After a very comfy, non stressful life trundling around local neighbourhoods delivering gas bills and letters from Aunty Beryl, the well-serviced, nigh on unbreakable and hard-ever-thrashed Hondas were retired in remarkably good condition and sold as ex-government vehicles at rock-bottom prices to whatever lout, miscreant or local hoodlum with a unemployment cheque could afford them. Which is all good and well, but how did regular yobbos like me end up trying to kill themselves on them? See, some smart little public servant drone in a down under government department decided that they’d be a great tool for the postal staff to speed up their deliveries and to also increase their hauling capabilities. And this would come about in a rather unusual way. But it would be the Aussies and the New Zealanders off-roaders that would really take to it. With a massive seven horses at the crank, the bike was sold in many countries including the USA. Somewhat surprisingly, the platform was designed by Honda as a tool for hunters, fisherman and outdoorsmen to traverse mild off road routes and to also be used as a kind of safe and gentle commuter. The legendary Honda CT110 ‘Postie’ bike is a dual-sport or ‘Trekking’ bike (yes, you read that correctly) that commenced production in Japan in 1980 as a replacement to the company’s CT90. Photo courtesy of Snail Mailīut let’s start at the beginning. Welcome to the fantastic and dangerous world of the Aussie ‘Postie Bike.’ That is, they watched until my sheer velocity took me toward the horizon and out of their view. If I had stopped and thought about anything for more than a nanosecond, I may have realised that the farmhouse was in fact on the hill above the road, so my cnot-very-delighted parents sat and watched in horror as the whole event unfolded in front of them. And the tears from my young, innocent eyes were streaming backwards into the hair above my ears, making it all cold and wet. The wind blast was so strong, I had to squint which also had the interesting effect of making it almost impossible to see where I was going. And I don’t even want to think what would have happened if a cop had caught me. As for a helmet, and registration? Absolutely not. 30 seconds later, there’s me doing 90 km/h (55 mph) on a 60 km/h (40 mph) public road in a t-shirt, shorts and thongs and with five more years to go before I could even think about getting a licence. Then in a moment of childhood inspiration, I’d decided to take to the nearby public road ‘to see how fast the bike could go’.
All I knew was that I’d been riding up and down some dirt roads on a friend’s farm in country New South Wales, north west of Sydney, having the time of my life. One minute I’d been fooling around on a Honda CT110 ‘Postie’ bike, and the next I was being screamed at for risking my own death and breaking the law. It’s the early ’80s and 12-year-old me is in deep trouble.
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