Trizzle's Take – All That Glitters Is Not Gold

To summarize: a back-to-stock Grom was only marginally slower than the race winner… Tells you how much good a pile of expensive aftermarket parts do.. Think twice before you modify your bike.. It’s unlikely you’re more qualified than 100 Japanese engineers..

– DickRuble

Regular readers of MO are probably well familiar with one of our harshest critics, who goes by the handle DickRuble. The reply above was in response to our 24 Hours of Grom story, in which Team MOrons attempted to race a modified Grom for a day, only to discover our modified bike was downright frightening to ride.

It’s not often that I agree with Dick, but in this particular case I have to admit he has a point. Sort of. I took on the challenge of upgrading our Honda Grom because, despite its small stature and beginner-bike status, it has a wealth of untapped potential. However, the key to realizing that potential is the vital component we didn’t have before our 24-hour race: the opportunity to test and tune.

Top 10 Honda Grom Modifications

It’d be crazy to think any professional racing team simply installs a new part onto their bike and waits for a race to see if it works. They put in the time behind the scenes to ensure a new part works the way it’s supposed to. If it doesn’t, they investigate why and make corrections. In our case, we debuted a bike that was stricken with a bent fork from a pre-race tumble, scrambled to make everything work as best we could, and wrote about it after the fact mostly because it made for a good story. Admit it, our adventure racing a Grom for 24 hours would be a little stale if everything had gone according to plan. Although, admittedly, the chance at snagging a win in our class would have been nice…

That being said, Dick has a point. The engineers who build these bikes are extremely intelligent people, with massive resources at their disposal. Even when confronted with price limitations to contend with, as is especially the case with the budget-priced Grom, they are still able to design one hell of a motorcycle. However, as good as today’s motorcycles are, there’s always room for improvement somewhere, and to me, the journey of tapping into this potential brings its own satisfaction. Sure there lies the distinct possibility that an “improvement” isn’t one after all. Then again, when a change results in more power, better handling, quicker lap times, or even greater comfort (for those non-racing situations), it can validate the effort and expense it took to get there.

Building A Honda Grom Roadracer

If nothing else, modifying a motorcycle is personalizing a motorcycle, and personalization entails forming a bond with your bike, and the more you modify, the better you understand its inner workings. So, even though it was obvious the suspension on the Grom was in need of major help, when I was consistently having trouble shifting during my graveyard stint in the race, I knew I hadn’t forgotten how to shift, but that the Grom’s vibrations were enough to loosen the shift knob, even with a hefty amount of Loctite. So, I wasn’t surprised when I looked down and found exactly that, and I was prepared to tell our ace mechanic, John Ryti, the allen keys needed to fix it.

In hindsight, it boggles my mind how good the Honda Grom is right out of the box. By extension, I also can’t believe how impressive today’s motorcycles are in general. Whether you’re racing or cruising, exploring the path less traveled or attacking the next set of triples, there’s a bike out there that can do it, and do it well, right from the showroom floor.

But does that mean I’ll never modify another bike again? Hell no. There are so many motorcycles out there I want the opportunity to make worse before making better.