Home Forums Gear Horses and ATV's Picked up a Rokon

IIRC there are a few members here running these?

This one looks to be a 80s' Mototractor with the 2 stroke, the owner said it hadn't ran in 10 years. Cleaned the fuel tank and carburator and it fired. No suspension like the new models but the price was right.

Not exactly a fun ride but incredible where these things will go!

Those things are real animals. I've never ridden one except around a parking lot, though. The big problem with the older ones is the noise. You'd have thought that they could invent a muffler somehow. I don't know how loud the new ones are.

2 stroke Rokons are noisy and you smell like burnt oil if you use it for hunting. If you add an ATV after market muffler downstream of the factory muffler you can quiet it a bit but it is amazing how much noise there is even on the 4 stroke Rokons I ran for years due to the drive train. Be advised you cannot run them on Forest Service roads unless you you make them street legal and register them.

I'd love a rokon for the property.

I'd love a rokon for the property.

Good catch!
I have longed for a Rokon since I was a kid.

A lot of the noise doesn't come through the exhaust. It comes right through the cylinder head. There's no way to quiet it down other than making an insulated enclosure to put around it. Then it overheats.

They are noisy and the fuel/oil ratio is 20-1 so it's a smoker. I collect/hoard? Honda 90s & 110s, there is an engine swap for those motors I may look into. Also have some Yamaha Big Wheel 200s, my favorite ride but won't dream of going where the Rokon will.

I used to have a Honda 90. What a gutless POS. 2 different times I had to leave a deer on the trail while I walked the bike up a hill. It wouldn't carry a rider, let alone a deer. Honda had a good idea but screwed it with that weed eater sized engine. The same bike with a 125 or larger would have been fantastic.

RC, was that a CT90, the one with the big rack and low range transmission or one of those higher geared Super 90's from back in the 70's? My CT110 is no fire breather either, but dropping the counter sprocket down one tooth gave it better low range power and I still have that lower range transmission as needed. At least that one is street/trail legal, but what limits it in the woods is the narrow tire and rear wheel only drive train. I think what limits you on power out there in ID. is the altitude. As a kid I pulled out two bucks with a Yamaha Mini Enduro 50cc bike, but spent a lot of the time on the rear wheel only and the antlers punched the seat a bunch of times. The CT110 would be better, but it's no Rokon.

My first Rokon, a '76, had the Chrysler two stroke engine and I drove the dickens out of that bike. Power to weight was actually better with that engine than it is with the newer four stroke models. That bike went like 45 mph, but who the heck wants to go that fast on something with no suspension? Like all Rokons, where it was in its element was first and second gear in the woods. If the OP's Rokon has the 15" aluminum hollow wheels like mine had, keep an eye on the wheel bearing seats as I spun some bearings on mine. The two stroke smoke smell and hard starting in winter were the reason I sold that one. I did lean the oil/fuel ratio mixture down to synthetic 50:1 and it ran fine. Starting fluid helped too. Strong little bike. I remember tying a 350# bear and a smaller one later across the back rack and just driving them out of the woods and up onto the trailer.

CT90, the Trail 90. There's no doubt that altitude kills the power, even with the altitude adjustment. One of the deer I had to drop was close to 9k ft, the other at maybe 6k.
I sold it and bought a '75 Yamaha 175 Enduro and put a large sprocket on the rear wheel. Now that thing would pack a deer anywhere I was man enough to take it.

Between them, though, I decided I'd really like a Rokon which I never got.

If the OP's Rokon has the 15" aluminum hollow wheels like mine had, keep an eye on the wheel bearing seats as I spun some bearings on mine.[/quote]

Mine does have those wheels, I'll give 'em a good examination, thanks.

Didn't Safariman have a Rokon? Gotta help my street cred, right?

When I bought my first Rokon, I thought those 15" wheels would give me more ground clearance than the 12" wheels. Being all aluminum and hollow, a Rokon will actually float with those wheels. Then I thought being able to carry extra fuel or water in those wheels would be a plus. While adding liquid to that front wheel does give it some extra weight, a partial fill got to sloshing on mine and steering was unstable. The floating thing only came in handy once bringing out a 9 point on the back end. I had to cross a creek and walking beside it, the back end sank with the deer on it, but the front end didn't and pulled the bike and the buck up the far bank.

When Rokon came out with the four stroke Honda engines, I bought my second one to get the lighting kit and four stroke engine. They used the GX160 engine on my '98 Rokon and they should have used the larger GC190 engine. It did okay and hunting in a really hilly area, that little bike pulled my buddy and me pulling an 8 point on a sled up some major hills on the way back to the truck. It is all the low gearing on those Rokons because the drive sprockets are huge. Much as I wanted a splined shaft connecting the front drive shaft to the transmission, the '98 still used a roll pin and over ride spring. The '98 frame had an issue with misalignment and broke that roll pin often enough that the front end wouldn't engage, so that bike had to go.

My current '06 got everything right. The four stroke Kohler engine is stronger, the lights are better, the 12" steel wheels and wider tires are better and the hand guards are a great option. The front end still gets light climbing steep hills, so there is a 20# weight on my front rack. It won't float, but where I go I want the wider more aggressive tires and being able to put both feet down for stability.

A Rokon isn't as fast or as comfortable as a dirt bike or ATV, but it will go places no ATV will. I took a 10 point out over the top of a beaver dam with my Rokon once and last years buck came out through a muck swamp. They would climb a tree if you could defy gravity they are geared so low. A specialized vehicle to be sure, but I wouldn't be without one.

I'm considering a new one soon. Would you go with Kohler or Honda engine?

The Kohler all the way. My Honda powered '98 was under powered I thought, though it did ride both me and my buddy, both about 200# pulling an 8 point buck on a sled up a ski hill in light snow. That one had the 15" aluminum wheels and I like the wider 12" steel wheels on my Kohler Rokon better. I needed chains on those 15" for deep snow and haven't needed them with the 12's. The 12's get you closer to the ground for feet down ultra slow going and get you better final drive ratio power.

I should add that I haven't kept up with their newer engine options because the Kohler in my '06 does everything that I need it to. I did like the choke better on the Honda engine, but that was one of those 160 series engines and if Rokons came with a stronger 190 series, that might be good too. I think that the newer Rokons do have about 2 hp larger Kohlers in them than mine and with a leading link front suspension in them now. People always ask how fast do they go? Okay, about 30-35mph, but it is how slow and tractable they go that is the most important in a rough woods. With that final drive sprocket the size of a steering wheel, you don't need a big motor to get lots of power to the ground. That said, I am only at around 600' above sea level and higher altitude takes more power.

Picked up a used one in the 80's, have rebuilt the 2 stroke a few times. Wore the tractor lug tires slick.
Have hauled out and drug out every kind of animal you can imagine. The newer tires have better grip on sidehills, but the tractor tires really did fine. Just went through engine again last year and will be planning some type of replacement conversion in the future. Very seldom used the high gear and never really ran out of power, also hardly ever ran it where an atv could go.

We had a trail 90 that was far from gutless. I wonder if there was something wrong with yours?

At 40 I probably would have rode the schitt out of one. At 62 I don’t think I want any part of one. Have fun and good luck!

No. I rode with other guys who had the same problem. Much of our riding was at 5000' +, sometimes as high as 9000'. The altitude setting didn't help much.

RC, I think that some high altitude re-jetting would have been in order on those 90's. My CT110 was geared a little high for how I use it, so dropping one tooth in the counter sprocket fixed that, but we do ride in 500-600' above sea level and that makes a huge difference. Those little Honda trail bikes are good for exploring the dirt roads because they are street legal, but I think that the rear tire is too narrow for anything much off road. That is another benefit to those wide Rokon tires because you can ride over mud or ice that you would sink on walking.

They each have their place. UTV's for longer distance and packing more. ATV's are convenient if they have wide trails. Dirt bikes for faster riding. Trail bikes for slower hard surface trail riding. Rokons for slow rough terrain.

A friend I guide bears with has a new Rokon or 2,,he uses the Otter Sigland Hi-Fax tub sled and slide a comeplete moose out with ease. I'll see if I can get a pic or 2.

X2, the carb should have been rejetted and adjusted at 5,000ft. It sounds like you may have had additional issues. We still use a trail 90 and it'll carry 350# in low up any hill it can keep traction on.

I’ve gone to using s heavy narrow 6’ long Snow-Ski for my deer pulling too. I have folded them up over the back rack, but they don’t bend up in the middle as well as the bears do. I’ve wondered about pulling out a moose whole. I pulled my F-150 4x4 to see if I could, but on wheels it wouldn’t have been as heavy as a moose. Other than being top heavy with a bear on the back, they go fine. Pulling a big bear on bare ground is like trying to pull a water bed. The only down side that I’ve seen with using the sled is that the sled wants to slide past you on a down hill.

Take a lesson from snowshoers and XC skiers pulling sleds. They attach 2 PVC poles to the front and to a waist belt to hold the sled back. Similar poles attached to a Rokon's trailer hitch will do the same thing although having both poles come together at the hitch will greatly extend the effective sled length.

Crossing the poles gives more control.