Honda’s Monkey is an iconic tiny bike from days gone by, and when the company re-introduced the nameplate for a slightly larger 125cc unit based on the Grom’s architecture it was bound to inspire people to do something absolutely mad. MotorTrend’s Zack Courts and Ari Henning are just crazy enough to do something mad. In this case, they decided to take a pair of brand new Monkeys down the spine of the Baja Peninsula, retracing the original Baja 1000 route.
While Baja is known to most as the proving grounds for the most hardened drivers with incredible trophy trucks and desert buggies, the race started as a road trip with two friends on motorcycles. That’s the idea here, to throw it back to the 1970s and pay proper homage to the race’s two-wheel origins. The Monkey has incredible 70s aesthetic, and about the same power as those original riders had. Perfect, but still crazy.
They get into some pretty incredible adventuring on this episode, and it’s well worth the time to watch the whole thing. It makes for good TV.
This episode of Throttle Out was my absolute favorite of the show’s first season. These two goons used to run the show On Two Wheels on Motorcyclist Magazine’s YouTube channel. It was some of the best moto content on the web, with charismatic hosts and interesting topics. The pair were picked up to host MT’s Throttle Out for the MotorTrend On Demand service, behind a paywall. If you’ve missed these two and their antics, that’s where they’ve been.
It’s a good show. You can watch this episode for free on YouTube now, nearly a year after it was released, but you’ll have to put up with a reminder to subscribe in the form of a big red bar at the bottom of the screen. Still worth it.