Excellent Little Scooter

"Brilliant town bike!"

Hi, I have owned a Honda Lead 108cc for 2 years now, having ridden 11000 miles of varying durations and in all conditions. At 17 stone, 6ft tall I manage 50mph quite comfortably but anything over this and it does not feel good at all, the engine will scream up to about 52-53 on a flat but no more. However, I have had my scooter fully loaded with camping, carp fishing gear and food, but still been able to reach the same speed. I imagine that if you are a skinny 17 year old, you might be able to squeeze it up to 55, but I genuinely think that it would absolutely not go any faster than that at all. In town the Lead is fun and zippy being 'geared' for better acceleration than top speed. It is very fun to ride with good handling and reasonable tyres you can actually dig pretty deep whilst cornering.. for a scooter. Filtering through traffic is a doddle (only do this if you are a confident rider!) getting through the awful traffic in my town is a big plus. Acceleration is that good that you can really make people chuckle by racing them off of the line at lights. Feature-wise on the Lead is pretty standard, with speedo, oil, temp and odometer gauges on the dash. The key hole has a very nifty cover on it that can only be opened with a hex key that is positioned on the back of the ignition key. This stops nasty little chavs poking screw drivers into the hole, thinking that a screwdriver will allow them to ride off with it. However, I had the misfortune of a chav actually ramming a screwdriver down the side of the ignition block and ripping it to one side, costing £300 to repair.. do not underestimate security on a bike, always use an alarm (I now use a motion sensitive alarmed disk lock which is super effective). Big chains and normal disklocks MAY deter theives, but there is no substitute for an alarm. As bikes are usually parked in plain view, people pretty quickly get the idea. When my keyhole was smashed up, it was parked under a security camera and in plain, unobstructed view of 50-60 people that were sat outside the pub.. litterally no more than 20 feet away, yet due to no alarm, no one bothered to pay attention. All of the controls are nicely positioned, but then you would expect them to be as it has so very few. Simplicity is a good thing though! The bike has a TON of storage space. The footwell area can hold a fair bit of shopping or in my case food and fishing bait, there is a hook for bags that is pretty standard on scooters now, although it is only a hook and not a grip like ones that you might see on Piaggios for example. The inside of the bike is bigger than any other scooter that I have ridden or seen, easily fitting a full face helmet and loads of other gear in or two smallers helmets. As a price for this extra space, the fuel tank is situated in the footwell, this can be a little annoying having to bend so far down, but no real issue and well worth the extra space. The Lead also boasts a little glove compartment, which I use to hold my riding sunglasses and toolkit. It cannot hold a great deal, decent gloves/mitts for example will not fit, but it is a convenient place for things that you may need whilst at the traffic lights. The extra space is perhaps one of the best selling points of this scooter actually. Being able to hold loads of shopping or your helmet/waterproofs/locks/tools/gloves etc is invaluable and if I upgrade to a 125 geared, I will sorely miss my Honda Lead and its vacuous storage. Fuel economy is very good, somewhere around 100mpg. Around town you will use very little fuel, I expect that the fuel economy at around 30-40mph is top. However, it does feel like the tank drains pretty quickly when screaming along although this may be in my mind, or purely because I am covering more distance... The fuel gauge takes a little getting used to, once filled up it can take 40-50 miles to actually dip into the top end of the scale, but then seems to go down fairly quickly until it reaches the bottom third of the gauge. Minor niggle, is that the size of the fuel tank is pretty small. As a town bike I would not expect it to be huge, but when you leave town, sometimes you do really have to wonder if you have enough or not. I fill up from empty for about £7 (2011 prices). That being said, I have never run out of fuel, even on long journeys as the reserve is pretty generous. Maintenance wise, I am incredibly lazy but it has not caused any problems. I keep my bike in the garden, sometimes under a shelter. I rarely clean it and I dont think I have ever really cleaned the brakes properly. This is very bad practice and I would not suggest it to anyone. But it can take a bit of a beating. I have noticed that my brakes has become a little slack recently, perhaps because of one or two too many emergency stops. This could be easily fixed with some adjustment of the brake cables though. Last Autumn, less than 6 feet from my back gate, the rear end slipped right out from under me at about 15mph, being overly confident on a thick sludge of wet leaves, I hit the ground pretty hard bending one of the wingmirrors. I also accidentally revved the bike and fell back as I was walking it down an alleyway, causing it to fire down the alleyway and to bounce from side to side. As a result of these accidents, I had to replace both wing mirrors and I have scratched up the front fairing. Black is a really nice colour for the bike (best imo) but shows up those deep white scars pretty bad. However, the bodywork did not crack and the bike itself was a-ok, which is more than can be said for my old Piaggio where the exhaust bent and ripped off when a friend dropped it from a standing position. Honda Lead - hard as nails ;). I have recently punctured one of the tyres on an upturned nail. A very annoying thing to happen, but tyre plus labour fees came to less than £50, which would probably cost less if I didn't go to my local rip off dealership. One fairly serious problem that I have had, (but very easily fixed yourself) is the brightness of the headlamp. The first time that I rode out in the night, I ended up on a dual carriageway and became utterly petrified to find that a 12 mile stretch of it had no street lighting. In the dark you really cannot see more than a few feet infront of you which is very unnerving on A roads and country roads. However, 5 minutes with a screwdriver and you can fit a better bulb for a few quid, fixing this problem entirely. The only reason that I am currently thinking of upgrading is due to the top end speed. If you only touch A roads or motorways every few weeks, this bike is brilliant. I recently took a 180 mile round trip through country lanes and towns to Gloucester and back and was thoroughly happy and comfy the entire way. In towns and short trips between towns it is unbeatable, reliable, easily and cheaply serviced, good looking.. just all the things that you would want from a scoot. However, and it is a big however.. If you would like to top out at 60-70 plus, go for something bigger and save yourself the heartache and bother of having to upgrade again. Pros +Zippy and fun to ride +Reliable, starts every time +Good looking for a scooter +Loads of storage space +Fuel economy is brilliant +£200 year insurance, £15 year tax +Just really awesome.. no other way to put it! Cons -Headlamp is shoddy, replace that bulb asap! -Low top end speed of 50-52mph :( I wish it topped out at 60-65 but that is just asking way too much for the price and convenience of a bike like this.