Aprilia 125

[qwertyjjj]

Always wanted one of these but recently someone who had one said the electrics were rubbish.
The Honda just doesn't look as good IMO.
Any ideas?

[Wafer_Thin_Ham]

Never heard of the electrics being crap. The more pressing concern would be a cash strapped 17 year old properly maintaining one of the most highly tuned road bikes ever made.
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[frez]

The Aprilia RS125 is very good. Like all two strokes it needs a regular top end rebuild (every 10k miles or so). It needs quality 2 stroke oil and warming up before thrashing it to ensure the engine doesnt fail sooner. The gear box oil should be replaced frequently to stop the gearbox getting too notchy.

The electrics are as good or bad as any other bike, I have not heard of any particular problems in this regard with the RS125.

The only common fault I have heard of is that the speedo drive frequently fails.

Check out the Aprilia forums for more information.

[Graprilia]

i had my RS for a year and a half , only had one problem with it the speedo drive , other than that is was problem free.

Just use quality 2 stroke oil not the cheap rubbish and make sure you allow the bike enough time to warm up.
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Piaggo liberty 125 SOLD - CBR 125 - SOLD Aprilia RS 125 - SOLD CBR 400 NC29 - SOLD ZX6R currently own https://bikepics.com/members/Graprilia/

[Kickstart]

[frez]

[Kickstart]

Hi

That was my point. RS125s need regular rebuilds to keep them healthy (pistons and rings are service items), but this is not true of all 2 strokes.

All the best

Keith
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Traxpics, track day and racing photographs - Bimota Forum - Bike performance / thrust graphs for choosing gearing

[frez]

I don't mean to push too many buttons here , but...

The biggest problem with many 2-stroke 125s are that they are owned by spotty 17 year olds gifted to them by their parents. They dont have a concept of the bike's value or as much interest in keeping it well maintained because they didn't work for the money and buy it themselves.

With a 4-stroke 125 like a CG, you can get away with jumping on it and whacking the throttle open cold, not checking the oil or adjusting the tapets, it will just get noisier and carry on working. OK, eventually the oil will get so low and dirty that serious damage starts to occur, but that will take a good long while.

With a 2-stroke 125, you let the 2-stroke oil run out and very quickly serious engine damage will result.

This is why 2-strokes get a bad name for reliability, not that they are unreliable, but that they break when not maintained.

[Kickstart]

Hi

Generally I agree. The CG is fairly tough, but then it is also slow compared to the equivalent 2 strokes. But run one out of oil and it will be dead just as much as a 2 stoke, and 4 strokes tend to cost rather more to repair (although Rotax engine parts are expensive and the barrels on the 122 and 123 engines are plated, which push up repair costs of the RS125).

But there are 2 strokes with about the same performance as the CG125 (for example the Honda H100). Cheaper to make, pretty much as reliable, easier to work on, less maintenance required and also good on petrol (and under the old insurance rules used in the 1980s, half the cost to insure of a CG125).

All the best

Keith
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Traxpics, track day and racing photographs - Bimota Forum - Bike performance / thrust graphs for choosing gearing

[qwertyjjj]

How much would a full rebuild cost?
What about the Hobda CBR125?

[Kickstart]

Hi

Depends what is damaged, but running low on oil on a normal 4 stroke (with plane bearings in the crank) would stand a good chance of wrecking the crank, cam/s and head casting, along with a fair chance of damage the the piston and bore, and possible damage to the gears.

Some 4 strokes used roller bearing cranks (like 2 strokes) and these are far more resistant to damage from low oil pressure.

Wrecking the heads from low oil / low oil pressure (from letting the filter block up) was particularly common on small Honda 4 strokes in the 1970s and early 1980s. The cams bearings were part of the head (there was no seperate replaceable bearing) hence when oil pressure was too low the cam just wore away at the head. Conventionally this meant a new head (there were people who would bore out the heads a bit and fit bearings).

All the best

Keith
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Traxpics, track day and racing photographs - Bimota Forum - Bike performance / thrust graphs for choosing gearing

[Bike_craze1]

Agreed, CG's are bulletproof.
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Yamaha R125 - Cagiva Mito 125 - Honda CBR 600
CBT passed: 22/07/08 Bike Theory passed: 28/03/09
Bike Test passed: 15/04/09

[qwertyjjj]

[frez]

[Kickstart]

Hi

Added to which bike engines are in a lot higher state of tune. If the RS125 was in the same state of tune as a sporty small car (say the Alfa Mito 1.4 @ 155hp) then it would have the power of a CBR125.

All the best

Keith
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Traxpics, track day and racing photographs - Bimota Forum - Bike performance / thrust graphs for choosing gearing

[Gashead Harry]

[rocket_richie]

The aprilia 125 is a cracking little bike fantastic ride and drops quicker than hookers knickers i had 1 for 2 years i got her when she had 9k on the clock. had a full engin rebuild 10k. i really miss hooning around with my mate on our mito/nsr/rs we had more fun on them
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rs50 x2 rs125 zx6r f3 gs500e gsxr 400 zx6r f3

[MaybeGuy]

[Tristan.]

~ 30 brake for 125cc, so 240 brake per litre, seems a fairly high state of tune.

[frez]

[MaybeGuy]

[frez]

[Tristan.]

They still make a couple of 2 stroke small diesels. But as frez said they aren't tuned for power, so haven't got much bearing on this.