![]() Look – lots of Groms together in one place!Ĭonsidering what the Bike-urious logo is, I’d be remiss not to take a moment and compare the Grom with my cherished Honda S90. It’s just a great little package to goof around on, which makes it so much fun. To me, the fun factor boils down to just how light the Grom is. Thanks to how nimble the Grom is, it’s hard not to grin. The whole point of a motorcycle is to put a smile on your face when you’re riding it. Sure, the Grom isn’t an ideal highway cruiser (though someone on Reddit did take his Grom from Portland, Oregon to Alaska this summer), but every bike has weaknesses. Who needs the aftermarket for go-faster parts? Ta-da! With a little help from a friend and complete disregard for my own safety, I was able to hit a redline-limited 73 miles per hour. With that inspiration, I recruited a friend with a Honda Element, and decided to see how much extra speed I could get by drafting behind her. I thought back to something that Car and Driver did several years ago with a different Honda – the Insight Hybrid. Not bad, but I wanted to see if there was a way to go faster without modifying the bike in any way. I’m 6’2″ and 180 pounds, and the Grom was able to hit 55 while carrying me on the concrete riverbed. I’ve seen claimed top speeds between 55 and 65 miles per hour, depending on who you ask. The only difference is that unlike most modern bikes, you’ll be fully wound up in 2nd gear by that point. It might have just 8 horsepower but it’s actually quite sprightly until about 35 miles per hour. California doesn’t allow bikes this small (engine-displacement wise) on freeways, so I had to get creative when finding a venue to see how fast the Grom could go. So let’s look at two things – acceleration and top speed. I think you can find the fun in all bikes – I enjoy being able to constantly pin the throttle like I’m Rossi, because doing so on most other bikes would mean jail time after 3rd gear.Īll that said, it’s easy to suspect that the Grom doesn’t have enough power. I manage that in crowded LA traffic despite it having just 8 horsepower (when new). I occasionally commute on the S90, even if I look like a circus bear riding a bicycle. Let me just state that I’m not one of those people that thinks a bike like the Ninja 250 is too small – even if it feels slow once you start getting seat time on faster bikes. In fact, if the Grom had been released earlier, I probably would have bought it for my girlfriend to learn how to ride on instead of the Honda S90 that became the logo of this site. The name Grom comes from the Australian slang term for a young surfboarder…but good luck fitting a surfboard on this bike!īefore I had hopped on the Honda Grom, I assumed that it would be a great starter bike for the vertically challenged. ![]()
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March 2023
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