The Right Bike Choice.

[YZ250]

I have a friend who has been riding for a year now and he rides a yamaha tt-r125. now he is getting to big for his current bike and wants some more power and bigger bike size. he has to stay on his current bike for another year so he has plenty of time to choose another bike. my other friends are recommending 125's(2 stroke) and 250's(4 stroke) to him already but i don't think this is such a smart idea because he has only been riding for a year and it's on a bike that doesn't even have the power of an 85. I tried telling my friends that it's not a smart idea but they still think it's ok. now it's not a huge issue but it does take alot of thinking. i know from personal experience and from riding 2 stroke's only for my whole life that jumping from a 4 stroke tt-r 125 to a 125 or 250 would be stupid and dangerous. extremely dangerous! buti don't think we'd let that get in the way of our friendship. my other friends say that this kid has lotsa potential. which is true. but he's only on a tt-r. i remember when i was on my pw80 i could ride that like a pro, so i think that when my friend hops on another bike, he'll adjust more to a real dirt bike and not a mini. I don't want to be a know-it-all around my friends, i just want to recommend a good decision instead of a stupid one. so i was hoping you experienced guys could give a little advice i could pass on to my friend. after all, we all want to have enjoyable and wicked awesome rides, not dangerous ones.

[JETZcorp]

I say go for the 125.  I have a hard time believing anyone when they say a 125 two-stroke is too dangerous for anyone.  Come on, Danny Chandler was riding a 250 two-stroke when he was twelve, and I was on one when I was fourteen.  It's not that big of a deal.  Besides, we're all familiar with the way a two-stroke lets you know when you're going too far.  If the bike has more potential than you, it lets you know by scaring the hell out of you, and so you ride it more conservatively.

[Hondacrrider]

You see Caleb(yz250), I am not completely wrong, a 125 two stroke is a pretty tame bike, and if he is just beginning on it, he doesn't have to full throttle it

[Hondacrrider]

Oh, and by the way guys, this kid on the ttr, has actually been riding for 2 years now, and has ridden my cr125, and did very well on it, and has ridden an rm125

[JohnN]

With the scant information that you provided, it's difficult to give good advice.

How old is this rider? How big is he? What kind of personality does he have?

Was he an aggressive, dare devil bicycle rider? How often does he ride?

How does he ride the TTR-125? Wide open through the corners, or does he putt putt around??

Reading between the lines, it sounds as though this kid is pretty fast and has learned a great deal.

A 125cc two-stroke machine is not that difficult a machine to learn to ride adequately. In fact as long as you choose a machine with a little bit of low end power (say a YZ125 or Honda Cr125) he'll probably be just fine... The motocross 125 is only ten pounds heavier than the TTR125... not a great deal of weight difference, although the power to weight ratio is huge..

As you can see there are lots of variables and it truly depends on each individual.

Wish him luck from me...

[JohnN]

By the way... a 250F weighs 226 pounds - 30 pounds heavier than the TTR-125....

[eprovenzano]

[JETZcorp]

Now, if you want to talk about big changes, it'd be when I went 250.  The two bikes I have now, the 120 and my Husky, mark the transition.  There wasn't anything in between the minibike-sized 120 and the 42-inch-seat-height and 220-pound Husky.  In one day, I went from four speeds topping out at 45, to six speeds topping out at 85.  It was sort of scary at first, because it felt like I was sitting on a bloody skyscraper, but once I got moving I noticed that it wasn't any more wild than the 120.  In fact, I've never had the 250 scare me with its power, while the 120 has given me a number of surprise wheelies out of nowhere.

I guess there's not really a lesson in this little story, but it was certainly a big change.  Check the size difference.


(This was before we "fixed" the 250, so that's why it looks so rough.)

[YZ250]

You see Caleb(yz250), I am not completely wrong, a 125 two stroke is a pretty tame bike, and if he is just beginning on it, he doesn't have to full throttle it

true, true. i think if the bike isn't right for him (if his dad let's him ever get one) then he'll just learn the hard way. i'm just trying to be cautious. but still, i noticed sam was getting a little cocky or too confident when he talked to me so that's one thing that bugged me. cuz if you get to confident then that's worse cuz you don't know what's coming next when you actually ride. he said he was better than evan on his 125 but i wouldn't believe it until i see it cuz evan has been riding his dr-z for almost 3 years.

[YZ250]

well thanks for the advice you guys, now i won't hold back as much when recommending a bike for my friend. i still feel a little unconfortable about it, but the kid still has to stay on his tt-r for another year so maybe he'll get some more experience. i just thought that since a 125 2 stroke is a man's bike that it might be to powerful enough for him. oh well we'll see what happens.

[Hondacrrider]

With the scant information that you provided, it's difficult to give good advice.

How old is this rider? How big is he? What kind of personality does he have?

Was he an aggressive, dare devil bicycle rider? How often does he ride?

How does he ride the TTR-125? Wide open through the corners, or does he putt putt around??

Reading between the lines, it sounds as though this kid is pretty fast and has learned a great deal.

A 125cc two-stroke machine is not that difficult a machine to learn to ride adequately. In fact as long as you choose a machine with a little bit of low end power (say a YZ125 or Honda Cr125) he'll probably be just fine... The motocross 125 is only ten pounds heavier than the TTR125... not a great deal of weight difference, although the power to weight ratio is huge..

As you can see there are lots of variables and it truly depends on each individual.

Wish him luck from me...

John, I tell you, this kid has loads of potential, and he does beat the Evan guy in the pit bike track, and he even manages to keep up with me and yz250's friends on the trail, he has loads of potential, on the gas all the time, even when he was on my 125(as anemic as it may be) he was full throttle. I think if we could get him on a 125 2t, he would own the beginners class, even against 250f's. And thanks to this site, he is scared to buy a 250f because of the major costs

[JETZcorp]

125 two-stroke is a man's bike now.  Ah, whatever happened to the times when a 125 was the kid's toy, the 250 was the teenager's warm-up machine, and the 500 was the man's bike?

[JohnN]

125 two-stroke is a man's bike now.  Ah, whatever happened to the times when a 125 was the kid's toy, the 250 was the teenager's warm-up machine, and the 500 was the man's bike?

You continue to crack me up... you're so young and weren't there back then..

But you are semi-correct... the 125 class was the entry level class. Most racers did aspire to the big 500's... but as the bikes got better the big bikes took on a more scary persona..

Plus the 125cc class at least at the top levels of motocross take a specialized riding technique. Some racers, no matter what age prefer the 125... and personally I feel the same way. I love the 125.

[JETZcorp]

I can certainly understand that.  As much as I love my Husky, I'm always going to love the 120 more.  Most of it comes down to the personality of the bike itself, I think, but the experience of riding a high-revving, low-powered bike is different and welcome.  It's also fun to be at the bottom of a hill, being somewhat of a fat 6'2" dude on a bike that must look to everyone else like a two-wheeled Model T.  You can just see them betting each other that the little thing ain't gonna make it.  After all, Joe is on a 250F and he didn't make it.  This is a true story, by the way, I had to wait for them to clear themselves off the hill, and in the meantime I got burned by the pipe because I was in just T-Shirt and shorts.  Went up half of the hill in 2nd, then hit first for the top half.  I love doing things like that.  People always underestimate what a small old motor can do, and it's fun to surprise them.

That reminds me of the time my dad passed by some peoples' camp at 70 on a dirt road with a big drainage ditch bang in the middle of it, but that would be way off topic.