Gone Riding: Honda Super Cub

Hello from cold and rainy Southern California, where we will be swinging a leg over the Honda Super Cub in order to find out if you really do meet the nicest people on a Honda.

This iconic motorcycle changed the American motorcycle industry in the 1960s , offering a break from the 1%’er image that dominated the two-wheeled landscape at the time.

Though the model has evolved over the years, Honda has been churning out the Super Cub continuously since 1958, with production spiking in the late-1990s and hitting the 100 million unit mark in 2017.

This makes the Honda Super Cub the best all-time selling motorcycle in the world…and now it is coming back to the United States.

As such, Honda has a bit of history lesson planned for us today, before we take the Super Cub on an urban ride through Los Angeles County.

Accordingly, we are going to stop by the Honda museum, learn about this historic motorcycle, and take its predecessors for a spin as well, in an effort to understand the story behind this plucky machine.

Will the Honda Super Cub start another transportation revolution in the United States? That is the question.

The Vespa scooter has had no trouble selling in the American market, with the Italian brand’s identity and story resonating with a large population of non-riders and riders alike.

We have begun to see the rise of the eBike phonemonon in the USA as well, which is another metric worth considering when we talk about lightweight people-moving options for the urban condition.

As you can imagine, the Honda Super Cub is a tough bike to nail into a specific segment, and as such we will have to triangulate its position from these other two reference points. This means it should be an interesting day of riding and learning.

Per our new review format, I will be giving you a live assessment of the Honda Super Cub right here in this article (down in the comments section), and I will try to answer any questions you might have about this exciting motorcycle.

So, here is your chance to learn what it’s like to ride the Honda Super Cub, before even my own proper review is posted. As always, if I don’t know an answer, I will try to get a response from the Honda personnel. So, pepper away.

You can follow our thoughts on the bike live via Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram, and you can see what our colleagues are posting on social media by looking for the hashtags #HondaSuperCub and #SuperCub.

Spec-Sheet Comparison of Relevant Models to the Honda Super Cub:

Photo: Honda