit: Boonies/YouTube
