Hi
I’m looking for a bike that meets the following specs
125cc
cheap second hand
reliable over long periods
handles speed bumps and pot holes well
good for long distances
Personally I’d say Honda SH125i
It’s a scooter with its practical under-seat storage.
Larger wheel base than a typical scooter which is better for pot holes.
Automatic transmission for all the start & stop London traffic.
It’s a Honda!
I don’t know about the 2nd hand prices though.
NOTE: I’ve never actually owned one
All the Honda 125s, whether CG (geared) Innova (semi-auto) SH, PS, or Dylan are all very good for urban riding. You only need to look at how many couriers are on all of them.
If you decide you need scooter;
I’m selling my silver Honda SH 125i 2006 on 55 plate.
Good condition £1000 o.n.o.
MOT for 12 months, new tyres.
I will chip in as I have been riding a CG125 since before I did my test… so I hopped onto my CG some 3 years ago I think, passed my test on it and have been using it as my main ride since. For a while I favoured it over my BMW F650CS as it was a fair bit more nimble in tight traffic. My riding style and skills in traffic have since changed and although my needs therefore are changing slightly, I can say that the CG125 has been very reliable in all the time I’ve owned it. I still prefer the CG for city-riding over the BMW (although I also don’t ride the BMW any more anyways. thus I kept the CG.)
I would consider the type of traffic you are riding in. I ride mostly in Central, and in the West out as far as Heathrow and S.W. out as far as Walton-on-Thames/Sunbury, and anywhere in between this area, as well as the country. Others have suggested a scooter and I’d pretty much agree unless you favour gears for some reason. I have no big-bike riding experience but for some reason, gut instinct tells me I’d rather be on a geared bike out in the country rather than a scooter.
Regular runs in and around Central can take their toll on my CG, the gears sometimes seem funny and/or the chain. Am finding I need to adjust the chain quite often. If you’ve got a preference for gears though, I don’t see why not, I’ve stuck for sentimental reasons, cost reasons (cheap enough to maintain) and because I like gears.
The PS, SH, Dylan and Innova seem popular in London, you see a few Lead 110’s too. I see quite a few of the newer (2004 or newer) CG’s around in London too, I have a 2002 model and don’t see mine or it’s variants as much.
Filtering on the CG is good enough, I actually have a pair of mismatched aftermarket mirrors so I can zip right through traffic. Stock mirrors might stick out a bit more, but I didn’t have stock’s on it when I got it so can’t confirm. The CG isn’t too bad once you come up to the lights although I find myself giving it a bit of welly where drivers are more aggressive (central mainly, less so outside of central). The CG is very nimble and you can switch lanes in a 3-lane road packed solid with non moving traffic, which is no doubt harder on bigger bikes. The CG is pretty thin too, so this helps. If you carry a pillion and filter, it’s a fair bit more difficult, but riding alone the CG is pretty good. You may want to look for the 2004 CG125ES4 model or the 2007 CG125ES7 model (theyre never called that but those are actual model numbers) and you have a disc brake for the front (rear is still drum) so that will help ya when you stop in dodgy traffic.
Potholes - the CG seems to be fine, obviously you’d want to avoid potholes. It can feel a little wobbly on gravel by sides of roads, though this happens with every bike, the CG does have rather thin tyres, and the SH as mentioned has wider tyres, so this may be important to you. Hasn’t stopped me going over potholes though. You want to be careful filtering in the middle of the road where two sections of asphalt/tarmac have been laid down separately and you are effectively riding on the “seam” between the two, gravel aside, you can feel wobbly here. Not sure how a bike with wider tyres (such as the SH or even, a sportsbike) fares on this “seam”. London has some nasty potholes and drains which have sunk, and these seem to be fine on the CG, though obviously try and avoid anyway!! 
Pillions - Not an issue outside of central. Find it a bit hard accelerating away from a bunch of aggressive drivers and filtering, but isn’t too bad. Up a hill is hard. Nice way to enjoy the country at the slower pace though! May want to get a rack+topbox to stop any folk unfamiliar with motorbikes from falling off.
Luggage - Luggage is obviously going to be lighter and better distributed weight-wise on the bike than a pillion is. Would recommend a rack other than the Givi one and then attach a Givi bottom place with whatever box you want to use. Don’t know what brand mine is, or if it’s OEM Honda or aftermarket, but its not bad. I have a Givi E450 with the bottom plate and the instructions say max 3kg but have put a good 12kg in there I think at times. A cargo net is useful either over the rear seat or on a rack. A tankbag works well with the front, I have a cheap B-squared one.
Petrol - The CG sips petrol, and has a published mpg of 110mpg. Depends with your actual riding obviously, but its REALLY cheap to run and fill. A tank’s worth is about £11 at the moment and hard to say how far it gets you, I’m going to -guess- 75 miles roughly give or take 15miles in London riding, that’s 15-45mph. You can get from west London to Bristol (100 miles?) on 1 tank though, going around 40-60mph.
Windscreen - bloody hard to find one, Givi have some universal ones and maybe one from a cub might fit with some modification, but either way it’s not cheap. If you get a CG with a round headlight this should be easier to find a universal windscreen.
My CG does a top speed of around 55-61mph.
Cost - You can get a CG for a fairly cheap price these days, don’t have a price to hand though. Shop around.
Maintenance wise, I don’t think I’ve had anything which has gone “clunk!” or “bang!” yet :w00t: . The following need adjusting from time to time, especially if you’re carrying a pillion and filtering hard i.e. lots of clutch/1st gear.: Chain, brake adjustment, engine oil. It’s not a big deal, all very easy to do, I do it all myself, keeps the costs down. eBay is a good place for parts, but please buy from proper breakers or businesses on there please rather than encourage bike theft and those who strip and part out bikes. There’s a lot of non-OEM replacement parts too as it’s a popular model, e.g. wemoto.com and eBay again. I have been ordering Genuine parts for it recently, some aren’t too expensive, so makes sense to replace a rusty screw if you have one, but some can be more expensive (goes with any model or brand really!)
And you say you do long distances? I have ridden Bristol-London and vice versa many times on the CG both on the country roads and bits of motorway, and have put in at least 12k miles on it since I got it, and it can hack it no problem. I obviously would recommend a break to give it time to cool if you do this kind of long journeys. Have also ridden it to Swansea twice and Bournemouth. I generally do rides of 3 hours at longest, I don’t like doing them this long as I don’t want to push the bike too much, but I’d recommend doing 2 hours straight at most and breaking (20 mins is fine), the engine does get hot after such a ride. 2h30 is fine too. But any more and I don’t know how the engine fares, but I’d rather not push my luck! I’m not sure if you’d need to ride more than 3 hours straight within London anyways. Unless you’re a courier.
Tried and tested - would I recommend the CG125? YES …if it’s suitable for you !!! :hehe:
…by “suitable” I mean the road condition/driving style.
:w00t:
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thanks for the replies, especially junglitz for the details.
my preference is towards a geared bike as I’d like to move onto bigger bikes in the future.
how does the honda cbr125 compare to the honda cg125?
Afraid I don’t know anything about the CBR125.
Although I know that the CB F 125 is made in India though. I’ve looked at one close that was parked up in Newbury and build seems good, one or two improvements since the CG, such as an indicator as to when to replace the chain on the bars that hold the rear wheel. More expensive bikes probably have this, but as a budget biker, any improvements are improvements to me! 
The CBF seems to have some parts that are similar to newer CG’s as well. It also has a mini windscreen, which I imagine is good for staying streamline at speed. It has a more sporty look. I don’t know how this compares to the CBR though. Unlike my CG, the CBF came with some good name brand tyres (I forget what brand though,… Pirelli??)
The indicators I saw on it, assuming those were stock, look pretty damn good, not slimline types (I personally dislike reducing visibility) but rather, clear lens. Definitely a 125 I’d like to own if I didn’t own one already.
It also seemed to have a halogen headlight. Don’t know what kind, as some kinds are brighter than others. I think the newer CG’s have a halogen headlight too but am not sure.
CBF is meant to replace the CG due to emissions requirements, i.e. Euro 3.
I had a Cityfly CLR125.
Could carry lots of luggage
Could take potholes
And took just over 8200 miles of beatings in just under 40 days
They’re hard to find though.
Hi KTMartin,
I remember flicking on your website way back when looking for inspiration for rides, and that’s quite some trek to do the Mongol Rally. And great pics too! Would love to do a long trip on a small bike myself (maybe my trusty CG? :hehe: ) at some point.
Just curious, why did you choose the Cityfly for the trip, since it is a fairly unusual bike and all, would have thought parts would be a bit hard to source?
I have a CBF125 and I can seriously vouch for it.
You can get some good 2nd hand deals and they all still have Honda warranty on them.
Whats fuel economy like with one of them? is it a sit-up position, or more sportsbike-sorta position?
I chose the CLR125 as it had
- the XLR125 engine; the most bulletproof of bulletproof honda engines
- slightly taller suspension
- rock guard; i laugh looking back as it was plastic
- raised exhaust for crossing water
- wasn’t a dirt bike because that would be cheating.
Fuel economy is a strong point as well as the tank size. It has a claimed 130mpg.
I’m not sure what I’m getting out of mine but the trip meter is reading 200miles (city traffic) from a £11 fill up.
That’s from London to Leeds on a single tank.
It is a sit up
honda dylan 125’s rock for london riding, infact all scoots do, it gets bit tiring and boring going up and down teh gears on a 125 in london, plus on a scoot you can brake seriously late and get away with it! the dylans have big wheels and handle well for a scoot, alot of couriers use them too, that says alot!
What a great reply!
It’s this sort of thing that helped to get me started on LB and biking.
Well done Junglizt1210 !
My first ride was Yamaha Majesty YP125 (scooter), but I quickly changed to a manual 125 (XL125V Varadero) which was a decent preparation for a larger, geared, bike. It depends how you intend to ride in the future - after a while on the scoot, I realised that I wanted to switch to bigger bikes later, if you won’t want to, it might make sense to stick with a scoot.
I’m about to pick up my Vespa which has been in the workshop. Molto divertente!
Good luck with the decision trouble002.
i had a honda sh 125 04 model and with 36000 miles on the clock it was still doing 70 mph on the a12 to work everyday. great little work horse, would recommend to any1 
With reference to previous posts:- I get 200miles from a £12 fill-up on my 250cc maxi scooter, and that’s on a 27mile each way commute into central London. A 125 doing that on mileage on £11 isn’t especially impressive, then
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do you really want to phaff around with gears and clutch in high density traffic? Really?
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With a scoot you can also put either or both feet down on the floor when the road camber might make things a little tricky for someone who needs their left foot for that pointless gear changing stuff.
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my scoot has linked, power-assisted ABS. So Left Hand = Stop, Right Hand = Go. No messing about, leaves me free to concentrate on who’s trying to kill me. Emergency braking just means I can put maximum effort onto the left lever and the scoot works out the rest.
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my scoot also comes with a bleedin’ great ABUS chain as standard that locks from inside the scooter boot (which lifts open by remote control, by the way)
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scoots can be had with 840cc engines nowadays. How much bigger do you want? Sorry, perhaps that should be “need”.
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Watch out for Dylans. A lot of them have had problems with early failure of the exhaust. And a replacement is surprisingly expensive.
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big wheeled scoots (and bikes) may have better pothole ability, but much much reduced carrying capacity. And anyway, modern maxi scoots have wheels between 13 and 15 inch anyway (14 inch is the norm), and “big wheelers” have 16 inch. So there’s little actual difference.
I do understand why people might want a geared bike for fun, but for commuting a modern maxi scooter is really the best option.
Didn’t you leave the CityFly in Mongolia, Martin? 
I already have a scooter (a shitty chinese one) which is why my preference is towards a geared bike.
I’d rather have a scooter and a motorbike than 2 scooters. also from what I’ve seen with 125s is that geared bikes can go much faster than a scooter of the same cc.
but I’m glad you have raised the point of geared bikes being a pain in heavy traffic as I only have experience of scooters I would not know this.
I did mention that I got that 200miles from city B-road only traffic. Had there of been some A-roads I’m sure there would be more miles.
Also my style of riding always involves big throttle openings when I leave the lights (another hit on fuel economy).
Do you mind telling us what 250cc maxi scooter you are riding?