These 5 Simple Changes Revived My TLR200 Project

The draw of a new project can be as swift as a river. Take one step in, and suddenly you’re swept away, swimming rapidly in the current of old forum threads, service manual pages, and Facebook group chats. The waters get murky down there, but holding your breath and diving for a few tidbits of information is worth it, even if your only mission is to take something that is—well, not total junk and make it better.

This, in a nutshell, has been my last couple weeks. After my yearly pilgrimage to the Barber Motorsports Museum Vintage Festival, I brought home a 1986 Honda TLR200 Reflex. (I plan to use it for trials, a type of competition that centers on low-speed technical riding.) These TLRs get a bit of a bad wrap for not being a “real” trials bike. That’s a totally fair argument, but I intend to nudge the slider from imitation to replica over time and that involves a bunch of work. It all starts with these five steps.

Ditching Weight

We’re starting off small here, but one of the big drawbacks of the Reflex model is that it weighs over 200 pounds ready to ride. Most trials bikes are far under that. The Reflex is weighed down by a mix of what are likely cost-cutting measures combined with the gear Honda strapped on to make it a mixed-use machine.

For quick weight loss, I yanked the front wheel and, after ordering some new wheel bearings, installed the front wheel from an XR200. The hubs are slightly different, and so are the axle diameters, but luckily the changes could be solved with off-the-shelf bearings that fit the 35mm inner diameter of the hub and the 12mm diameter of the axle. The brake hub was the same diameter and width, so with new bearings in—the machine needed anyway—the heavy factory steel rim is gone and replaced with an aluminum one. All without doing any work on my wheel truing stand.

Gearing

While the TLR is likely going to keep its street-legal wiring for now, I have no intentions of using it on the street. Its main use will be playing around in the yard. I know full well I’m an adult, but playing in the yard is good for people of every age, and if I’m only rolling over logs and practicing my balance in slow figure-eights, I don’t need gearing for 55 mph. I need gearing for 5.5 mph.

So off came the 13-tooth countershaft sprocket and 44-tooth rear sprocket. In their places are a 10-tooth and 48-tooth, which lower the gearing a lot. I didn’t make the gearing isn’t as low as some dedicated trials riders—they often drop to a 9-tooth front sprocket and as high as 50 on the rear—but we all have to start somewhere, and by my math the 10/48 combination will be perfectly suitable for my needs. It won’t have too much wrap around the front sprocket and it will also enable me to easily swap the rear back to a lower tooth count if I find myself wanting road speeds from the bike after all.

Stealing a Few Bits from Around the Shop

My favorite upgrades for any of my bikes typically aren’t really “upgrades” at all; they’re merely corrections of errors made by the previous owners and the additions of pieces that were as good as they could be from the factory. Two pieces that came with my TLR that were annoying and left a lot of room for improvement were the tires and footpegs.

The tires were an old set of motocross knobby treads that were just wrong for this bike. Luckily I had a set of dedicated trials tires left over from some previous slow-speed fun on my XR250R that fit the 21-inch front and 18-inch rear rims of the TLR. While those came off the shelf, a set of larger footpegs came off the XR100R that I use as a pit bike to get around events and races. The larger platform makes standing on the bike much more comfortable and while I hope to lower the pegs for increased stability, just having comfortable ones is a great start.

Basic Maintenance

When any new project comes into my shop, it gets an oil change, fresh fuel, a new air filter, and, if it’s ridable, fresh cables and grips. The list isn’t long, but it forces me to look closely at basically all the critical systems of the powertrain to ensure there aren’t any lurking problems I hadn’t noticed in the quick transaction trading for this bike. The air filter was falling apart and gummy, and a quick replacement made the engine start easier and run smoother.

New grips make any bike feel better and more like my own, since grips are such a personal choice. I initially thought these ProTaper pillow tops would be nice and I use them on most of my other bikes, but after just a few rides I think I’ll end up changing them out soon.

The TLR200 is like many motorcycles of this era and uses cables to actuate the clutch and the front drum brake. Trials bikes are all about fine control, and sticky cables are not how you get fine control. Since OEM replacement cables are tough to get for this two-year-only bike, I first flushed and oiled the factory cables that are on the bike. The junk that came out the ends wasn’t confidence-inspiring, but both cables actually ended up working basically like new when I reinstalled them.

Fresh Brakes

The brakes on this bike were what I would call “delightfully adequate.” Upon disassembly, during the process of removing the wheels to change the tires, it was clear I could leave well enough alone. Everything that needed to move could move, the pads and drums looked okay, and their stopping power was fine. I’ve never been one to pass on an opportunity to refresh brakes, though. Fresh shoes and a good adjustment are cheap, since Honda shared this brake shoe size with multiple other models. Why pass on putting in new shoes when the cost is under $30 total?

After all those quick changes, I spent at least an hour toddling around my yard working on balance and fine control of the throttle, clutch, and brakes. The multi-chamber muffler is goofy looking but quiets this low-compression thumper down to a whisper, meaning that even the neighbor’s dog was enjoying watching me embarrass myself with attempts to cross leaf-covered tree roots at an angle. No matter. I’m smitten with this new-to-me machine, especially after these tweaks. Now if only I can keep myself from going any further.