EN125 Review

Under the various motorbike photos at the right of this blog is a Site meter icon. This monitors activity on the blog. Don’t worry, it just shows me how many hits, page view and country of origin the readers are from. It also allows me to see how the reader got to my blog (i.e. the referral page). Where this is a Google-type search, it will tell me the search term. Through this I have noticed one of the most popular searches is for a review of the Suzuki EN125. Although I've made various comments about the EN, I haven't written a proper review of the bike, so here goes.

The Suzuki EN125 is a learner legal motorbike, which comes in 2 versions - totally naked or with a small screen and belly pan (the EN125-2A and EN125-2 respectively). Although it is manufactured under licence in China, it is not to be confused by many of the poor quality Chinese bikes flooding the market, as it is made to full Suzuki specification using all Japanese manufactured Suzuki parts.

The EN is a grey import (to the UK); it is made for the Mexican market, so the headlight points in the wrong direction (as Mexico drives on the right). This is easily corrected using the screws at the back of the headlight. I only discovered this hadn't been done when I came to trade in my EN. Given I had bought the bike from a local dealer, I assumed this would have been corrected (not best pleased at Scott Murray Motorcycles for that one!). Also, the original speedo and odometer reads in kilometres. A special adaptor has to be fitted to change these to miles, to comply with British legislation. Mine was fitted with one when I got it.

I found the EN an easy bike to ride, with smooth handling, decent enough brakes and controls which were easy to find with gloves on. Full-comprehensive insurance was pretty cheap, at just under £130 for the year (helped with me being an early 30s, female with 7 years no-claims discount on my car insurance - many motorbike insurers will take this into account where you have no no-claims discount). It has a gear indicator and fuel gauge, both of which proved very useful. The fuel gauge seemed pretty accurate, but I still re-set the trip counter when I topped her up, just in case. In terms of fuel economy, it was a very efficient machine - I got 200 miles between top-ups and never had to put the bike onto reserve. That works out at about 20 miles per litre or around 100 miles per gallon.

Buying a grey import can cause problems when getting parts, however as the EN is made by Suzuki, the parts can be obtained reasonably easily, if you know what to look for and were to get it. The obvious place, I thought, was where I bought the EN from, but when I needed to get new mirrors and a brake lever following my accident, Scott Murray Motorcycles didn't have any spares in stock, didn’t know how long it would take to get them in and didn't know how much they would cost (made me wonder what they did know!). That led me to seek alternatives…

Ebay is an obvious choice, with a reasonable number of EN specific spares (at a good price) available. Also, the EN is effectively an evolution of the GS125, the equivalent GS part could be suitable. I found all the items I would have needed for basic servicing were also GS parts (up to an including the chain and sprocket). The replacement brake lever I got for the EN was for the Suzuki RV125 (also known as the van van). The new mirrors were generic motorbike mirrors from ebay, as the screw holes are a standard 10mm thread.

The EN benefited from both centre and side stands. This is very unusual with 125 bikes, but I found the side stand useful for getting on an off the bike (it's a confidence thing) and the centre stand great for maintenance, especially great for oiling the chain. The disadvantage with the side stand is it is not switched. On most British spec bikes, the bike cannot be put into gear with the side stand down; when you attempt to put the bike into gear with the side stand down, the bike will kill the engine. The lack of a switch lead to me to fail one of my tests, as I didn't kick the side stand out of the way prior to carrying out my u-turn - oops. I didn't do that again!!!

The other feature I liked about the EN was the luggage rack at the rear. It wasn't designed for carrying anything too heavy (3kgs was the weight limit, if I recall correctly), but it allowed me to fit a top box to the bike, in which I could carry a change of trousers etc. With bungee cords I would have been able to carry a spare helmet or tied down a bag (if I didn’t want to carry a rucksack on my back).

There's a small amount of storage space under the seat, which I used for storing my disk lock during travel. I could have probably fitted a thin pair of waterproof trousers under the seat, if I didn’t ride in waterproof bike trousers anyway.

After 8 months of riding in almost all weathers, but always stored under a bike cover, the exhaust was starting to show slight signs of rust, where the chrome had been damaged either with the Suzuki stamp or where it was attached to the frame. It was only slight spotting and I was to deal with it, but traded it in instead. Other than that, there were no apparent problems with the bike.

The main thing that lets this bike down is lack of power. Even as a learner I found this frustrating, as it didn’t really like going above 50mph; not great for heading along a dual carriageway. Although I could get it up to 70mph (downhill, with a following wind), that was on the rev limiter. Also, when going up-hill in country roads, I would have to drop the gears to second and rev the nuts off the engine to get 30mph.

Personally, I think the EN is a great learner bike and would also be ideal for city commuting too, if you didn’t want a scooter. It's reliable; cheap to insure and run; and parts are reasonably easy to get, once you know where to look. Also, I think if Suzuki started making this bike for the European market too, it would make a killing. Maybe with the new motorbike test being introduced in October, the market for 125 motorbikes will increase and, with that, a greater range of 125s from the Japanese manufacturers.