What year is my bike?
One of the most common questions is, "what year is this thing?" The most common error I see is CT-90s and 110s mis-identified, particularly the older bikes.

This page and the pictures in the picture gallery should help you identify almost any 1966-1986 CT-90 or CT-110 sold in the United States.

Numbers

For every CT-90 sold after around 1968 or 1969, you can (and should) just look at the plate on the fork tube on the front of the motorcycle. It will tell you the year and month the bike was made, in keeping with common model-year designations. Thus, a bike built in 12/69 is a 1970 model, a bike built in 10/70 is a 1971 model.

On early bikes, this plate may not be present or may not disclose the date of manufacture. You also may have a bike where the plate is missing or was deliberately removed (boo). That's when you look at other clues.

An important point: your serial number doesn't necessarily indicate the year in which it was built. It does indicate its "K-series," which is useful for buying parts. In a rough sense, a K2 has a serial number starting with CT90-3xxxxx. And most K2s were 1970 models. But not all. Most bikes with a serial lower than 200000 were pre-1969 bikes, and they built around 30,000 per year. Do the math. If you don't know where your serial number is, check this page.

Big differences

There are four or five major design changes you can look for in the CT-series. First thing to look at is the engine displacement. For the very early bikes, about which I have little information, the engine is roughly 50cc. These are Trail 50s or 55s, and if you have one so designated, it dates from 1962 to sometime in 1964 or 1965. You should be able to see the engine displacement cast into the metal of the cylinder head. On a "50," that's 49cc. On a "90," it's 89cc. For a "110," it's 105cc. 1966-1979 bikes are 90s, and 1980-1986 bikes are 110s. In Australia, 110s were built later on, well into the 1990s, but those should all have plates on the forks.

The next major feature change was the trail gearing. On the early bikes, up until about 1967, the CT-series had a dual rear sprocket. That's right, two actual sprockets on the rear wheel. If your bike has this, it's older than 1967. No bike after 1968 has it unless the owner deliberately replaced the rear wheel with an older unit. Sometime during 1967, Honda added the "Posi-Torque" subtransmission, which is identified by a small extra cover just above your left heel as you're sitting on the bike. There's a lever underneath to switch between direct drive and a 2:1 underdrive. However, 1980 CT-110s for some reason do not have this device. I don't know why... they just don't. For this reason, 1980 CT-110s are somewhat rare and easy to spot.

Another major change was trailing-link front suspension. All bikes prior to 1969 have trailing-link front suspension with forks made of steel sheetmetal stampings. All bikes 1970 and newer have modern telescopic forks. The front fender on the old bikes was bolted to the fork and did not move up and down with the wheel... the later fenders were attached to the moving portion of the telescopic forks and much closer to the front wheel.

The "weird" bikes were a transitional model made during 1969, often referred to as a "K1b." These bikes have telescoping front shocks and full "saddle" plastic frame covers, but the air cleaner cover ends abruptly under your left butt-cheek and does not extend up into the rear rack. The K1bs are rather uncommon but a surprising number of them still exist. For frame and mechanical parts, treat them like 1970 models.

Harder things to spot

If you can't figure it out with these clues, you have to go on obscure differences between years. The following list is not complete and not 100% accurate, but between this and the picture gallery, you should be able to figure out what your CT is.

1969 1970 1971 1972 1973 1974 1975 1976 1977 1978
1979 1980 1981 1984 1986 1987-2000
Last updated: 09/29/2001