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| Johhhny |
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Johhhny
L Plate Warrior
Joined: 20 Sep 2015
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 Posted: 01:25 - 20 Sep 2015  Post subject: Motorbike decision :)? |
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Hi community,
So I'm planning to buy a motorbike. I'm going to do the CBT this year and then take the A1 theory next year (because I'm only 16 now) and also so I can progress faster and get A licence when I'm 21 instead of waiting until I'm 24.
Now I was searching up about some bikes, (I can only ride 125cc, upto 11kw and a power-to-weight ratio not more than 0.1 kW per kg bike with A1 licence) and I found 2 bikes which people say that are good:
-Yamaha YZF-R125
-Aprilia RS 125 11kw
People say that Yamaha is a very reliable bike and it has very small fuel take. On the other hand side, people say that Aprilia is a bike for people which want "faster" bikes and better looking one.
Now I really want to get fast accelerating (fast) and looking bike (which I know its impossible for 125cc but still) which I can ride around the city, and to the school.
My question is what do you think about these two bikes, and which one is better... or maybe you guys know any other ones which are also great!.
Thanks in advance  |
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| Teflon-Mike |
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Teflon-Mike
tl;dr
Joined: 01 Jun 2010
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Posted: 02:45 - 20 Sep 2015  Post subject: |
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How much money have you got to spend?
What we might think, means little, if you cant afford a bag of chips, let alone a motorbike, does it?
You need;
1/ Provisional Licence - get forms from the post office of apply on line; spend a fiver on a pass-port photo and get your school teacher to sign the back for proof of identity (You have to pay at the dr's these days, so, I'd suggest you get a couple of strips out the booth, and get'em to sign them all for all the shit you are likely to need photo's for) But, licence is about £30 if memory serves.
2/ You need to do a Compulsory Basic Training (CBT) course to validate your provisional licence. Book with a local school; costs around £120-£150 depending where you go. Take a packed lunch with you.
3/ You are required by law to wear a crash helmet, whe riding a motorbike. You might like to get this before doing your CBT course, but check with school what they provide / reccomend. Crash-Hats start from £30 and go up to silly-money. Buy in a SHOP, a real one you have to walk through the door, and can try them on. Buy on Fit not funkiness! Budget £100 minimum, and if you get change, put t towards next item!
4/ Gloves. Not required by law, but your hands are the first thing to get cold in the wind and the wet, as well as usually the first things to hit the floor when you fall off. Good gloves are expensive; may not be a lot of leather in them, but there's a lot of intricate stitching to go round as any bodily appendages as the rest of your body. Also most used bit of your body when riding a bike; working throttle, clutch and brakes. Good Gloves are a real 'boon', don't stint on them. Budget around £50 and up.
5/ Boots.. like gloves, only on your feet, working gears and brake and propping you up when you stop. More useful / important than a leather jacket. Again, expensive; cheap boots start at about £50, and tend to last about as long as a pair of £10 ASDA trainers in my experience. £70 and up and you are into a grade likely to be useful, and last maybe as long as a pair of £30 trainers from Closing-Down-Sports... £120 and up for 'good' boots, if you expect to wear them every day, on and off the bike.
6/ WATER-PROOFS.. this is Britain.. it RAINS... a LOT. Every-one gets all exited about crash protection and must have leather, but I find I get wet, rather more often than I fall off.. and its a LIE that leather is water-proof. Its a LIE that 'textile' riding wear is water-proof. It ent. Even water-proofs often aren't that water-proof! We have very determined rain in this country; it ill find a way through whatever you wear! Good news is that water-proofs tend not to be too expensive, and you a get a useful one-piece over-suit for under £50. Like a pair of overalls they cover whatever you wear underneath; so the rest of your kit dot have to be all that fancy, or even 'dedicated' bike wear.
7/ Jacket - come leather or textile alternatives. Again, crash protection gets a lot more attention that it deserves; useful, but dress to ride, not to crash! Needs to be warm for worst of our whether, and comfy, so you can move in it. Budget £100 - £200 ish for a good bike jacket
8/ Trousers - like a jacket for your legs. Similar issues, similar prices.
How much are we up to so far? Couple of hundred to get you a provisional & CBT; then another, what, £500 'ish' to get togged up to ride... it's gettig expensive, innit, kid?But lets carry on....
9/ Training - optional after you have done your CBT, but of you are planing to do tests and go for big-bike entitlements at some point, you wont really do it without any, so you may as well get it at the start when it'll do most good..... budget £500-£1000 for that...
10/ Law requires you have 3rd-Party Indemnity insurance to use a motor-vehicle on the public road. 17 years old? Get the Vaseline and bend over, kid, you are about to get shafted. As an old dffer, I pay less than £100 a year to isure a 'big-bike'. As a 17 year-old on L-Plates, or A1, you will be lucky to get a polcy o ANYTHING, let alone alone expensive and more posey bike like a YZF-R125, for under £500 a year. And be warned; you plan to ride the thing to school or college, you need to check the box to include 'commuting' on the policy, and that will likely doable the price of the quote. And NO.. YOU, a 17year-old cannot take the 'Monthly'plan the quote site offers you.... its not buying insurance monthly, its a 'loan', you aren't old enough to take out, to buy a year's policy. That is likely to dent the savings you were possibly hoping to spend on the nosey-toy, isn't it?
11/ SECURITY - bikes get nicked... if you are lucky enough to get a more sensible insurance quotes, you might afford 3rd-Party-Fre & Theft, cover; means that f the bike gets micked, they pay you its 'market value'... not what YOU paid for it, heed; what THEY think it's worth in a private sale.. less their policy excesses, and any outstanding admin or credit charges... THEN when you get another bike, you find that paying you out o the old one, ended your insurance; you have t buy aother policy, even if you'd only had the old one a week..AND you are likely to discover that the 'claim' means you are ow deemed a higher risk, so they put yournew policy price up by about half whatever they paid you, ad will ext year, ad the year after.. so they get it back again, and its often more expensive for a young rider to make a theft claim, i the long run, than ust take the 'loss' out their own pocket, straight off.... SO BUY LOCKS... big ones, and use the fuckers, especially if you are parking the same spot every-day, somewhere frequented by teen-age scroats, like a local school of college!
Forget alarms, no one takes any notice, and imobilisers often hamper you, the rider more than any tea-leaf. So buy hard securty; a disc-lock AND a chain to lock the thing to something immoveable. And budget at least £100 for it.
OK, so so far we are up in the order of a couple of thousand quid, to get you sorted enough to start thinking about buying an actual motorbike...... How much you got left to start your search?
It REALLY s the last thing on the list of things to start worrying about...
No point buying the bike of your dreams, only to dicover yu cant legally go anywhere on the damn thing, is there?
And two you have mentioned are relatively expensive 'Vanity-Bikes'.. legally they cant go any faster than any other more boring looking 125 can; yet cost twice as much money to look like they might, to some-one who knows no better, and probably doesn't much care anyway. Neither are particularly reliable, made worse by attracting buyers who want fast and posey, not practical and ecconomical, likely to thrash'em, trash'em and 'crash'em; so 2nd hand, you are likely buyig some-one elses sour dream they couldn't afford to run, that's been run ito the ground, worse than something 'more sensible', like a YBR125... and that will cost you more still, to insure, mantain and fix, after that.. eve more money out the pot, for what?
That s what I think of the bikes.. but back to the question at the top... IF yo have the money, its yours to do with as you please... and if that little bit of rather questionable 'style' is worth it to you, fair play go for it....
BUT, still have to find some-one selling the bike you want, in the real world, and get to them, check the bike out and do a deal, before any other optimistic teen-ager with money burning a hole in their pocket does...
And bikes aren't as thick o the ground as autumn autumn leaves or Audi's..... so where you goig to go look for a bike? How you going to get to see a bike? And IF you do a deal, how will you get it home after?
Which ISN'T intended to dissolution you, BUT.. easy to dream... finding the money to make dreams real, tends to be rather harder..
SO, are you in any way, even close to being able t put this lot all together and make it happen? And if so, start dealing with the shit at the top of the list, not at the bottom, 'cos there's a heck of a lot of t to be dealt with before buyer's guide reviews of 'theoretical' motorcycles becomes a worth while consideration, and put two real-world examples of them bikes side by side; what the reviewers reckon means shit, compared to the actual condition of the actual bikes n the metal in front of you.....
____________________
My Webby'Tef's-tQ, loads of stuff about my bikes, my Land-Rovers, and the stuff I do with them!
Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?' |
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Snop Doog
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| Rogerborg |
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Rogerborg
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| Posted: 09:58 - 20 Sep 2015 Post subject: Re: Motorbike decision :)? |
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| Johhhny wrote: | Hi community |
Hi comrade.
| Johhhny wrote: | I'm only 16 now [...] I can only ride 125cc, upto 11kw and a power-to-weight ratio not more than 0.1 kW per kg bike with A1 licence |
OK, that's when you're 17, savvy? Fortunately you'll have turned 17 by the time you've finished reading Tef's post, so we can assume a 125.
The answer is: one that's in good condition and that you can afford.
If you limit yourself to one make or model then you'll overlook better, cheaper bikes, and may end up buying a lemon because it's all that's available.
You want plastic, well, that's fine. But also consider:
CBR125.
Hyosung GT125R - and that really must be in good condition.
Daelim Roadsport 125 - and that goes double for this bike, because parts supply.
The only plastic 125 that I'd recommend avoiding is the Lexmoto XTR/S, also sold under Skyjet and Kaisar brandings. They're cheap, but they're nasty: lots of buyer's remorse waiting for you there.
____________________
Biking is 1/20th as dangerous as horse riding.
GONE: HN125-8, LF-250B, GPz 305, GPZ 500S, Burgman 400 // RIDING: F650GS (800 twin), Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 500 AVL, Ninja 250R because racebike |
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Johhhny
L Plate Warrior
Joined: 20 Sep 2015
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| Posted: 17:54 - 20 Sep 2015 Post subject: Re: Motorbike decision :)? |
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| Teflon-Mike wrote: | How much money have you got to spend?
What we might think, means little, if you cant afford a bag of chips, let alone a motorbike, does it?
You need;
1/ Provisional Licence - get forms from the post office of apply on line; spend a fiver on a pass-port photo and get your school teacher to sign the back for proof of identity (You have to pay at the dr's these days, so, I'd suggest you get a couple of strips out the booth, and get'em to sign them all for all the shit you are likely to need photo's for) But, licence is about £30 if memory serves.
2/ You need to do a Compulsory Basic Training (CBT) course to validate your provisional licence. Book with a local school; costs around £120-£150 depending where you go. Take a packed lunch with you.
3/ You are required by law to wear a crash helmet, whe riding a motorbike. You might like to get this before doing your CBT course, but check with school what they provide / reccomend. Crash-Hats start from £30 and go up to silly-money. Buy in a SHOP, a real one you have to walk through the door, and can try them on. Buy on Fit not funkiness! Budget £100 minimum, and if you get change, put t towards next item!
4/ Gloves. Not required by law, but your hands are the first thing to get cold in the wind and the wet, as well as usually the first things to hit the floor when you fall off. Good gloves are expensive; may not be a lot of leather in them, but there's a lot of intricate stitching to go round as any bodily appendages as the rest of your body. Also most used bit of your body when riding a bike; working throttle, clutch and brakes. Good Gloves are a real 'boon', don't stint on them. Budget around £50 and up.
5/ Boots.. like gloves, only on your feet, working gears and brake and propping you up when you stop. More useful / important than a leather jacket. Again, expensive; cheap boots start at about £50, and tend to last about as long as a pair of £10 ASDA trainers in my experience. £70 and up and you are into a grade likely to be useful, and last maybe as long as a pair of £30 trainers from Closing-Down-Sports... £120 and up for 'good' boots, if you expect to wear them every day, on and off the bike.
6/ WATER-PROOFS.. this is Britain.. it RAINS... a LOT. Every-one gets all exited about crash protection and must have leather, but I find I get wet, rather more often than I fall off.. and its a LIE that leather is water-proof. Its a LIE that 'textile' riding wear is water-proof. It ent. Even water-proofs often aren't that water-proof! We have very determined rain in this country; it ill find a way through whatever you wear! Good news is that water-proofs tend not to be too expensive, and you a get a useful one-piece over-suit for under £50. Like a pair of overalls they cover whatever you wear underneath; so the rest of your kit dot have to be all that fancy, or even 'dedicated' bike wear.
7/ Jacket - come leather or textile alternatives. Again, crash protection gets a lot more attention that it deserves; useful, but dress to ride, not to crash! Needs to be warm for worst of our whether, and comfy, so you can move in it. Budget £100 - £200 ish for a good bike jacket
8/ Trousers - like a jacket for your legs. Similar issues, similar prices.
How much are we up to so far? Couple of hundred to get you a provisional & CBT; then another, what, £500 'ish' to get togged up to ride... it's gettig expensive, innit, kid?But lets carry on....
9/ Training - optional after you have done your CBT, but of you are planing to do tests and go for big-bike entitlements at some point, you wont really do it without any, so you may as well get it at the start when it'll do most good..... budget £500-£1000 for that...
10/ Law requires you have 3rd-Party Indemnity insurance to use a motor-vehicle on the public road. 17 years old? Get the Vaseline and bend over, kid, you are about to get shafted. As an old dffer, I pay less than £100 a year to isure a 'big-bike'. As a 17 year-old on L-Plates, or A1, you will be lucky to get a polcy o ANYTHING, let alone alone expensive and more posey bike like a YZF-R125, for under £500 a year. And be warned; you plan to ride the thing to school or college, you need to check the box to include 'commuting' on the policy, and that will likely doable the price of the quote. And NO.. YOU, a 17year-old cannot take the 'Monthly'plan the quote site offers you.... its not buying insurance monthly, its a 'loan', you aren't old enough to take out, to buy a year's policy. That is likely to dent the savings you were possibly hoping to spend on the nosey-toy, isn't it?
11/ SECURITY - bikes get nicked... if you are lucky enough to get a more sensible insurance quotes, you might afford 3rd-Party-Fre & Theft, cover; means that f the bike gets micked, they pay you its 'market value'... not what YOU paid for it, heed; what THEY think it's worth in a private sale.. less their policy excesses, and any outstanding admin or credit charges... THEN when you get another bike, you find that paying you out o the old one, ended your insurance; you have t buy aother policy, even if you'd only had the old one a week..AND you are likely to discover that the 'claim' means you are ow deemed a higher risk, so they put yournew policy price up by about half whatever they paid you, ad will ext year, ad the year after.. so they get it back again, and its often more expensive for a young rider to make a theft claim, i the long run, than ust take the 'loss' out their own pocket, straight off.... SO BUY LOCKS... big ones, and use the fuckers, especially if you are parking the same spot every-day, somewhere frequented by teen-age scroats, like a local school of college!
Forget alarms, no one takes any notice, and imobilisers often hamper you, the rider more than any tea-leaf. So buy hard securty; a disc-lock AND a chain to lock the thing to something immoveable. And budget at least £100 for it.
OK, so so far we are up in the order of a couple of thousand quid, to get you sorted enough to start thinking about buying an actual motorbike...... How much you got left to start your search?
It REALLY s the last thing on the list of things to start worrying about...
No point buying the bike of your dreams, only to dicover yu cant legally go anywhere on the damn thing, is there?
And two you have mentioned are relatively expensive 'Vanity-Bikes'.. legally they cant go any faster than any other more boring looking 125 can; yet cost twice as much money to look like they might, to some-one who knows no better, and probably doesn't much care anyway. Neither are particularly reliable, made worse by attracting buyers who want fast and posey, not practical and ecconomical, likely to thrash'em, trash'em and 'crash'em; so 2nd hand, you are likely buyig some-one elses sour dream they couldn't afford to run, that's been run ito the ground, worse than something 'more sensible', like a YBR125... and that will cost you more still, to insure, mantain and fix, after that.. eve more money out the pot, for what?
That s what I think of the bikes.. but back to the question at the top... IF yo have the money, its yours to do with as you please... and if that little bit of rather questionable 'style' is worth it to you, fair play go for it....
BUT, still have to find some-one selling the bike you want, in the real world, and get to them, check the bike out and do a deal, before any other optimistic teen-ager with money burning a hole in their pocket does...
And bikes aren't as thick o the ground as autumn autumn leaves or Audi's..... so where you goig to go look for a bike? How you going to get to see a bike? And IF you do a deal, how will you get it home after?
Which ISN'T intended to dissolution you, BUT.. easy to dream... finding the money to make dreams real, tends to be rather harder..
SO, are you in any way, even close to being able t put this lot all together and make it happen? And if so, start dealing with the shit at the top of the list, not at the bottom, 'cos there's a heck of a lot of t to be dealt with before buyer's guide reviews of 'theoretical' motorcycles becomes a worth while consideration, and put two real-world examples of them bikes side by side; what the reviewers reckon means shit, compared to the actual condition of the actual bikes n the metal in front of you..... |
Wow, thanks for that many details ,
well my budget is around £3,000-£5,000 so I think that I can buy something pretty good, including bike, accessories and other stuff.
You said that I should protect my bike when I go off, well do you think that disk-lock and chain lock would be enough if I will be in school for 7h and the bike would stay on some parking or near the street where my school is placed?
You mentioned that I should get a very expensive 125cc bike because there is no point. I agree but I'm also looking forward to drive that 125cc bike until I'm 21.
| Rogerborg wrote: | | Johhhny wrote: | Hi community |
Hi comrade.
| Johhhny wrote: | I'm only 16 now [...] I can only ride 125cc, upto 11kw and a power-to-weight ratio not more than 0.1 kW per kg bike with A1 licence |
OK, that's when you're 17, savvy? Fortunately you'll have turned 17 by the time you've finished reading Tef's post, so we can assume a 125.
The answer is: one that's in good condition and that you can afford.
If you limit yourself to one make or model then you'll overlook better, cheaper bikes, and may end up buying a lemon because it's all that's available.
You want plastic, well, that's fine. But also consider:
CBR125.
Hyosung GT125R - and that really must be in good condition.
Daelim Roadsport 125 - and that goes double for this bike, because parts supply.
The only plastic 125 that I'd recommend avoiding is the Lexmoto XTR/S, also sold under Skyjet and Kaisar brandings. They're cheap, but they're nasty: lots of buyer's remorse waiting for you there. |
Thanks for that suggested the other bikes, I appreciated |
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Andy_Pagin
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Johhhny
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Teflon-Mike
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| Posted: 23:51 - 21 Sep 2015 Post subject: |
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| Johhhny wrote: | Also another question, does Aprilia RS 125 11kw really needs that much fixing, what I read from opinions and such so people complain about fixing it. Now I would purchase Aprilia RS 125 11kw but if there is a lot of fixing done for it, they I think I'm going to go for yamaha.
Also what people mean by fixing in and how does it mostly take to fix certain things? |
'Fixing' is something you do when something is broken. things bvreak for three reasons:-
1/ It's old, worn beyond it's 'service-life', should have been replaced long ago, and it 'gives up' and breaks
2/ It's abused.. it's loaded beyond it's strength, asked to do more than it was designed to... and it gives up and breaks
3/ Its old AND its abused...
If you MAINTAIN a machine, what you do is a) never abuse it, b) replace stuff that might wear out before it does.. you 'maintain' the serviceability it was designed to have when new.
Ergo... with 'Proper' maintenance, NOTHING should need 'fixing'.. just 'maintaining'.....
That's the theory... lets get a little more 'practical'.
four-strokes vs two-stroke 'reliability'. Reliability is a function of maintenance.. its how frequently you DON'T have to 'fix' stuff, that proper maintenance ought to have avoided.
The four-stroke engine, is relatively intricate; three basic moving parts of a reciprocating piston engine are, the piston, that goes up-and-down, ; the crank-shaft that turns that up-and-down motion into 'roundy-roundy' rotary motion; and the con-rod that joins the two together; BUT in the 4-stroke engine, to get the piston to go up and down, completing one combustion cycle in four 'strokes' or two crank revolutions, you need to have some sort of valves to let 'charge' in to the cylinder, and exhaust smoke out, when its been burned; and you need some sort of mechanism to open and close those valves, at the right time, and another system to actually start the fire to turn charge into smoke. this begs all the other 'bits' that move inside the engine; the valves themselves; the cam that sets the timing of them, and then 'stuff' like push-rods and rockers that take movement from the cam to the valve; there also has to be something to turn the cam, gears or a chain or a belt or 'something'; and normally you have to have a pump to move oil round the engine to keep all the moving bits of metal lubes up; then you need some sort of cooling system; which could just be a big fins on the cylinder to act as a 'heat-sink' (air-cooling), or could need a water-jacket, and a radiator and a pump to shove water around it... lots and lots of 'stuff' moving, doing stuff, all to make this engine 'suck-squash-bang-blow....
However, over the last hundred and fifty years or so, engineers have got pretty good at making these things, and carefully calculating strengths and loading, and refining manufacturing tolerences, the modern CAR engine, is almost 'sealed for life'... they make it; you drive it; 'maintenence' is reduced to little more than a periodic oil change, and after about ten years or a 150,000 miles, everything has pretty much worn out together, just as the thing is likely to be being driven into the scrap-yard...
Now, fundemental 'rule'; you dont get owt f'nowt; and no matter how clever the engineers are, its about balancing perameters; and while they could make a 4T motorbike engine that had a similar service-life and demanded as little maintenance, the trade off would be that it would only likely deliver 'car' like horse-power; typically around 70bhp-per-litre, where your average bike, is expected to deliver something in the order of 120bhp-per-litre.. so, it would be slow and heavy. Making bike engines light, and powerful then tends to shift the compromises, and they tend to be more expensive, have less service life and need more maintenance.
POWER HAS A PRICE
And while I'm on the topic; 'Power' is not a tangible thing, like 'Petrol'; you can see, touch, taste, and burn petrol. It comes in quantities measured in volume, like litres, that take up real physical space. Power? You don't 'have' power. Power is an intangible, an imaginary commodity, a measure of 'potential'.. specifically, the 'potential' to 'do work'... more specifically, do work at a certain 'rate'. Ie you can do a little work, very quickly, or a lot of work, slowly, but it's still the same amount of work; more power is the potential to do more work, more quickly....
Bike engine, 'rated' at 11Kw power; has the 'potential' to do the work of shoving a person sized object, through air, against wind-resistance, at about 70mph.... that work is only actually being 'done' WHEN that person sized object is being shoved through air, against wind-resistance, AT 70mph.... so at 60mph, the engine is NOT 'delivering' its full 'potential' of 11Kw... its only 'delivering' about 9Kw.. Ie you don't 'have' 11Kw of power, in your engine.. you have the 'potential' to use 11Kw of power... but most of the time.... it probably wont let you have it.
Oh-Kay... Aprillia RS125... as designed, its engine is rated at around 22-24Kw or so 'potential'..... 'Restricted' to half its design power, you would 'hope' or probably expect, that that would aleviate some of the 'load' ever put on components, and so the wear and tear they suffer, so they might last longer... unfortunately, it doesn't quite work like that, and in 'full-power' guise, while it might have the 'potential' for that power to put greater loading on 'stuff', most of the time it wont; and shafts will still be turning as many revolutions, pistons will still be doing as many strokes, to travel the same number of miles; as such, 'De-Rating' the peak potential of the engine, by 50% will NOT double the service life, or service intervals... it dont work like that.
But, lets back up; Two-Strokes. The 'Grand-Daddy' of the modern two-stroke motorbike engine was designed for a bike built in Nazi Germany before the 2nd World-War, called the DKW RT125. It was a wonderful little bit of 'Product Engineering', intended to distill what was at the time, still something of a black-art, and half understood 'contraption' of an engine, into something as SIMPLE as you could possibly make it... and they succeeded.
The basic, air-cooled, piston ported two-stroke, distilled the reciprocating piston engine down to... a piston, a crank-shaft, and the con-rod to join the two..... getting charge in, and smoke out of the cylinder, was governed entirely by drilling holes in the cylinder wall, revealed or hidden to block or allow 'flow' in or out, entirely by the piston moving past them... in theory the damn thing should never have worked... sucking charge into the crank-case through holes opened as the piston rises, damn thing should have squashed it all back out again when the piston comes back down... BUT, for a number of strange reasons... it worked! AND to my mind its one very 'cool', in the Miles-Davis sense, bit of engineering; maximum motion, for minimum metal... but I detract.
Now, for the era; 1930's; it proved more than adequetly 'powerful', offering about 4-5bhp; more than 'adequete' for a light-weight motorcycle to reach the heady speeds, for the day, of perhaps 50mph; And the basic design was still in seriel manufacture, right up until the 1990's, by which time they had almost doubled the specific power out-put, on things like the MZ 125, to around 8bhp, and the potential to do a little over 60mph.
So few moving parts, they were cheap and easy to make; while there was bugger all to wear out or go wrong; ideal for a low cost, ecconomy 'commuter' bike... not the most fuel efficient, B-U-T, who cares, so small and so low-powered you ent going to use much any-way, so a little 'efficiency' gain wont make much difference....
BUT, these simple, 'utility' two-strokes, have gained a reputation for being tough as old boot, and as low-maintenance as they come.
However, in the 1960's the two-stroke took another turn in its development history; chap who worked at DKW before WWII, called Walter Kaaden, found himself working in the same factory, for the Soviet Russians, building DKW RT125's under the MZ Brand-Name.... and he set about experimenting with some of his 'ideas' to make one a bit faster, for racing, the Ruskies not letting him have the money to make a potentially more powerful four-stroke....
Now, remember I said, that the piston-ported 2T shouldn't work.... well, what Herr Kaaden did was, add a proper 'valve'.. to keep the charge in the crank-case when the piston fell... a simple one, it was a disc with hole in it; this did two things; first it meant that the two-stroke engine suddenly started squashing almost as much charge into it's cylinder as it sucked into it's crank-case; second, as a consequence, it launched the 'Hi-Po' two-stroke.... a 'breed' that has diverged in it's evolution, to be an almost distinctly unrelated type of engine, to the 'simple' piston ported affair that started it all; gaining ever more sophisticated and intricate mechanics, than can rival the number of moving parts in a simpler four-stroke engine, when you have added water-cooling, and exhaust-resonance 'power-valves' and 'stuff'; resulting in something that has little in common, with the 'simple' utiliterian two-stroke, by way of durability and reliability and ease of maintenance...
The Hi-Po 2T, 'tuned' for power, can be a fickle instrument, and demand a lot of expensive care and attension to keep it in good fettle... remember, power has a price, and one of the more significant, features of the two-stroke engine, is that it sucks it's charge through the crank-cases, where in a four-stroke engine, there would be a bath of oil, lubricating the crank and con-rod bearings.... in a two-stroke, there isn't, cos if there was, engine would be as want to squash that up into the cylinder and try setting it on fire as the charge... SO, you put oil into the petrol, or drip it into the crank case, so that each cycle it gets blown about the place, hopefully landing on some of the bearings and 'stuff' and doing something useful, before it gets sucked into the cylinder.
This then begs bearings that are tolerant of less reliable lubrication, and so 2T's use 'open roller' bearings; little metal ball-bearings between a couple of steel rings; the space between the balls gives the oil a chance to reach them, while the bearing design itself, hardened steel balls and rings, can support a fair amount of 'load' without too much friction.. BUT... to make a bearing that can support the high 'peak' loadings of a more powerful two-stroke engine, then they have to be bigger and heavier, and that tends to start working against them, both for the extra power you hope to get out the engine; heavier 'stuff' tends to be against making the engine work so fast, as well as reliability...
SO as they get more highly tuned, so the 2T's service intervals tend to get shorter.... The old MZ125, with it's paltry 64bhp-per-litre, is effectively sealed for life; keep sticking oil in the petrol, change the spark plug every thousand miles or so, and it'll probably crank up fifty sixty thousand mniles before it starts getting a bit clattery and may need a rebore.... something like a 300bhp-per-litre Honda RS125 'over the counter' Grand-Prix race bike, on the other hand, has service intervals measured in 'running hours', and not in their thousands! Pistons and piston rings have a service life you could probably use up in the hours of day-light in one day, if you weren't actually using the thing in twenty five minute 'sessions' of an actual race meet.
Aprillia RS125, is no GP bike, BUT, they took a 'production' road engine, and tuned the bollocks off it as far as they could, to get the 30or so bhp they did from the most powerful variants; 240bhp-per-litre.. its a 'near' top level race tuned engine, and consequently has 'near top level race' service intervals... I think the piston's ought to be replaced every 2000 Km, about every 1500 miles, or something like that.. that's just 30 hours riding time, between engine rebuilds  Ponder-point; that's 1800 minutes; 20 minutes a day, to and 20 minutes back from work/college, five days a week, that's 200 minutes.. JUST going to and from, on a relatively short commute, thing would 'beg' a rebuild every couple of months...
"Maintain" them, as the book says, giving them new pistons and cylinders and cranks when the book says... and should be perfectly reliable and you should never have to 'fix' one...... but still a lot of spanner-work, having to do a a top end rebuild every other-pay-day!
And as I alluded to before, this 'kind' of bike tends to attract the wrong kind of owners... who blinded by the 'looks' or the 'legend', refuse to face that reality.
I mean, I actually enjoy getting my spanners out; and my bikes are just for fun, I don't have to use them to get me to and from work every day.. I could happily 'live' with Engine rebuilds every 1500 miles... might even enjoy it! I'd only have to do it once a year, for the miles I do on any of my bikes, not once a month! And If I was waiting on bits, no-problem, take the car, or one of the other bikes..... BUT, this is NOT the sort of thing that is particularly 'convenient' if its your sole, every day means of transport..... which so many try and make the things!
Consequently, in the real world, they get bought by over-optimistic newbies, who HOPE they can afford them, who probably dont even know what a top-end rebuild entails, let alone how much it costs, or how to do it, or when... SHIT, plenty of new-riders struggle to know that the drive chain needs oiling and tensioning from time to time!
AND, they buy them 'cos they is fast, int-dey? And thats what they want to do with them. So IF they are going to spend any money on them, more likely to be on something they think will make the bike 'faster-still' like a stage seventy six pod filter and electric power-band, than something more useful, and far more likely to actually make it 'faster', like I dont know... a new £3 spark plug!
SO, as I mentioned before; they tend to get Thrashed, Trashed and Crashed, and ridden into the ground with dire standards of misguided 'maintenance'.
Oh-Kay... the four-stroke YZF-R125... suggestion is four-strokes is reliable and economical..... the 'sensible' choice.... if it was a YBR, probably not far wrong... Engineering in the YZF-R125, though it's more involved than it's 14.5bhp really requires; double-over-head cams, fuel injection, water cooling, all to offer about as much power as 'simple' air-cooled, carburated four-stroke single's did, thirty years ago.
Reason it has all that sophistication is to meet modern 'emmission' regulations, that have 'killed' the two-strokes who cant meet them. BUT, that sophistication, means more bits of metal, which means more screws and bolts to hold them all together, which means some-one has to spend more time doing up all them nuts and bolts and putting bits in place, which makes the engine more expensive to build.... consequently, to be able to make such an overly sophisticated engine, the design has been stridently 'Value engineered' to cost as little to make as it can, and last 'just' as long as it needs to... and STILL the bike its bolted into costs twice what simpler basic engineering does, in the show-room... Its not a bad, or inherently 'weak' engine; but it is built down to a price, and use, has shown they have a few 'issues'....
BUT, so do most bikes, and biggest one is usually the owners... who in the case of the R125, are of the same 'ilk' as buyers of Aprillia RS's... ONLY they have some false idea that. because 'four-stroke' it cant break.... and doesn't need maintenance.... so they pop up in work-shop, here, asking the same daft questions about pod-air-filters and Aprovic exhausts, rather than changing the oil and tensioning the drive chain....
Back to the top; its ALL a function of maintenence... and with £5K in your pocket, probably half of that accounted for by the stuff you need before you can even start looking for a bike, you will be looking at buying second hand, and of the models you want, the older, and rougher, or more thrashed, trashed and crashed examples that are out there.... this does NOT bode well, for buying a bike you wont have to 'fix' very often.
Same money as might get you a 2nd hand YZF-R125, would buy you a BAND NEW YBR125... with a warranty... that, hasn't been thrashed, trashed or crashed by any-one... and shouldn't need ANY fixing... almost EVER... provided you are a bit conscious of doing that 'maintenence'... which on such a bike isn't that onerouse, difficult or expensive...
and for probably half as much again, you could probably get a reasonably un-thrashed, trashed or crashed, second hand YBR, that some slightly maintenance conscious owner HAS more likely looked after, which still stabnds a good chance of not never needing to be 'fixed' if you carry on, paying attention to the maintenance it need; saving yourself a chunk of cash up front, and more when you sell on, the first owners having paid the big-hit of 'new-bike-depreciation'....
As said before; if you can afford it, its your money, to spend as you see fit; BUT, those 'sporty looks' are a VERY expensive vanity, on these bikes you 'want'... but if that's what you must have, so be it... fuck how often you will have to fix it, just accept you WILL...
If this is something that is actually important to you, DONT buy the problems you don't need, buying the 'posey' bike you know isn't the 'sensible' choice; buy the bike that IS.
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Current Bikes:'Honda VF1000F' ;'CB750F2N' ;'CB125TD ( 6 3 of em!)'; 'Montesa Cota 248'. Learner FAQ's:= 'U want to Ride a Motorbike! Where Do U start?' |
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| Posted: 08:34 - 22 Sep 2015 Post subject: |
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| Posted: 10:11 - 22 Sep 2015 Post subject: |
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| Johhhny wrote: | why should I spend money in 2 years time, when I can keep my 125cc master it and then it would be easily to learn on bigger (something like 500c) when I'm 21. |
If you want to get a full A license at 21, then you need to get A2 at 19.
Your A2 training and tests will (de facto) be on a 500+, possibly even a restricted (or "restricted") 600-650 bike.
If you don't get an A2 license then you'll need to be 24 to get full A. Life's too short for that.
On that matter, feel free to ignore Tef and his YBR obsession. It's like he's on a one-mong crusade to put people off biking. I'm not even saying that he's wrong, just that if you're being completely sensible, you wouldn't get any bike at all.
| Johhhny wrote: | does Aprilia RS 125 11kw really needs that much fixing |
I assume that you're talking about top end rebuilds. That's about every 10,000 miles. Buy one that's just had it done, sell it before it needs it again, job done.
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GONE: HN125-8, LF-250B, GPz 305, GPZ 500S, Burgman 400 // RIDING: F650GS (800 twin), Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 500 AVL, Ninja 250R because racebike |
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Nexus Icon
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| Posted: 13:32 - 22 Sep 2015 Post subject: |
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| Rogerborg wrote: | | Johhhny wrote: | why should I spend money in 2 years time, when I can keep my 125cc master it and then it would be easily to learn on bigger (something like 500c) when I'm 21. |
If you want to get a full A license at 21, then you need to get A2 at 19.
Your A2 training and tests will (de facto) be on a 500+, possibly even a restricted (or "restricted") 600-650 bike.
If you don't get an A2 license then you'll need to be 24 to get full A. Life's too short for that.
On that matter, feel free to ignore Tef and his YBR obsession. It's like he's on a one-mong crusade to put people off biking. I'm not even saying that he's wrong, just that if you're being completely sensible, you wouldn't get any bike at all.
| Johhhny wrote: | does Aprilia RS 125 11kw really needs that much fixing |
I assume that you're talking about top end rebuilds. That's about every 10,000 miles. Buy one that's just had it done, sell it before it needs it again, job done. |
Unless he's talking about the 4 stroke RS 125, which he probably is.
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| Posted: 15:00 - 22 Sep 2015 Post subject: |
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| Nexus Icon wrote: | Unless he's talking about the 4 stroke RS 125, which he probably is. |
That'd be the RS4 125, but sure, he might be.
I figured it was the 2-smoke because of the obsession with specifying 11kW. The RS4 125 appears to be 11kW native, there's no red powerband factory option.
https://uk.aprilia.com/mediaObject/aprilia/models/moto/road/RS4-125/tech-specs/RS4-125_UK/original/UK_RS4-125.pdf
Not to say that plenty of riders won't fit one in an attempt to wring more out of it. In fact, I'm certain that they will. Maybe that's what he means by "fixing" it. 
____________________
Biking is 1/20th as dangerous as horse riding.
GONE: HN125-8, LF-250B, GPz 305, GPZ 500S, Burgman 400 // RIDING: F650GS (800 twin), Royal Enfield Bullet Electra 500 AVL, Ninja 250R because racebike |
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Val
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| Posted: 02:44 - 23 Sep 2015 Post subject: Re: Motorbike decision :)? |
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| Johhhny wrote: |
I found 2 bikes which people say that are good:
-Yamaha YZF-R125
-Aprilia RS4 125 11kw
Now I really want to get fast accelerating (fast) and looking bike (which I know its impossible for 125cc but still) which I can ride around the city, and to the school.
My question is what do you think about these two bikes, and which one is better... or maybe you guys know any other ones which are also great!.
Thanks in advance |
Assuming you are asking about RS4, forget about two strokes unless your father is mechanic.
Here how I rate them based on how fast they are (the difference is really tiny here but still, and the difference is because of the each bike weight because all of them are 15hp so the lighter ones go little faster, we are talking about 2-5 mph difference here) and how good looking are to my taste:
1. Aprilia RS4 125 - it weights 120kg
2. KTM 125 Duke - it weights 127kg
3. YZF R125 - it weights 140kg
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