My name is Grant, and as Jay believes, I’m a sick and twisted person. There is nothing the doctors can do. I have been lucky enough to ride most of the 1000cc sports bikes of the last few years thanks to many friends and for some reason their trust in me. Some times sneaking in from a track day session and nicking there bike's when there not looking!
Today is Sunday 5th of June, the girlfriend has gone to spend money on many bags of shopping and I’m left to please myself, so down came my trousers and I warmed up my right hand, 30seconds later I’m in the garage wheeling out one of the best selling bikes of 2004, it's been in my garage for a couple of weeks now and I’ve been unable to get to it, the problem being its my girlfriend, Katie’s. I’ve been gagging to race it down the A40 and now she’s gone I just cant resist. The bike in question is a Honda cbr125.
It's a nice day just a bit windy, but out comes my helmet, gloves, trousers and jacket because when I last rode 125s I spent a lot of time on the floor and asking my dad what happened, while going home in a van! Looking over this bike to size up what I had there’s an electric start so no tears in my calf when you slip off the kick start, manual choke, two good sized mirrors which probably take 5mph off the top speed, single disk brake front and rear, European style head lights which stay on all the time, and all the dials are placed and sized easy to see with fuel, revs, speed and temp. All the controls are where you expect to find the on larger bikes.
So let’s get this test underway, pull out the choke and thumb the starter, being a four stroke its good to let it warm up before going out. On I jump, the bike weighs nowt and feels like a pencil, you have to remember this is a 125 for beginners and when you take that into account this is perfect, it doesn’t over whelm, Katie had an R6 before which she loved but was always worried it would get away from her, where as with the cbr she just got on and was Rossi’ing down the road within 10 minutes. Every control on this bike is light and easy to use clutch, throttle, gear box it all works and works well. A little bit of weaving shows me that this thing changes direction like a fly and this should help learners get out of trouble if traffic suddenly stops or pulls out in front of them trouble or as I once found out the way of bags of Sainsbury’s shopping on my favourite bit of road.
Ok it’s onto the A40 for this little racer, down the slip road first, second, third, 60mph, forth, things are getting blurry, fifth, luckily a car was in front so i was able to pick up a slip stream and put a reading of 85mph on the clock. I was flat on the tank using all my wind cheating knowledge to go faster, but 85 seemed to be it. 15 minutes later and one junction on I tried some traffic riding. I think this is were this bike is happiest, it moves around the traffic with ease, filtering through standing traffic is a doodle getting through the smallest gaps, the only time it proved a bit difficult was moving traffic, its a good idea to take a calendar with you to plan when your going to overtake and once you have it planned stick to it, even if it means closing your eyes and praying for a second.
I think this bike is ideal for beginners and I could not think of a better way to commute if you work locally or just want to pop out, its a bike for all, man, woman or child.
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