Motorcycle review: Suzuki TS125

Motorcycle Review: Suzuki TS125

In late 2004 there was Trail Motorcycles Fever around Bintaro, then I also bought one Suzuki TS125 through Indomobil promotion, so I can paid the bike by credit 12x payment term. And suddenly I went home riding the new bike. Its surprised my wife, and she started asking: "who gonna rides this bike?, what this bike for?? Frankly speaking, I never ride a bike for quite a long time (10 - 8 years ago), and previously I always ride a bigger bike, at least 500 cc (yamaha xs 650, kawasaki ltd 550, honda cx 500), I have one small bikes (we called "bebek" in Indonesia) 125 cc Honda Supra V, but most of the time this bike rides by my maid or drivers. This is a brief specification of the Suzuki TS 125 trail bike:

engine 125cc, two strokes
power approximately 13 hp
rear tire size 100/90 R18
front tire size 80/90 R21
both tires are a moderate off road tire type (poor grip in black road)
rear and front breaks: drum type

Week after, I started to ride this TS bike, after couple cycles around my house I feel this bike is to small for my 84kg body. The engine power was not impressive, look like under powered. By the way, my 5 years old daughter was very happy if I brought her with this bike. After that the bike just stay in my garage, I run the engine on around twice a month for several minutes. And, the two strokes engine produced so much smoke. If I bring somebody with me, the rear wheel will hit the fender easily due to soft shock absorber.

More than a year the TS bike sitting on my garage with no more than 250 km in odo, I started to do some modification. I'll tried to follow the "SuperMoto" style because in practice this bike almost never go to dirty road. I'll also want to add the height of the bike around 6 cm. The supermoto style will use street tires or mix 50% street - 50% dirty road tires. Both wheel in the same diameter, in this case I used 18" wheel instead of 17". I moved the original rear wheel to be front wheel, and for the rear itself, I picked-up a Honda Tiger rear wheel. The list of TS modification are listed below:

1. Maximum rear tire is 120/90 18, if I used wider tire, it will hit the original TS swing arm.
2. Front tire is110/90 18
3. Replace the front shock with the bigger one coming from Suzuki Thunder 250. This new shock coming with disk break. I also made a wider upper part (Segitiga & comstir) to accommodate wider front tire.
4. Add 5 cm additional tube for front shock
5. Add 4 cm additional height for the rear mono shock.
6. Installed Acerbis hand guard
7. Installed Acerbis rear and frond fender.
8. Changed the original fuel tank with Hyosung RX125 tank including the its plastic cover.
9. Saddle modification and trimming following the bike contour.
10. Changed the head lamp with smaller size and installed Acerbis headlamp cover.
11. Painting worked, all black color.

After three weeks the skinny tiny suzuki TS become a SUPERMOTO. In body work point of view, I'm quite happy. Then I used this bike for a while, several notes were made as below:

1. Although the bike is taller, but the handling and riding position is still the same. I'm not touched the frame.
2. With wider tire and heavier shock, the engine power become worst, the top speed only reach 85km/hour with heavy engine vibration.
3. So tall ....., its not easy to do a kick starter (this bike have no electric starter), however there is no problem occurred when the bike already rolling.
4. Poor saddle modification, become uncomfortable for long rides.
5. Needs additional modification especially for increase engine performance like change the original exhaust with better one, used a larger piston, wearing better gear ratio and install a racing tune-up equipment.

At the end, after stage 1 modification this TS bike back to my garage for months almost a year. I've never used it. And at mid 2006, I sold the bike for Rp 12.5M with 600km in odo, however I the cost to get this bike plus modification is exceed 20M. It's ok, otherwise the rats will start making a new house in it. For the future I'll looking for another trail by with minimum 250cc engine and four strokes.