When you think about your ideal touring machine, chances are excellent that it isn’t a Honda Trail 70. Sure, touring means different things to different people, but it takes a special type of full-size adult person to want to go mile-munching on a minibike. Luckily, the guys from the Cars and Cameras YouTube channel are exactly those people! 

This channel has a particular love for the little Trail 70, which you may recall from September, 2019, when Justin introduced you to their 190cc restomod of a 1971 T70. Sadly, that’s not one of the two Trail 70s the guys choose to take on their 400-mile round trip to an island in the Outer Banks of North Carolina. Instead, they take two T70s that do both have newer engines, but aren’t nearly as fancy as that earlier build.  

The main question, of course, is whether those eensy bikes will make it—especially given the heat. At a few points in the video, John and Isaac (the two dudes behind this channel) both comment on the 105-degree Fahrenheit temperatures they’re powering through. Apparently, Isaac was bequeathed part of a teeny, tiny island off the coast of Ocracoke, so this journey was a trip to go stay on that little piece of land for a night. Two ferry trips were involved, and the team was in line to get on the second ferry for over seven and a half hours.  

Luckily, they’d brought a friend along for the trip, who in turn brought his truck along as a sort of chase vehicle. It provided some much-needed respite from the heat during that particular extended wait, and made it a lot more bearable than it otherwise would have been just by providing a shady area to lay on the pavement in.  

What was the verdict? By all accounts, these hardy little 40-something-year-old mini-trail bikes held up better than either of the guys did. Even though one bike had a small oil leak that eluded a wrench stop along the way, and the other one was having some CDI issues that couldn’t be addressed without spares, both bikes did well. John and Isaac said they were regularly pushing them to do 55 and 60mph speeds for extended periods—feats these bikes were never meant to accomplish. Does anyone make a mini Gold Wing body kit for a Trail 70? Asking for a couple of Trail 70s on the Internet that seem like they’ve earned it.  

Source: YouTube 

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