A 125cc machine made for the city
A considered design
There was a golden era when, as a teenager, you could get your hands on a moped with the worst kit on the market thrown in for free for less than two grand. Even the insurance that was incredibly cheap.
The things were all made by the big brands, but in spite of this they were all astonishingly basic. Factory fitted restriction, basic carburettors, low seats, terrible brakes and perhaps most amusing of all was that they had pillion seats. But they were also powered by two stroke engines and were great fun to ride. Thanks to the fuel mix, they also smelled fabulous!
Those days are over now with environmental concerns, rising insurance costs and the simple fact that teenagers spend waaaay too much time on their phones and not out risking life and limb for the sake of having their own transport in time for the first day of transition year.
That’s not to say that scooters are gone. But while they’re still the solution to urban transport, they now reflect the tastes and needs of a dramatically changed demographic.
Moving about a medium sized city on four wheels on a daily commute can take as much as an hour each way. On a five day week that means ten hours of lost time. One days labour with a bit of overtime thrown in before you even get to work. When we take stop start fuel consumption into account it also gets terribly expensive.Â
So much fun. So much stupidity. 50cc two stroke scooters
Before sitting down to write this piece I took myself across my home city, Dublin, using a number of different transport solutions.
Using a car was the least effective. The slowest driver dictated my pace and watching cyclists, motorcyclists, scooter riders, buses, taxis and at one point someone on a skateboard, make significantly more progress than I was could be described as somewhat dispiriting. When I got into the city centre and encountered the one way systems and the staggering price of parking I concluded that only a sadist could do this to themselves on a daily basis.
The next one was the DART, greater Dublins electric train service. The carriages were clean and the commuters were all well informed when it came to ticketing and using the service in general. The trains were also on time. The only things that bothered me were the crowds, I really don’t like strangers pressing up against me in situations that I’m trapped in! That and the fact that I had to walk three kilometres to get to the station closest to me and another kilometre and a half to get to my final destination. A great way to start a sunny day, but it would get old over three months of dark mornings and evenings during the winter. A solid no to the train.
And who doesn't like a good train every now and again?
The next one was our relatively new tram system, the LUAS. This was quite similar to the train but with more stops and sharing the streets with other traffic meant a little bit more stopping at junctions. Then the ticket inspector got on. As he checked that my fare was paid I couldn’t but help notice that he was wearing a thick vest, the type you’d see as part of a modern soldiers kit. Upon asking him about it he explained that as a result of assaults on the staff they were now obliged to wear stab proof vests. Yep. Not doing that again.
Known affectionatly as the 'Danny'. Figure it out yourself...
Finally it came time to take the bus. Firstly the arrival time sign simply changed its mind. The bus that was due in two minutes simply disappeared from the board. The next one arrived ten minutes later. While it was quicker than the car, it was still incredibly slow to the point of frustration. This wasn’t helped in any way by the deeply unpleasant odour emanating from the gentleman beside me.
I didn’t bother with using a bicycle. The vulnerability factor is just way too much for me to cope with.
Note the motorcyle in the bike lane? That's how we roll...
What I’ve found to be the very best solution to the horror of commuting is a decent scooter. The great news is that they’ve come on in leaps and bounds since the good old days.
What I’ve found to be the very best solution to the horror of commuting is a decent scooter. The great news is that they’ve come on in leaps and bounds since the good old days when the city was awash with teenagers riding 50cc Katana scooters with the gay abandon that only the young can truly enjoy.
Built by people who know what they're doing!
Just one such scooter is Yamahas NMax, a 125cc offering from the Japanese motorcycling giant. There’s now a whole range of ‘Max scooters with the class leading 562cc TMax being the daddy of them all. The NMax, meanwhile, is powered by an uncomplicated single cylinder BluCore engine that will cover as much as 300 urban kilometres on a full tank of petrol.
The standard of finish is impressive. The ergonomics as well as the properly thought out chassis make moving through the city somewhat intuitive, even the fuel tank is centrally located so as to ‘hide’ its weight. Quite simply, I found that where I looked was where I went. There was no ‘working’ the scooter to get it where I wanted it to go.
Underseat storage, big enough for a helmet.
Traction control is also a standard feature as is ABS. The bodywork is tall enough to keep the rain off as well as not making me look like an elephant who’s trying to fuck a monkey.
LED lights are on both ends of the NMax. The scooter can be paired with a smartphone via Bluetooth and the details displayed on the LCD screen. It even has keyless ignition.
Just keep the fob in your pocket.
There’s a power socket to keep the aforementioned phone charged and traditional features such as decent under seat storage to store a helmet in are still part of the package. Start stop works on the scooter being fully stopped with one or both breaks being on. Release the brake, twist the throttle and off I go!
Rather interestingly once the ‘MyRide’ app is downloaded to your phone there’s, along with all the usual tech information, an actual ‘find my scooter’ feature. The app will locate where you’ve parked based on the last place that your phone and scooter were connected!
Clocked!
All in all the NMax is beyond decent when it comes to city work, and the tech makes it even more so. They’re available from www.danfay.ie and Yamaha dealers across the country. The company will even pay the Vehicle Registration Tax (VRT) and save the new rider €250 and that’ll fill a good few tanks of fuel!
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