Rise of the mighty 125 (Motorcycles)

What's Hot
2»

Comments

  • TheBigDipperTheBigDipper Frets: 4722

    zepp76 said:
    Stink wheels! Got to love ‘em, got to hate ‘em. 

    Sadly the golden days of Schwantz and Rainey are long gone.
    I love 2-strokes. My last one was in the '70s. A KH400 Kawasaki triple. I recently bought a new bike and was so tempted to keep the old one and buy a £10K 1977 mint KH400 as a summer runabout. Still not sure I did the right thing.
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • zepp76zepp76 Frets: 2534

    zepp76 said:
    Stink wheels! Got to love ‘em, got to hate ‘em. 

    Sadly the golden days of Schwantz and Rainey are long gone.
    I love 2-strokes. My last one was in the '70s. A KH400 Kawasaki triple. I recently bought a new bike and was so tempted to keep the old one and buy a £10K 1977 mint KH400 as a summer runabout. Still not sure I did the right thing.
    Lovely bikes, there’s a chap who comes to my regular pub (when it was open  :/) that collects them. He had a green one and a purple one he’d regularly turn up on.
    Tomorrow will be a good day.
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • monkey42monkey42 Frets: 336
    Yep, once had a RD 125LC (I believe Freddie Spencer model) in a green finish. Great bike, back in the day
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • KittyfriskKittyfrisk Frets: 18389
    zepp76 said:

    zepp76 said:
    Stink wheels! Got to love ‘em, got to hate ‘em. 

    Sadly the golden days of Schwantz and Rainey are long gone.
    I love 2-strokes. My last one was in the '70s. A KH400 Kawasaki triple. I recently bought a new bike and was so tempted to keep the old one and buy a £10K 1977 mint KH400 as a summer runabout. Still not sure I did the right thing.
    Lovely bikes, there’s a chap who comes to my regular pub (when it was open  :/) that collects them. He had a green one and a purple one he’d regularly turn up on.
    These are so wrong, but so bloody right... https://www.bikebound.com/2017/07/11/kawasaki-kh500-millyard-special/
    0reaction image LOL 1reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • AK99AK99 Frets: 1563
    edited March 2021
    I often wondered what you would actually do with something like a one-off 5 cylinder Millyard Kwack. And there was the answer staring me in the face the whole time..




    Drag race it in a hayfield. With your open face lid and best T-shirt of course. What else


    2reaction image LOL 1reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • zepp76zepp76 Frets: 2534
    zepp76 said:

    zepp76 said:
    Stink wheels! Got to love ‘em, got to hate ‘em. 

    Sadly the golden days of Schwantz and Rainey are long gone.
    I love 2-strokes. My last one was in the '70s. A KH400 Kawasaki triple. I recently bought a new bike and was so tempted to keep the old one and buy a £10K 1977 mint KH400 as a summer runabout. Still not sure I did the right thing.
    Lovely bikes, there’s a chap who comes to my regular pub (when it was open  :/) that collects them. He had a green one and a purple one he’d regularly turn up on.
    These are so wrong, but so bloody right... https://www.bikebound.com/2017/07/11/kawasaki-kh500-millyard-special/
    I love Millyards work, I want the Z2300 V-12!
    Tomorrow will be a good day.
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • boogiemanboogieman Frets: 12315
    AK99 said:
    Jimbro66 said:
    As a young Post Office messenger boy my dad had a 125 -   a BSA Bantam. He claimed he sometimes overtook cyclists.
    Not a 125, but one of the lads I went to college with from the North of England - Yonky (Yonkie?) had a little 175 Bantam that he'd used for 'a spin' to Greece and back. Seized on him in Athens after a midday climb in heat up the hill to the Acropolis - fully laden.  Jz that must have been a hassle I said - "Nah, Booger it I sed to misel'. Sat down and 'ad a bru..then pulled the 'ed off and gorrit sorted".

    The same chap had a mint - and I really mean mint - BSA A65 sitting in his student bedroom that he'd been working on for most of the final year. Lovely guy, always wondered what became of him.
    My first bike was a 175 Bantam. I desperately wanted a Honda but my dad refused to buy “Japanese junk” because of “what they’d done to our brave British boys during the war”. (Although it didn’t  stop him buying a Jap stereo system for himself). The Bantam was awful, basically because it was a 25 year old design that had been barely tweaked over the years, the 175 model I had churned out a mighty 12HP. My schoolmate had a Suzuki Super Six that pissed all over the BSA in every department and also looked supercool in the process. 
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 1reaction image Wisdom
  • p90foolp90fool Frets: 31369
    Speaking of 125cc motorcycles, I wonder when it'll be legal to have a CBT again. 

    One of the guys I work with has been using a moped to get to work for a couple of years but has effectively been banned from driving because the government have refused to extend existing CBTs. 
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 1reaction image Wisdom
  • HattigolHattigol Frets: 8176
    Kawasaki is also officially the best word that can be said in a Geordie accent.
    "Anybody can play. The note is only 20%. The attitude of the motherf*cker who plays it is  80%" - Miles Davis
    2reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • Danny1969Danny1969 Frets: 10357
    I started out on a GP100, then got a KH125. A friend had a Honda XL125 which was a bit gutless but we beefed that up by putting the top end of an XL185 onto the 125 crankcase. We loved the bikes and spent all our time and money on them. When I was 21 I got the original Yam RD250, the air cooled one which was a monster step up from a KH125. A bad accident on that was the end of by biking days. We had fitted bigger jets and a KN filter and were testing the performance. I was pillion because my leg was broke and in a cast due to an accident in the building trade. We went round a hairpin bend in the city too fast and lost it. We were lucky to hobble  away form that with relatively minor injuries despite the speed and being a father by then I thought that's enough .... or to be honest my wife said no more bikes and other than a brief blat up the road on an FZ750 I haven't ridden a bike since. 
    Still miss it to be honest, I'm not a fan of driving cars no matter what car it is. I've often thought about  getting a trial bike and going somewhere quiet for a ride now and then 
    www.2020studios.co.uk 
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
  • TheBigDipperTheBigDipper Frets: 4722
    p90fool said:
    Speaking of 125cc motorcycles, I wonder when it'll be legal to have a CBT again. 

    One of the guys I work with has been using a moped to get to work for a couple of years but has effectively been banned from driving because the government have refused to extend existing CBTs. 
    At the risk of morphing the thread, does he wish he'd taken an A1 test now? 

    As we both know well, the CBT was not originally intended to be the equivalent of a riding MOT every two years, but a stepping stone to being able to practice on a 125cc for 2 years to pass a test and get a motorcycle licence. Which is why, in its early years, not passing a test during the first two years resulted in a one year motorcycle ban. I didn't start doing learner training until after the authorities had dropped that and permitted repeat CBTs every two years, so I wasn't paying attention to their reasoning. 

    Can you shed any light on it? 
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 1reaction image Wisdom
  • p90foolp90fool Frets: 31369
    @TheBigDipper his CBT only ran out a few weeks ago, so he only had one year to pass his test rather than the usual two, as training effectively ended last March. 

    He's now stuck, as he can't renew his CBT OR take his test, so a competent everyday rider has basically been banned, and is struggling to get to work. 

    Car sharing is illegal and there's no public transport for his shifts.
    He also has to park on the street so he has to keep paying his insurance.

    It seems a bit harsh to me to ban people who have already hit the standard required for that vehicle, especially as they didn't hesitate to extend MOTs by six months last year.

    Successive governments have never seen motorcycles as anything other than a hobby though, to them it's no different to being banned from using a jetski. 
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 1reaction image Wisdom
  • TheBigDipperTheBigDipper Frets: 4722
    p90fool said:
    @TheBigDipper his CBT only ran out a few weeks ago, so he only had one year to pass his test rather than the usual two, as training effectively ended last March. 

    He's now stuck, as he can't renew his CBT OR take his test, so a competent everyday rider has basically been banned, and is struggling to get to work. 

    Car sharing is illegal and there's no public transport for his shifts.
    He also has to park on the street so he has to keep paying his insurance.

    It seems a bit harsh to me to ban people who have already hit the standard required for that vehicle, especially as they didn't hesitate to extend MOTs by six months last year.

    Successive governments have never seen motorcycles as anything other than a hobby though, to them it's no different to being banned from using a jetski. 
    @p90fool  I'm not critical of the people working within the CBT rules and permanently re-CBTing. It's not them wot makes the rules. But I am (like you) a bit critical of not extending CBTs or Theory Test passes. The reason for not extending CBTs totally escapes me. The reason for not extending Theory Test passes (bikes and cars) is being promoted as one of road safety. I don't buy that, either.

    More likely the DVSA don't want to be rammed with too many people doing their practical test this summer and see they can slow demand down by hiding behind the need for candidates to get another Theory Test pass first. And it's extra revenue for the Pearsons of this world.

    For those who don't know, the the DVSA Theory Test process is run by an outsourced company. There will be several months worth of people who would have passed their Practical test before needing another Theory Test and now they won't be able to, so now will be paying for tests they would not have needed. 
    0reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 1reaction image Wisdom
  • AK99AK99 Frets: 1563
    edited March 2021
    Danny1969 said:
     When I was 21 I got the original Yam RD250, the air cooled one which was a monster step up from a KH125. A bad accident on that was the end of by biking days. We had fitted bigger jets and a KN filter and were testing the performance. I was pillion because my leg was broke and in a cast due to an accident in the building trade. 
    My first 'real' bike was one one of the square tanked air-cooled 250s - in silver and black. Early set of cast wheels and all.
    Your first bike is the one you do most falling off on (or from should that be?). I remember at least 3 offs. The first turning out of our house onto the Main Street one morning and giving it the beans for a crowd of school kids standing at at a bus-stop. Cold tyres, lovely pirouette and landed on my @rse in front of the impressed throng.

    Another one involved some diesel on another roundabout, and the biggest one was - yet another roundabout - where the line taken by me was somewhat at odds with the one designed and built by the relevant Roads and Highways Engineer.

    Clown :)


    2reaction image LOL 0reaction image Wow! 0reaction image Wisdom
Sign In or Register to comment.