Mud Cub

I have been waiting a long time to show off this photo of my legendary 1966 C-100. I finally found the time to begin using my slide scanner to put some of my Instamatic slides from The Sixties into my computer, and this is the first one I want to show off. The reason I refer to this tiddler as legendary is that it was quite a remarkable little machine that went through several iterations in the two-and-a-half years that I owned it. As I am sure I have mentioned before, my parents were adamant in refusing to let me have another motorcycle, no matter how small, after I hit several things with my 1963 YG-1. After nearly three years of pedaling, I finally convinced my parents to let me buy a minibike for off-road riding only. I found this little jewel at my local Honda dealer instead, and my parents consented, as long as I stayed off the public streets where I could find more things to hit with it.

The machine was a '66 Cub in black with white leg shields and side covers. The seat, as you can see here, was black with a white perimeter. There were no turn signals, even though the empty lens were attached to the handlebars, and it was the kickstart-only model. The first thing I did was to remove the leg shields and change the countershaft sprocket to a twelve-tooth model. The rear tire was changed to a full knobby and the front fender and exhaust pipe were removed. You cannot see it in this photo, but a very enterprising uncle of mine custom fabricated a straight, twin, balogna-sliced exhaust system that looked cool and decreased weight, but still did not make much racket. I shall post photos showing this feature at some later date. Like I said, the bike went through several iterations, and that's what makes it interesting.

The same talented uncle built me a bumper rack for the car, and I hauled the little tiddler all over the place. One of my favorite trail riding locations was at Pickwick Lake, right on the border of Mississippi, Tennessee, and Alabama. My aunt, the sister of the aforementioned Tim the Toolman, had a lake house at Pickwick and we used to haul the little tiddler up there on the bumper rack for a bit of outdoor fun. All boys like to play in the mud and the edge of a receding lake provides plenty of mud! After putting my camera away, I just got a good grip on the handlebars and dragged the little beastie sideways out of the muck. A neaby stick came in handy to scrape the mud from underneath the rear fender, and away we went!

The photo above was probably not taken in the summer, when boating adventures were available. I generally did this trail riding at Pickwick in the off season. Another fun thing I used to do with the C-100 was to take it in the boat to Hugh White State Park at Grenada Lake. Back then at least, there was no boat ramp in HWSP. You had to launch the boat over at the main public ramp near the dam, and then drive it over to the small beach area in HWSP. As I mentioned, we would lift the Cub up into the boat and tie it down securely, and then head for the lake. Upon arrival at the boat ramp, we would launch the boat with the bike still tied down in it, and drive the boat across the lake to the HWSP campground area. Upon arrival, we would lift the C-100 out of the boat, and onto the beach. Always with a fascinated crowd of envious onlookers, I would kickstart the C-100 and proceed up the very steep hillside path to the campground! Sometimes there would even be applause.

See Also: Lake Cub