Cycleguide 1975
This is a test that really highlights the pre 75 class with the new breed of mx bikes and a new era then follows. I rode my first real mx season on a 1975 RM125S and it was coool – big sand woops no longer held any fear, full throttle and just hit em hard!!! The RM125 tested here is the US version RM125M, the faster RM125S came to Australia
For Suzuki, the RM 125 is a giant leap forward. At long last, some of the racing technology that helped Roger DeCoster and Joel Robert garner a fistful of World Championships has found its way to the production line. But Suzuki’s ultra-conservatism, a trait that has characterized most of their motorcycles for some time, prevented them from winning this comparison. The stock RM 125 finished second solely because it didn’t have enough power to keep up with the YZ. But Suzuki is offering a factory kit for the RM, a $200 bolt-on affair consisting of a different pipe, a 30mm carburetor, a cylinder with more radical porting, and a piston with a higher intake cutaway. They put a kit on an RM and allowed us to try it during the comparison. Our conclusion: The RM would have won the test if the kit had been standard equipment. The trick parts make the Suzuki just about as fast as the YZ, and with its slight handling edge, would have made it The Japanese 125 motocrosser. It’s nice to know the kit is available, but it’s also hard to understand why they didn’t build it like that in the first place. The kit doesn’t make the RM any harder to ride, and adds about 10 or IS percent on the top end and mid range without taking much away from the bottom end. If you buy an RM, get the kit. It’s worth the money.
