Hodaka. 60s to early 70s dirt bikes

[Thumper]

The Hodaka story is unusual. The brand came from a relationship between a farm chemical company of the USA NorthWest and the company that made the engines for Yamaguchi Japanese bikes. Yamaguchi went bankrupt, and Hodaka was left without a buyer for their engines... It is an fascinating story. I wonder what would have happened if general manager Henry Koepke didn't die in a BMW motorcycle accident?

[buzz]

They sucked!!!!

[dirtbkr188]

Originally Posted by buzz

They sucked!!!!

Don't hold back, buzz....tell us how you really feel! lol

[Thumper]

By today's standards yes. But in the late 60s, this was state of the art !

Suspension upgrades were on the horizon. I remember when Yamaha introduced monoshocks. But at the time, those Hodakas were great!

[Magician16]

Back in the 60's I rode Hodaka, Bultaco, Harley Davidson(dirt bike), Norton, Yamaha, and got a Honda in '72 that made all of those seem like junk.

[buzz]

I did,never owned one but the kid next door had one. junk from the start,did not last very long.

[GypsyR]

To each his own. Many years ago I had a 125 Wombat. I used to go through a few bikes and that's one I wished I had kept. Got some vague idea if a bucket of money fell out of sky one day I might look to find another like it. For no real good reason really.

[2LZ]

Had one as a kid. Loved it. Raced it in the "100 cc and lower" class locally. It was the hot ticket at the time. Yamaha had the 80 and Honda had their four stroke turd of an SL 100. I'm eyeing an Ace 100 right now for the herd. All the chrome is good and the bike is complete but needs love. I think it would look awesome in the fleet.
They are a great story. There were a lot around when I was a youngster.