Retro 125 impressions

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Retro 125 impressions
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motorcycles

Retro 125 impressions

Retro 125 impressions
Old school bikes

The retro wave has meanwhile also arrived in the 125 cc. But is it also popular with the youngsters? Try makes you smart.

Rolf Henniges

11/23/2017

So no, that’s not possible! We are in the underground car park, the new one is just now Kreidler Dice CR has been delivered. And my dam, behind which the expectations have built up, breaks like a pretzel stick. Why? Dear readers under 40, please skip the next lines, they are only for old sacks. So why? Because I associate the term Kreidler with my youth. Anyone who turned into the schoolyard with a Kreidler Florett RS in the 1970s drove home with some very spicy chicken on the back seat after the last lesson. And if a Kreidler thing popped up in your rear-view mirrors, moments later you could read his license plate right away. In a word: glorious!

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Anyone standing in front of the Dice CR 125i with similar memories will not only wonder why we sold the trademark rights to the Chinese, but also who should be punished for it. This Dice here and the Florett RS from back then, it’s like sticking the label of a bottle of Dom Perignon on a two-euro Lambrusco. Thank goodness I don’t have to judge the little motorcycle. For this we have invited two youngsters who have just passed their driving license. And so that it doesn’t get boring, the Kreidler is also joined by a Mondial hps 125i and one Mash 125 Black Seven.

Lars and Charlene, both 16 and just ripped off the first few kilometers on their own bikes, circle the three 125cc. It quickly turns out that the Kreidler and the Mash are apparently twin sisters who just wear different clothes. No wonder, they are both manufactured in the same Chinese company, Jinan Qingqi. The air-cooled two-valve four-stroke engines are replicas of the Suzuki DR 125 drive. We put both next to each other. It is easier to list the differences than the similarities. While the Kreidler has donated an upside-down fork and a cooler cockpit, which even offers a digital gear display, the Mash relies entirely on retro with a conventional fork with bellows and two round instruments in the cockpit. Other differences: bench and paint. Otherwise everything is the same. Then they should at least drive identically, right? Helmets on, gloves on, out of the underground car park. First stop after ten kilometers. Long faces among our young test pilots.

“Now I definitely know that I did everything right,” says Lars, who has a Beta 125 RR LC at home. “The Kreidler here can’t get out of the press at all…” That means: With a cold start, it takes a long time for the engine to willingly accelerate, and the drive doesn’t feel really powerful in any speed range even when it is warm. Charlene, too, who is used to the 15 HP of her KTM, says that there is still a lot of room for improvement with the Mash Power. We drive on, through vineyards, over narrow roads with bad asphalt and diligently swap motorbikes. It crystallizes very quickly Mondial out as “most wanted”. Your four-valve engine craves high revs – you drive constantly between 7000 and 11000 rpm – but it takes on the gas cleanly and loosely leaves its air-cooled opponents behind. The lively drive is the only one with a six-speed gearbox and turns upwards so happily that you drive into the limiter all too often. The Mash motor, actually identical to that of the Kreidler, has a tiny bit more pressure than the Kreidler drive. Why? No idea. If you believe the manufacturer’s information, it has 0.8 hp more. And, no joke, you can feel it while driving. Smiley face.

“Where do these things come from?” Charlene wants to know. Good question. Ultimately, all three will be built in China. The naming rights to Mondial are held by an Italian company. The engine used here bears an incredible resemblance to the drive of the Aprilia Tuono 125, it is manufactured by Zongshen. Unfortunately, it was not possible to find out whether it was actually structurally identical. While the French Mash is pushing its way onto the market by means of proper names, Kreidler’s naming rights lie with the bicycle manufacturer Prophete in Rheda-Wiedenbruck, which entered the market in 1995 with Taiwan scooters and has had Kreidler light motorcycles manufactured in China since the end of 2006. The advantage for Mondial: It is imported to Germany by the Kymco importer MSA, and is therefore also sold through the extensive Kymco dealer network. At Kreidler or even Mash, the dealer network is not that opulent.

When we got off the machines in the afternoon, our test pilots’ judgment was harsh. “The brakes on the Mash and the Kreidler are not the best,” says Lars. And Charlene adds: “They don’t drive accurately either. I don’t feel as safe as I do on my KTM. ”The fact is: if they don’t have ABS, from 2017 125 cc will only be delivered with a composite brake system. The Mondial works perfectly – when you press the foot brake, the front brake is also activated. None of this can really be felt at either Kreidler or Mash. And one more thing: Now you finally know what “no grip” means in Chinese: Timsun! It even stands on the tires. Sorry, that’s also the manufacturer’s name! To put it mildly, the skins mounted on the Kreidler and Mash are a disaster when it rains. And because we’re grumbling: Neither fork nor spring struts from Kreidler respond well. What remains as a conclusion? Hui outside and ugh inside? So: retro doesn’t rock?

None of the youngsters want to go really hard with their bikes. The fact is: With the Mash, which is stylistically based on the Triumph Bonneville, you don’t score at all in the schoolyard, both test pilots agree on that. The Kreidler stands out more through its bright color than through good workmanship. And the very well made Mondial, not least thanks to a coherent overall concept with nicely made details. With all this, you shouldn’t forget how cheap these little beasts are to buy or to maintain. Each bike was satisfied with less than three liters of petrol per 100 kilometers. So what to do Both parents, who are considering one of the three for their offspring, as well as older semesters – after all, you can drive a 125cc car with a driver’s license if it was issued before 1.4.1980 – it is advisable to buy the Timsun-Pellen immediately after buying it to swap for real tires.

URGENT.

China bikes – what speaks for it and what against it?

Per
“When you hear about China, you often think of unreliability when it comes to engines. I can’t blame people for that. Maybe that was the case 15 years ago.


Retro 125 impressions


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Hans-Peter Heck: Managing Director of CityRoller, Stuttgart.

In the meantime, both manufacturing quality and material quality have improved significantly. There are no problems with the air-cooled 125 two-valve engine, which is built into both the Mash and the Kreidler. We have sold more than 60 machines with the engine, there was not a single failure. Some customers have unwound almost 30,000 kilometers with it. “

Contra
“I can’t make friends with the Mash or the Kreidler at all. Everything seems cheap and the technology is not up to date.


Retro 125 impressions


jkuenstle.de

Karsten Schwers: MOTORRAD’s top tester.

Before I buy such a new Chinese hit, I prefer to look at the used market for 125ccs from established Japanese manufacturers. Most of the time they even have good tires. In addition, there is the problem of the supply of spare parts. You can get parts from the well-known manufacturers on every street corner. With these machines here, that’s more than questionable. “

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