125 Rider saying hi from Sheffield UK

[transponder]

Hi to everyone and thankyou all for such a wonderfull and imformative site. I am 41 year old Male from Sheffield in the UK and ride an amazing little Honda CLR 125 City Fly that i am continuously adapting for adventure touring, up to now i have added sat nav, Givi panniers and rack adapted from a CBF500 set up, 12 volt outputs to power heated clothing and for charging the mobile, MSR fuel bottle, small wind shield etc. I have been riding for about 3 and a half years and turned to Motorcycling when i had a poor stretch of health a few years back and could no longer ride my mountain bikes, the Motorcycles realy helped me pull through and i love getting out riding every chance i get. Last year i drove my CLR 125 up to the West Coast of Scotland using mostly B and minor roads with Occasionaly some A roads and Motorways thrown in, it was a realy wonderfull trip, it took 4 days to get to my destination but ended up riding over 400 miles back in one day, i was amazed at how fresh i felt climbing off the bike back here in Sheffield, it's such a comfortable little thing, i deffinately recommend using ear plugs though on these smaller machines as the constant whine from the engine tends to get to you after a while. I get great MPG on my 125, the Scotland trip, over 800 miles cost just over £40, the tank range is around 150 miles and i carried a 5 litre can of fuel on the back which gave me a range of approximately 240 miles all in. I am planning another longer tour this year hopefully again up to and around Scotland which is far enough for me with my health problems an all, Cystic Fibrosis, Pancreatitis and Diabetes, i know i'm a wreck LOL Anyhow i'm sure there's many more people out there using the smaller capacity machines for touring, i'll be looking out for you out there on the roads, and on here too, and am happy to chat with anyone about sawing handles off of toothbrushes or advanced techniques in Spork food manipulation , perhaps i will be able to review some of the lightweight items i use on my trips as well, thanks again for making this a great place to read about this kind of thing, all the best and hopefully speak soon, Rich

[Knight of the Holy Graal]

Hello from Italy, Rich!

Thanks for sharing your experiences and welcome to the HUBB!

[palace15]

Hi and welcome


I am using a Yamaha YBR125 for a bit of touring, not used it yet for anything major, but thats to come, and still 'prepping'.

[henryuk]

Welcome to HU!

Nothing wrong with 125s - we're off on a big desert rally on some pizza bikes next year Bamako or Bust - Home

[Knight of the Holy Graal]

Originally Posted by henryuk

Welcome to HU!

Nothing wrong with 125s - we're off on a big desert rally on some pizza bikes next year Bamako or Bust - Home

Hey, nice challenge!
I voted option 1 of your poll!!

[transponder]

Thanks for the welcome guys, the Pizza delivery bike trek sounds fantastic, good luck with the mission, i see youre from the same neck of the woods as i am, will be looking out for a squadran of Pizza delivery bikes whilst i'm out on the roads around sheffield then, I love the idea of big miles on a small capacity machine, i will keep an eye out to see how youre getting on

[transponder]

Originally Posted by palace15

Hi and welcome


I am using a Yamaha YBR125 for a bit of touring, not used it yet for anything major, but thats to come, and still 'prepping'.

I find the 125's excellent on most of the roads i ride on, even on the Motorway most things in the left hand lane dont exceed 60 which my bike can easily maintain with all the camping gear on board. How are you prepping your YBR ? are you going for soft luggage or rack and boxes, got any touring plans for this year ?

[palace15]

At the moment it has a screen, gps mount, headlight mesh, plastic cycle panniers, when camping I just remove the topbox and load gear onto the rack as I will never again use the pillion seat for storage, did it once on my r80gs and never again as it was difficult to get on or off the bike.
I have used but dont like motorways on it(or any bike!) and I find running between 55-60mph fine and it returns 116mpg, which is less than some ybr owners claim, but I am no lightweight, courtesy of McDonalds! Some pictures of it here;
http://www.horizonsunlimited.com/hub...rse-isle-50948

Got a number of ideas lined up, it just depends on circumstances nearer the time on where to depart to.

[henryuk]

Originally Posted by transponder

Thanks for the welcome guys, the Pizza delivery bike trek sounds fantastic, good luck with the mission, i see youre from the same neck of the woods as i am, will be looking out for a squadran of Pizza delivery bikes whilst i'm out on the roads around sheffield then, I love the idea of big miles on a small capacity machine, i will keep an eye out to see how youre getting on

Keep an eye on the Star - will be in there in about 3 or 4 weeks (when we have picked up the bikes)

[transponder]

Looks a great little bike,Isle of Man,not been there since 1982, keep threatening to go back but not got my act together yet. I know what you mean about the luggage on the pillion seat but i still do attatch it there as it makes a very good backrest for the long miles, very very comfortable, the old karate front kick comes in very handy for getting on the bike when the luggage is on the pillion, turns in to a flying front kick as the day goes on and i get more fatigued LOL leg wont go up high enough without the jump. You can see below how i packed mine, i have to take quite a lot of certain kinds of food with me in case i cant get stuff i can eat out on the road, cant eat anything with fats or milk in it

[deenewcastle]

Love the plastic panniers Rich Do you have any better piccies of them with the rack? What make are they? I normally take my Funduro when away camping but this year fancy doing a longer trip or 2 on my 125 Rebel. Did a 112 mile ound trip from Newcastle to Budle Bay last week so for something different, and although she didn't have the speed of the BMW, it was still fun despite the cold and rain I don't have any panniers or even a rack for the Rebel so would like to hear more about your set up

[transponder]

Hi there, the boxes are Givi E21's,cheapest panniers in there line up, usually around £100 a pair new, and the rack is a standard Givi CBF500 Monokey tubular rack, i simply made up some brackets to adapt the rack to fit my CLR 125. All you would need to do is find some load bearing points on your Rebel and find a cheap Givi rack that can be adapted to fit with some homemade converters, i photographed the procedure of fitting the rack as i went along and i think i still have the photo's so i will put them up on here when i get back home. I have a photo on this computer of the view from the rear of the bike so you can see how they sit, mine need to be a little wider than usual to clear the high level exhaust but this works well as it allows room at the other side to still access the 1 litre MSR fuel bottle with the pannier still locked in position, anyhow, will put the pics up on here for you, if i still have them when i get back, all the best, Rich

[Birdy]

Good to see fellow 125 travellers, hi and kudos to all of you; small is beautiful.

As for the pizza bikes to Bamako idea, why not go for a C90? not as much power, but more reliable, cheaper - and they make prettier pictures! I went the same way a couple of years ago on the C90 and it was perfect.

116 mpg for the YBR!?!?! I'm backing the wrong make, neither of my CG125s, nor the C90 got that much. Think I'm looking at 80mpg two up, a bit more solo.


Good luck with the health issues tranponder, and I hope you continue loving the small capacity touring.

Birdy

[henryuk]

Originally Posted by Birdy

As for the pizza bikes to Bamako idea, why not go for a C90? not as much power, but more reliable, cheaper - and they make prettier pictures!

Because Domino's haven't had any C90s for years! The ones I've seen on e-bay haven't been cheaper either, they seem to be carrying a collectors premium.......

We are going to need to do a lot of frame bracing and change the suspension set-up, there's about 6,000 km of off-road on our route and I don't trust those single crown forks!

Did you have much trouble with the frame because of the added weight?

[ormoy]

hello im french with cardiacs problems . last year i buy a 125 honda cb and ride from paris to oulan bator in mongolian without any problems

Originally Posted by transponder

Hi to everyone and thankyou all for such a wonderfull and imformative site. I am 41 year old Male from Sheffield in the UK and ride an amazing little Honda CLR 125 City Fly that i am continuously adapting for adventure touring, up to now i have added sat nav, Givi panniers and rack adapted from a CBF500 set up, 12 volt outputs to power heated clothing and for charging the mobile, MSR fuel bottle, small wind shield etc. I have been riding for about 3 and a half years and turned to Motorcycling when i had a poor stretch of health a few years back and could no longer ride my mountain bikes, the Motorcycles realy helped me pull through and i love getting out riding every chance i get. Last year i drove my CLR 125 up to the West Coast of Scotland using mostly B and minor roads with Occasionaly some A roads and Motorways thrown in, it was a realy wonderfull trip, it took 4 days to get to my destination but ended up riding over 400 miles back in one day, i was amazed at how fresh i felt climbing off the bike back here in Sheffield, it's such a comfortable little thing, i deffinately recommend using ear plugs though on these smaller machines as the constant whine from the engine tends to get to you after a while. I get great MPG on my 125, the Scotland trip, over 800 miles cost just over £40, the tank range is around 150 miles and i carried a 5 litre can of fuel on the back which gave me a range of approximately 240 miles all in. I am planning another longer tour this year hopefully again up to and around Scotland which is far enough for me with my health problems an all, Cystic Fibrosis, Pancreatitis and Diabetes, i know i'm a wreck LOL Anyhow i'm sure there's many more people out there using the smaller capacity machines for touring, i'll be looking out for you out there on the roads, and on here too, and am happy to chat with anyone about sawing handles off of toothbrushes or advanced techniques in Spork food manipulation , perhaps i will be able to review some of the lightweight items i use on my trips as well, thanks again for making this a great place to read about this kind of thing, all the best and hopefully speak soon, Rich