What are those small bikes you see overloaded with all sorts of cargo? They look like sturdy little work hourses. And.. Why cant you buy a small comuter bike any more.. like the old honda 100s or 90s...or even a 175,,, As you can probably tell, I am pretty ignorant... sorry,,, just trying to become informed... thanks..  

the small commuter bikes have a 250cc engines.  i thought those did a good enough job already.  i thought anything lower is only going to be found on a dirt bike  

china is trying to get into the us motorcycle market right now.  they are cheap clones of japanese bikes that are perfect for inner city travel.  brands like viva and lifan are a few that i've heard of.  

Hyosung is a Korean Co. that just hit the US market with 250cc & 650cc bikes. My girlfriend just bought the 250cc Comet and loves it.  

Kymco imports to the USA since 2003 the VENOX 250cc.
Its basicly the Honda Magna 250/VT250C which was made for the overseas from about 1995-2002. The Venox has new body panels,seat, larger gas tank and updated engine which puts out 28hp @ 10,500rpm.It performs like a 500-750cc bike and even looks much larger.

The USA distributor is KYMCOUSA:
http://www.kymcousa.com/

Great sources of information are these two forums:

CLUBVENOX (Spanish)
http://www.clubvenox.es/

PIWYR (English)
http://www.prideinwhatyouride.com/  

I think the nearest true commuter motorcycle from the tradiional big USA motorcycle companies here would be the Kawasaki Eliminator 125cc. Its up for sale as an 07 model.  As I recall Kawasaki is the only maker state side with a 100cc street legal machine excluding scooter/mopeds.  

They have tricycles in the philippines.  They are usually a 75 cc bike with a sheet metal side car.  They can load three people in the side car with a big sack of rice and a bunch of chickens hanging off the bike.  They smoke like the old Flash Gordon space ships and sound really bad.  The bikes are dirty but the sidecars are painted colorfully.  I never figure out why the driver's shift UP on hills.  Then they shift down at the top of the hill because they are about to stall out and roll backwards.  I think those bikes are perfect for the congested streets because they don't have to go very fast or far, and they are more maneuverable.  The biggest bike I saw there was a 450 and it looked huge.  Traffic rules are almost non-existent there so a bigger bike would have trouble jockeying around in traffic to get in the front of the line or the front of traffic.  Plus, no one can afford a bigger bike and one with pollution controls.  

With gas nearing $5.00 a gallon you will see more 50 and 70 cc scooters loaded down with everything from carpentry tools to kids and groceries. I love watching TV shows that have those Phillipines and asians loaded down with what we would be afraid to load on a four cylinder pickup. Wag out