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You're talking at the pro level. I look at 125s as a missing link in rider development. It also used to be a staple at local tracks. It could/should be again.
This is the reason I have bought two new Yamaha YZ 125 in the last 12 months. My son just came off of 85's and supermini's 14yrs old. We discussed this together and decided to ride 125's for a year and then look at the 250F's. I am very glad we did.
You can always race your 125's in the 250 class.
And i love, just love creeping up on them with my 125 screaming to the point where they make a mistake and i get by,
its not like i'm faster, its the thought of being past by such a slow bike makes one ride over there head.. (And i am old too)
But i do get killed of the start, and I sink if i miss a gear or fall out of my wee tiny window of power..
I think this is what motivates me to keep riding.
The Shop
Luxon 4-Post Bar Mounts
$189.95 - $239.95
DeCal Works Huge Plastic Inventory of UFO and Polisport kits.
I know dealers that participate heavily in the moto scene, and they still don't want to deal with racers. Not when you have a guy walking in ready to drop huge money on a cruiser and finance $2000 worth of accessories.
Then you have the mom and pop rural dirt shops that will blow dirt bikes out for $200 profit.
Also, Mitch Payton had plenty to say as well.
" I don't know that I like the 250 four-strokes in the 125 class. It is too much of an advantage. They are double the size of our KX125's. Double! The legal four-strokes in the 250 class aren't double. The legal four strokes in the 80 class aren't double. You need to find a happy medium, and 250 ain't it. They are going to keep getting better, too. Right now, the 125's can run with them with momentum and speed in the corners, but what happens when you get behind them is that they slow down in the corners because they don't corner as well. They squirt the first ten or twenty feet, and then you have to try and run them down. That's hard. They get great starts too because of their traction. They have a big advantage here. You get little kids getting off an 80cc bike and they'll have to go to a 250. It is too big for them, too heavy and they can't start the things. All the manufacturers are working on them, and unfortunately we'll all be racing them in a few years."
Quoted in MXA, Sept. 2001.
Mitch knew then that it was an "unfortunate" offering but no one even listened to him.
Have any moto-journalists attempted to interview a Chinese manufacturer? That might be an interesting conversation.
Not trying to toot my own horn, but I've beaten my fair share of 450's on an 05 KX 250(one of the most abrupt hard to ride 250's ever made). But I guess at the pro level its a different ball game.. All the more reason we need equal discplacement.
The stroke of a pen would open up many more choices in technology, but the pen stroker won't budge.
Pit Row
Im a diehard Honda fan and recently got a 02 CR125...its soooo light!!!
I can already tell my efi 450 will be sitting in the garage and I'm going to be out reving the balls of a carb'd bike from the past because its fun...the whole reason we do this stuff.
Don't kid yourselves, the people working in or have business connections to the industry are small fry in comparison, all they are doing is towing the line.. its their bread and butter, and in their interest to tow the line. It's just business.
If the people out there (consumers) want to change the narrative, the most simple yet effective method is to stop buying four strokes and supporting them. It's just business.
Buy new two stokes and put your money where your mouth is, and things will surely change.
When the narrative changes all the small fry will follow.
But if the money was pumped in, they could produce a bike as good as any other.
And in case anyone's wondering, yes I know that many products are already built there, or Viet Nam, or other low-cost labor markets. But they're generally also not bikes used for racing applications.
The Chinese have an independent space program which kind of rules them out, not having the above mentioned. It's just investment that's stopping them getting into things like race bikes.
They've found it easier to slowly gain economic dominance by flooding the world with cheap shit..
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