Honda rolled out its Grom 125 ahead of 2022 with a handful of improvements to go along with a reworked, retro-styled body. It carries a new transmission ahead of a cleaner engine in terms of emissions, and sports a larger fuel tank to extend the good times. In spite of its new look, it's still readily recognizable as a Grom 'cause the monkey-bike charm still shines through to make that crucial connection to Honda's own rich history and the 1963 model that started it all.

Honda Grom Design

The Grom was just about due for an update – it's the first since a minor once-over back in 2017 – and the design team took that as an invitation for a fairly major renovation. Rather than trying to make it look sort of like a CB model that someone left in the dryer a bit too long, the Grom goes its own way with new fuel tank covers over the larger, 1.6-gallon tank (boosted from 1.45-gallons) along with side covers for a fresh new look. Not only are the components modular-looking at a glance, but they are easily removed from the frame to make life easier for the budding custom-bike builders out there.

While the front fender remains the same with foil-shaped uprights that acts as lower fork fairings, the factory moved the standoff-style front turn signals from the sides up to the top of the cyclops LED headlight housing to set the front end apart from its forebear. Also revised for this year is the LCD instrument panel that has been expanded to include a bar-style digital tachometer alongside a gear-position indicator.

Blackout treatment touches on the mirrors, handlebar, and triple-tree along with the frame, engine, rear mudguard, hugger, and exhaust. The chunky-looking tank cover utterly abandons its CB-inspired roots and goes all-in with the new program. Behind it, the subframe mounts a bench-style seat that places both pilot and pillion on a similar plane and does away with the stadium seating of the previous model. No doubt that's meant to unleash greater range of motion for fore-and-aft body English more than passenger comfort.

Out back we find a combo mudguard/plateholder similar to the 2020 version with taillights and blinkers mounted at its root to complete the package. Honda lets you mix-and-match through a full line of bolt-up components to make it easy to make it your very own.

Honda Grom Chassis

The standing structure on the Grom is a mono-backbone frame that relies on tubular steel members and a square cross-section backbone for its strength and rigidity with a yoke-style swingarm to complete the bones. As for the stems, the front end floats on a set of 31 mm usd forks that saw a weight reduction last year, but runs with fixed damping and preload values at both ends right along with the single coil-over monoshock. Suspension travel is reported at 4.3-inches and 4.1-inches at the front and rear, respectively, so you can count on good street manners with some tolerance for the rougher roads within your local urban jungle.

To balance the wheel diameter against the compact body and short, 47.2-inch wheelbase, the factory chucked on a set of 12-inch rims with a 120/70 ahead of a 130/70 to round out the rolling chassis. The steering head sets a tight rake angle of 25-degrees, and the trail measures out at 3.31-inches long to keep the Grom firmly entrenched at the agile end of the spectrum, perhaps to a fault as you can expect it to be tender in a crosswind, especially at speed.

Honda offers a pair of Groms with ABS as the key difference between the two, but that isn't the end of the story. The ABS version also mounts an IMU. This combination allows the ABS to modulate its levels of intervention based on the calculated traction and deliver a remarkable level of technology for such a low-displacement, if not humble, little monkey-bike.

A dual-pot caliper bites a 220 mm front disc with a 190 mm disc and single-piston anchor out back, which should be plenty in light of its 227-pound wet weight; 231-pounds with the ABS and IMU equipment aboard.

Honda Grom Drivetrain

Power for the Grom comes from a new, air-cooled, 123.9 cc thumper that boasts EU-5 emission compliance this time around. It has an under-square, long-stroke layout with a 50 mm bore and 63.1 mm stroke up from 52.4 mm by 57.9 mm, and a spicy 10-to-1 compression ratio that's boosted from 9.3-to-1. The mill churns out the same power as last year with 9.7 horsepower on tap at 7,200 rpm, but it sacrifices some grunt for the sake of emissions with 7.7 pound-feet at 5,500 rpm instead of the even 8 pounds from the outgoing model.

The transmission packs a fifth gear now and the sprocket was enlarged from 34- to 38-teeth to give the Grom a claimed top speed of 58.4 mph, a full 1.3 mph faster than before, though individual results may vary. A simple SOHC times the two-valve head, and induction control falls to the 24 mm throttle body along with its PGM-FI fuel-injection system that meters the fuel delivery.

Honda Grom Price

Price, color, and ABS are intertwined. You can score the 2023 Grom in Matte Black Metallic, Cherry Red, or Force Silver Metallic without ABS for $3,499. ABS for $3,499.}} If you fancy that lean-senstive ABS protection you can expect to shell out three Bejamins more to cover the difference, and you'd better like Pearl White, 'cause that's the only stock color for the ABS model in 2023.

Honda Grom Competitors

Honda isn't alone in the monkey-bike business. Domestic foe Kawasaki has its own entry with its Z125 PRO that hits many of the same design points as the new Grom even as it borrows from existing mid-size bikes much like the old Grom.

Kawasaki Z125

Kawi's entry looks like one of its larger siblings within the naked-sport “Z” family that got left in the dryer way too long, and the factory stays on that tack with no sign of easing up. With that in mind, it's safe to say that the Z125 PRO has more of a conventional look about it that may appeal to riders who are treating it as a stepping stone to a larger naked-sport machine. The hardware is similar across the board with non-adjustable suspension and disc brakes, but the Z125 falls behind in the electronics and safety department with its total lack of ABS protection, let alone the corner-sensitive variety carried by the Grom.

Kawasaki falls behind a little more when we consider the claimed power figures that shows the Z125 with 7.1 pound-feet of torque against 7.7 pounds o' grunt from Honda's lump. The Z125 has a four-speed transmission to leave that fifth gear for the Grom alone to solidify Honda's lead, but if you were expecting the price to perhaps be a factor, you can forget it. At $3,299 MSRP, there is no money left on the table against the non-ABS version at any rate.

Read our full review of the Kawasaki Z125PRO.

He Said

“Ya know, at the top end of the food chain, the naked-sportbike genre is a game of inches with only slight advantages to be had between the apex predators who lurk there, but it's a little surprising to find the same sort of margins at the very bottom of said chain. Honda seems to be the only marque to diverge from the Grom's shared design so it'll be interesting to see how that pans out given that the Honda is less-usual looking but clearly a bit more bike for the buck.”

She Said

My wife and fellow motorcycle writer, Allyn Hinton, says, “The Grom was released in overseas markets first and finally made its way to the U.S. market for 2022. The little Grom is finally growing up. No, I don't mean getting bigger, I mean getting more refined. Honda sees the interest in the Grom and is catering to a more grown-up audience. Increased customization possibilities, a new engine, and adding a fifth gear for better cruise-ability means the Grom can be taken seriously now instead of being a novelty. I like it. I wanna ride it like I stole it, smiling and giggling the whole way.”

Honda Grom Specifications

Further Reading

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