Riding 125cc bikes

[floberts]

I will start by saying that I have only ever ridden a 125 once, a 1993 CR125.

A mate had bought it from a shop under the impression that it was a 250 (he didn't know a lot about bikes and once he found out he took it back and bought a brand new KTM250SX).

I rode for about ten minutes and loved the way it handled but felt bad for having to rev the shit out of it to get it up and going. My bike at the time was a 1990 RM250.

I guess a lot of people on this forum have restored and still ride a 125 because they rode them when they were growing up or when progressing through the grades of racing.

Now I am a bit older and heavier (100kg and 6'2")  would a 125 be "not enough bike for me"?

I find when I am looking at bikes for sale I always look at the 250s and overlook the 125s.

I dont mean to offend any 125 owners out there and I am well aware that a 125 can be quicker in the right hands. I am just interested to find out what draws people to them and if I should broaden my horizons and think about owning one myself.

[Graeme M]

Hmmm... 100kg may be too much for a 125, they don't have a lot of outright power. I weigh 78kg which I think is OK but still a bit on the heavy side for one.

I always rode 250s when I rode and raced way back when, but then when I got into VMX I rode open classers. But I soon realised two things. I have no finesse and prefer to ride wide open, which is not so good on a 250 or 500 cos then I go way faster than my (lack of) talent can cope with. 125s are perfect for that - I rev the ring out of the bike, I feel like I am flying, but I am going slow enough that I don't get into too much trouble. And secondly, they are lighter and easier to manhandle, which is also attractive to me cos the easier it is to manage the less rooted I get after a ride.

It's for all of those reasons I am thinking of getting rid of the 125 modern MXer and getting a 250F.

So for me, for racing vintage, I have decided the 125 is the go. But for just tooling around, I still think a 250 or 500 is a better proposition.

[Nathan S]

I'd agree with all of that.

As a VMX race bike, I really don't ever find a 125 boring/inadequate - while they sometimes lack the 'tear yer arms out' thrill of a bigger bike, they're still plenty fast enough for a rider of my skill level and they present their own set of challenges/rewards to the rider.
From a fitness point of view, late in a race day I find that I'm still riding the 125 properly (and am relatively fast and safe and having fun), whereas when I'm on the bigger bikes I'm either flapping off the back/ragged, or I'm just dawdling around waiting for the end of the race.

Even when racing against 250s and open class bikes, the bike's capacity/power output isn't really an issue - ridden properly, the 125 is a match for riders of similar ability.

As an aside: I remember in the mid-90s, several magazines demonstrated the most riders were faster on 125s than 250s, even though most thought they were faster on the larger bikes. Nowdays, you can see there are plenty of guys out there on newish 450Fs who'd be heaps quicker on a 250F or even a 125 - and yet they all claim that they 'need' a 450?!

Oh, an I'm 6'0" and ~90kgs, FWIW.

[ba-02-xr]

Graeme I just sent you a PM. Let me know what you think.

[DR]

yup, I jumped from my rm80 to the rm400 when I was 15 and never looked back until 2007 when I had my very first ride on a 125mx'er at the Coffs Nats. What an absolute ball to ride and as Graeme said, the 125's don't knock the stuffing out of you like the big bores and you get off feeling pretty damn good even after a day of riding it flat out. Something that took some time for me to get used to was not having any roll on or bottom end and I'd find myself doing a quick 2 step on the gear lever while I fanned the clutch like mad. I now have 4 125's but I'll always have a big bore ready to go when the need arises. In a word the 125's are FUN

[dave]

125's certainly are fun. I remember my first ever 125 mx ride in 1978. I'd been riding a DT125e and a RM80b and my uncle gave me a ride on his RM125a, which was running on methanol with a 38mm Mikuni (tuned at Competition Development in Ryde), Fox Airshox and wow did the power band make it feel like it was trying to rip my hands off the grips (I was in love)! I can still remember talking my father into having a go on the RM after we bought it. He took off, it bogged down and he looked at me with a screwed up face thinking "this is a slug". I yelled out to him "pull the clutch in dad and give it so revs!". Moments later dad was on the back wheel, wheeling across the paddock and freaking out. Of course, he gingerly returned the bike back to me then someone else decided a few months later that they like it better than me and stole it out of the shed. Since that first ground tearing moment I've loved 2 stroke motocrossers. However, I was only about 7 stone and had to get on the 125 using a milk crate and if your 100kg  . Even today at 12 stone (75kgs) a 125 still amazes me but any heavier I'd be going for a 250. Just keep'em reving.

[Lozza]

The real difference is that a 125 demands you ride it 100% for 100% of the race, no slacking off, no sloppy riding. Any tiny mistake will be punished with a loss of momentum, big thing is learning not to brake too much and getting the gearing right. As hard a work as they are the rewards are just as great.Will make a better rider of you.
Your never too heavy as you just press the tyre knobs into the dirt better

[Nathan S]

The real difference is that a 125 demands you ride it 100% for 100% of the race, no slacking off, no sloppy riding. Any tiny mistake will be punished with a loss of momentum, ....

To go fast, it demands 100% - and laziness is punished with slow lap times.
But the flip side is that laziness/tiredness on a big bike is more likely to spit you off.

I prefer slow over crashed.

Should also mention the number of HEAVEN guys that have always considered themselves to be 250/big bore riders - a bunch of them got 125s and (re)discovered how much fun racing a 125 is...
IIRC, Magoo was something like seven seconds/lap faster on the borrowed 125 at last year's nationals, than he was on his own 250 - he couldn't believe it, but from the sidelines he was visibly faster on the 125.

[BAHNZY]

107 kg & 6'2" and a bit. My modern bike is a late model RM125 and my Viper bike for 2010 is a 84 RM125 and they are a hoot to ride. There is no doubt that I will be faster on the 125 than the bigger bikes, it just doesn't feel like it. When you get off a 125 it actually feels like you have been riding as they demand so much from the rider. Bring on the 125's I say.

[jimg1au]

i have a yz125 x i am going to ride dirttrack this year i am a bit bigger than you but i dont care it all about having fun some one has to come last we all cant come 1st
cheers
jim

[floberts]

Thanks for all the constructive replies. It sounds like I should find a place for a 125 in my shed one day. That one ride I had was really fun and if it was my own bike I would have felt a lot better about revving the hell out of it.

I should also lose about 20kgs!

[vandy010]

i've seen 100kg 6ft tall guys go quick on 125's and i'm buggered if i know how they do it but they do.
i'd agree with the 100% thing.
line choice is critical as even the smallest patch of mud can see you slow and 2 guys go past you.
every inch counts.
they're a heap of "FUN"
even if it's sometimes in slow motion

[shortshifter]

I came to MX only about 4yrs ago and decided the way to go was to learn on a 125 so I bought and built up  2 Yamahas and a Kawasaki for separate year divisions.I now own 2 250s and an open bike and no 125s,but regret the decision to sell them and am seriously thinking of getting another one,for all the reasons previously stated.I am 85 kgs and reckon I never rode the 125s as quick as they were capable of.

[090]

I'm 94 fat kg's and love my 125's.

[Davey Crocket]

I'm 92 fat kg's, 6 ft and I too love riding 125's, the thing is you have to ride them pinned all the time and when there's an all in race quite often you can beat most of the bigger bikes. Best fun out of all the bikes in my opinion.