A lot of people adore mini-bikes, but few love them with the same reckless abandon as Steady Garage. Founded by Kevin Dunn, Jimmy Chen, Bahwee Suh, and Duy Nguyen, the Californian outfit put themselves on the map with their zany Honda Grom and Ruckus customs, and continues to deliver a steady stream of Honda mini-bike parts and ground-up custom builds.
Steady’s latest creation is a Honda Dax 125 with sass for days. Affectionately nicknamed Otto Dax, it sports several radical details, while still staying true to the spirit of the original bike. Here, in Kevin’s own words, is a rundown of the project.
We’re huge fans of the new Honda Dax 125, especially because Honda stayed true to the spirit of the original Dax (A.K.A the Trail 70 or CT70), by retaining the iconic unibody frame-and-body construction. For this project, our goal was to work with major components that would elevate the build while preserving its originality.
At the same time, we wanted to channel the energy of the early Japanese Mini Moto custom era, where the philosophy was to go all-out, leaving no part of the chassis untouched. From the lowered stance to the tight, narrow handlebars and countless custom details, we set out to capture that spirit with a cleaner, more modern twist.
We spent weeks brainstorming, sketching, and filling our design board with ideas. The initial plan was to build two Dax 125s, but we put the second on hold so we could focus on completing the first in time for a collaborative launch with Honda.
Once our concepts were finalized, the green light came from Honda, and the project officially kicked off. From there, we reached out to our friends at Vance & Hines, SMR Factory, Gears Racing, G-Craft, Chimera Engineering, and Kenda Tires, to share our vision and bring them on board for this exciting collaboration.
We started with a rough sketch that didn’t contain much, but we had to start somewhere. We wanted to build a super cool exhaust that looked wild. After showing V&H the concept, they knew they had a lot of work to do! It’s hard to bring a 2D sketch to life as there are many profiles and dimensions that need to be taken into consideration, but our designer, Duy, took charge of rendering how to route the header pipe.
The original Dax came equipped with classic three-piece wheels, made up of two rim hoops and a center section. For our build, we wanted to honor that heritage by keeping the iconic four-spoke design, but with our own modern flair. We incorporated the styling into Chimera Engineering’s modular wheel centers and paired them with their rim hoops, sizing them to 12×5” in the rear and 12×4” up front.
The four-spoke layout not only nods to the original design but also ties in perfectly with the Dax’s namesake: the four short legs of a Dachshund. The wheels are wrapped in Kenda Kwik KD2 tires, which are practically street-legal race slicks. Their minimal, clean tread pattern and rounded race profile complement the custom classic JDM aesthetic perfectly.
G-Craft has built a strong reputation across Asia for its beautifully crafted swingarms, hand-made in Japan and trusted by countless mini-moto enthusiasts. For Otto Dax, it only made sense to incorporate one of their masterpieces. Built from their signature triple square tubing, we requested an added under-brace to deliver extra strength, stability, and, of course, a touch of badass-ness.
When it comes to suspension, Gears Racing is second to none. Their products embody quality in every aspect, from manufacturing to performance, design, and even down to the packaging. We opted for a lowered suspension setup that not only looked right, but also delivered when pushed.
Up front, we’re running Gears Racing’s FFC-200TT full fork cartridges, which you’d typically see on race bikes. They feature complete adjustability for compression, rebound, and spring preload, all ingeniously engineered into compact 31 mm inner diameter stanchions. Out back, the Extra-Volume rear shocks provide tunable rebound, spring preload, and ride height adjustment, giving us the perfect balance of style, comfort, and performance.
The OEM seat, although comfortable, was too tall and too large for this project. We asked our good friend Roger at Rogelio’s Auto Upholstery to help us with the task of getting the seat perfect. We fabricated a full aluminum seat pan, where we Frenched in the custom taillight to give it a smooth and seamless look.
Roger took the seat pan afterwards and worked his magic on it. After hours and hours of shaping the foam, he was able to get it to the profile that matched our rendering, before wrapping it in black vinyl fabric and yellow stitching in a tuck ‘n roll pattern.
The chassis was completely sandblasted to strip it down to the bare metal, and then powder-coated in a classic green color. The front fender was brought to life from a 3D model by John from Detailed by Panem.
The headlight housing is similar to one that we made for the Honda SCL500. We designed it, and Chimera Engineering machined it from a huge block of 6061 aluminum. It allowed us to mount a Baja Designs XL Sport light perfectly.
The handlebars were custom-bent and welded from stainless steel, then polished to the final finish. We wanted the position of the handlebars to match the custom look by blending a little bit of chopper and bozo style into it.
Chimera Engineering made the handlebar conversion block (this one was the prototype unit). It retains the folding function similar to the classic Dax, which makes loading Otto Dax into a low space super easy.
We didn’t have a name for the project until it was finished. My three-year-old son has a stuffed animal called Otto that he carries with him everywhere he goes. He came to visit the shop, saw the Dachshund sticker on the Dax, and immediately said, “Hey, look, it’s Otto!”
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Build team Duy N., Jimmy C., Raymond T., Roque R., Kevin D., Roger R., James H. | With special thanks to Honda, Vance & Hines, Gears Racing, Kenda Powersports, SMR Factory, G-Craft, Chimera Engineering, Detailed By Panem, Baja Designs, and Rogelio’s Auto Upholstery.
