Ahhhh... good old Wikipedia. This will probably be the first result that comes up if you Google "Honda Express". Nice resource. Give you a little background into how the Express first made it onto the moped scene and why.
"The Honda motorcycle corp. of Japan released the Honda Express (NC50) to the North American market in 1977. This new bike was designed to enter the large market for mopeds that developed following the 1973 oil crisis. As such it came with a fuel efficient single cylinder two-stroke engine. It was also designed to be simple to operate, as many owners would be inexperienced with or intimidated by larger, more complex motorcycles. Honda accomplished this by using a fully automatic transmission and a small oil pump to self mix the Express's oil and fuel, thus eliminating the need for premixing."
2 noped comments:
Dear JFK,
Did this moped have "Spring wound starting mechanism" ?(or just the pedals to push-start!)
if yes, then how reliable that spring wound starting was?
why it went out of design , if it was reliable enough?
Hey Barry,
YES, the 1978 Honda Express moped had a spring starter mechanism. No push start on this baby. Also, no pedals on this model. Just pegs. That's why you will hear it referenced as a "NOPED" instead of a Moped.
The spring wound is VERY reliable... at least from my experience. You will find that over time the spring will slowly loose its elasticity and might need adjusting or even replacement to a "kick start." I hope to have a how-to on converting to kick-start on this blog shortly.
My educated guess as to the reason why it went out of design is... probably the fact it eventually looses its "springy-ness" (elasticity). It was nice feature for those who were NEW to mopeds or didn't posses phyical ability to kick-start a moped. ** NOTE: To prevent damaging spring wound starter, DON'T keep foot on spring winding pedal when releasing spring (via using left-hand brake). **
Hope that helps!
HAVE FUN!!!