jackcorbett

Yamaha Nuovo is by far the best quality automatic bike out there,and will keep its vaule far better than a Honda. Yamaha has had the best build quality for several years now. Yamaha also do a 4 speed semi-automatic - Spark - 135 cc and liquid cooled,like the Nuovo. Please buy good safety equipment.

Still working on my latest "extensive review" of Yamaha Nouvo Elegance 135, Yamaha Nouvo SX 125 and Honda Click 125i. Yep...Yamaha has much better quality than Honda. I have rented two low mileage Honda Click's now, one here in Naklua and one on Koh Larn Island, and both had latching problems with their rear seats. I've never seen a Yamaha do this, and I've owned one Nouvo MX, one Elegance that I presently own, one Yamaha Filano I bought for my gf and one Yamaha Fino a few years back. All have been flawless. Moreover none of my friends who have Yamaha have had these quality control defects. Moreover...check out that turn indicator position on the new Clicks. That's terrible. The Yamaha's have turn indicators in positions that are very intuitive.

ANd to do my most recent tests I just rented another 125 Nouvo SX. This time for four days. Flawless. It's simply a terrific bike for what most of us really need and it's so much fun to drive.

I just ran into this today along with several other web sites advertising the Yamaha S Max. Is it headed for Thailand?http://www.smax.tw/#/?tags=car

Here's another site with a few specs. http://www.moto-choice.com/en/Press-Releases/353/to-neo-yamaha-majesty-155--s-max-516-tha.html

This is why none of us should even consider driving any scooter floorboard model motorbike. This particular underbone happens to be a Suzuki. Look at the bracing on this bike. The Honda Wave has got it. So does the Yamaha Spark, the various Nouvo Models from the MX to the new SX. The Suzuki Hayate has got the brace and so does the PCX and the Honda Air Blade. The have nots include the Honda Click, the Honda Scoopy, the Yamaha Mio, Yamaha Fino, Yamaha Filano and the Vespa. A lot of Thais will buy such scooters, but one must consider that a large percentage of Thais do not understand that a red light means "stop" and do not go through it, or that driving against the flow of traffic is very dangerous for all concerned or that one should look before pulling in front of other vehicles. I have rented a car in Malaysia, and although I have not been very impressed by the manners of many of the drivers there, Malaysian drivers do not have nearly as many bad drivers as Thailand has. All that said, I can fully understand why Air Blades are easily obtained right off the dealers' showroom floors in Malaysia whereas Honda Clicks are not nearly as plentiful whereas the opposite is true in Thailand. This is all a simple matter of common sense or lack of it.

Sorry I don't really understand what are you talking about.

If you want to debate vantages/advantages of flat floorplan in light safety, that has nothing to with how structurally the bike is bult.

But overall nothing practical can be deducted from you long rant, except that the Airblade is still sold in Malaysa unlike in Thailand, thank you very much for the old news.

It's okay that you didn't understand it as I didn't write those 180 words or so for you.

This is why none of us should even consider driving any scooter floorboard model motorbike. This particular underbone happens to be a Suzuki. Look at the bracing on this bike. The Honda Wave has got it. So does the Yamaha Spark, the various Nouvo Models from the MX to the new SX. The Suzuki Hayate has got the brace and so does the PCX and the Honda Air Blade. The have nots include the Honda Click, the Honda Scoopy, the Yamaha Mio, Yamaha Fino, Yamaha Filano and the Vespa. A lot of Thais will buy such scooters, but one must consider that a large percentage of Thais do not understand that a red light means "stop" and do not go through it, or that driving against the flow of traffic is very dangerous for all concerned or that one should look before pulling in front of other vehicles. I have rented a car in Malaysia, and although I have not been very impressed by the manners of many of the drivers there, Malaysian drivers do not have nearly as many bad drivers as Thailand has. All that said, I can fully understand why Air Blades are easily obtained right off the dealers' showroom floors in Malaysia whereas Honda Clicks are not nearly as plentiful whereas the opposite is true in Thailand. This is all a simple matter of common sense or lack of it.

@Jack: Yup, if it was a choice of only Click or Nouvo SX I'd def go SX, likely even if it was just SX v PCX, or certainly for the riding I mainly do. BUT, and it is a big but for me, as the next bike purchase will be Malaysia, the 2013 Airblade I think will take some beating. Plan to test ride both when I'm back, the 'bells and whistles' on the Airblabe make it a VERY interesting prospect. Like your reviews by the way, useful and nice that they're not manuf loaded or jammed full of BS.

The old Airblade available in Thailand I think would have been the only bike I would have considered alongside the Elegance (at least until the PCX came out) the new Airblade though really appeals: http://www.boonsiewhonda.com.my/product-air-blade.html

I'm glad you like my reviews. Right now I'm testing the fuel economy of the Nouvo SX. I did that in a previous review comparing it to my Nouvo Elegance's but it was all highway whereas this will be mostly city. Recently there has been an Airblade in the Hotel Centara parking lot and it only has several thousand kilometers on it. Of course Honda is not pushing the Airblade even though one can still order one. The Airblade will handle well--there's no question of that and now it's available in 125 c.c's whereas before it was a 110. I believe it is far superior to the Click and my reasons are 1. Twin shocks in the rear and 2. It is an underbone (with that all important cross brace that is over a foot above where you put your feet) and not a floorboard equipped model but it's going to have a shorter wheelbase than the Nouvo models and 14 inch tires which in my opinion puts it at somewhat of a disadvantage to the Nouvo, especially as mine is equipped with the Michelin Sports at one size larger than stock.

I'm a similar height to the OP and for me it's always been a concern with many of the smaller bikes. I split my time between Malaysia and Thailand, the bikes available in each country differ somewhat.

Most of my riding is in town traffic so 'slice and dice' is more important to me than long distance cruise comfort. I'm a life-long bike rider and while I prefer big bikes generally, for me they are not necessary for the riding I do in here (in LOS at moment) and the price is prohibitive in Malaysia also! I'd also discount bikes like the Forza for the same reasons, don't suit my needs.

I've been a long term PCX fan and always rented them here and was recently planning to buy a PCX in Malaysia (the 150cc) BUT recently I've had a slight change of thought and its mainly due to how I feel the PCX is better suited. For this stay in LOS I've switched to renting the new 125i Click and it's mainly because I find the PCX less agile in tight traffic. Being 6'03" I find I get pushed back along the seat on a PCX which I think makes the bike less controllable with hip movement than on bikes with a slightly more upright ride position. The difference in rental cost for the PCX and the Click is only 1,000 THB per month (I rent from a buddy) and if I thought the PCX was better I'd stick with it. At the moment though I feel happier with the Click. In terms of ownership though there would be a few things that put me off the Click 125i, 1) floorboard design 2) single rear shock and 3) tube tyres (but I think the top range Click may have a tubeless option.

I did like the Nouvo Elegance but the gf never did so we used one rarely, I'd be interested to look at the SX though, esp given that it has fuel injection and tubeless tyres. The 125 is cut of 10cc but I suspect would still perform as well as a PCX 150 given the lighter weight.

That said, my next purchase will be in Malaysia and there, Hondas rule with far more service facilities and much better re-sale values. Malaysia doesn't have the Click 125i BUT it does have the new Airblade, introduced July this year. Now THAT really is appealing: PGM-FI; Engine idle stop; combo-braking; integrated ACG starting (less friction); side-stand cut out, remote key bike location (press the key and the horn sounds and lights flash (great in some of the gazillion bike parking lots), tubeless tyres and twin rear shocks.

Like I say I was all set to buy a PCX there (pricey in Malaysia at 103,000 THB thanks to Govt import taxes!!!) but the new Airblade will definitely get a look as the style of the bikes suits my regular riding more, I rarely do long distance so it seems pointless to buy a bike for 10% of the riding I do (the PCX), better to buy for the 90%. That the Airblade is 77,000 THB in Malaysia is also a bonus but not a deciding factor. There is still that niggle though, but what about WHEN I want a longer commute, or when I want that bit more comfort and of course there's the wider tyres. Decisions, decisions. Sadly, as yet I think, now new Airblade in LOS.

Go for the Yamaha Nouvo 125 SX. Presently renting my 2nd one for the express purpose of my online bike reviews. Recently rented a Honda Click 125 i here in Naklua then another one on Koh Larn Island last week. Both rentals had issues latching the seat so at this point when you consider the single shock and very inferior floorboard design I'll really go out on the limb and say, the click is "Cheap, grossly inferior" and designed to sell to those who don't know better." Have stop watched the 125 Yamaha SX today on route 36 near the International School. Click did better with the stopwatch, however. But on the highway the advantage of the underbone bracing of the Nouvo SX totally outclassed the Click's very inferior design. This is a very enjoyable bike to ride and it's around 20,000 baht or so cheaper than a PCX 150, which although it's an excellent bike, I'm finding the little Nouvo 125 SX to be even more satisfying. Stay tuned as I need to get another couple of articles ready on other subjects before this review is going live.

>>It did return over 40MPG for the trip on largely level terrain, speed at times over 90KPH.<<

Thats very heavy fuel consumption for a small bike .You will find the PCX far more fuel efficient .

That is absolutely untrue. I did a side by side comparison between a PCX 125 and my Nouvo 135 Elegance from Pattaya to Rayong and the fuel economy was identical for the two bikes. And in my tests the fuel economy over that distance is in the 100 mile per gallon area for both bikes. A similar test between the new fuel injected 125 Nouvo SX and my 135 c.c. Nouvo Elegance gave the same results, identical fuel economy. However, the story might be altogether different if we checked the mileage for city driving only.

It looks like I'm going to have to do a You Tube video that shows how one should test bikes for fuel economy and do side by side comparisons in order to separate all the bull from real facts.

You have made some very good points here. I have a Nouvo Elegance as well and have done some extensive road tests on this bike as compared to the Honda PCX and the new fuel injected Nouvo SX. I view the bike scene as this. For the average person living say in Pattaya the two absolute finest all around bikes are the Nouvo Elegance 135 (or new 125 SX) and the PCX, and out of the two PCX's the new 150 trumps the 125. For me it's a fifty fifty thing here. The PCX is terrific and so is the Nouvo. But I am rekindling my love affair with my 135 Elegance since upgrading my tires to the Michelin Sportys while going up one size larger. The handling of this new setup is absolutely outstanding. The PCX especially the new 150 is better on the highway than the Nouvo. It was designed to be. But Yamaha built the Elegance and the SX for unbeatable handling in their class. They are exceptionally quick turning, nimble creatures with excellent acceleration for the type of conditions one is going to find anywhere in the Pattaya area with the exception of having to mix it up with cars on the motorway. All those Mios, Finos, Filanos, Scoopys and Clicks are simply not in the same league. My Elegance, especially with its new set of tires really feels a part of me. I think it will out turn my gf's Filano with its 12 inch wheels even at low speeds. PCX or Nouvo...take your pick. Want the the sport scar out of the small automatics go for the Nouvo Elegance or SX. Want the best for ride, comfort and secure performance up to 90 kmph or so, get the PCX 150. And by the way, don't laugh when I talk sportscar performance here. No.....a Nouvo can't be considered to be comparable even to a CBR 250, I'm only relating it to the other scooters and underbones in its class that represent what most Pattaya expats really need.

Well 90 kph is not really that fast.

Yes the Click is a cheaply made mass market scooter

I think you got that one right. The Click is designed to sell. It is not designed to be the best motorbike of its kind. I have several new articles on my web site including the latest and that one has several more pictures I took yesterday of my Nouvo Elegance with most of the plastic removed. The reason I did this is I had to know for myself what I had already gleaned from personal experience and what I had recently read about underbone constructed motorbikes. I've driven two Click rentals. The first one was in Krabi a few years ago. It handled so badly with my girlfriend behind me that I got off and told her to drive. I was used to the handling of my Yamaha Nouvo MX in those days, a bike I replaced with my current Nouvo Elegance. Back in those days the Click was 110 cc's whereas now they are 125 cc's. No doubt they are improved. But when people start saying the new Click is better than a Yamaha Elegance or the new fuel injected Nouvo SX's, I figure it's time to do a little independent research on my own to separate out facts from the bull and report my findings back here. The 2nd Click I rented was on Koh Samet. It was equipped with dirt bike tires and at slow speeds negotiating Koh Samets ruts, and rock covered trails, it performed much better than my expectations.

What I learned online about underbones was that Honda revolutionized the motorbike industry when it first introduced its Super Cub back in 1958. To me, those things resembled girls bicycles. To kick off sales Honda had a great slogan, "You meet the nicest people on a Honda". Back in those days the market was pretty much confined to Harleys, Triumphs, BSA's, etc along with such scooters as Vespa, Cushman, etc. And I do remember my dad who used to own Harleys in the 1930's telling me, "Those motor scooters are no good. They have those little wheels that offer no stability." But they were cute. They were pretty. The BSA's, Triumphs, Nortons, etc were British, typically of 650 c.c. displacement. And if I recall it was a Triumph that was Marlon Brandos motorcycle in "The Wild One," a movie that associated motorcycle owners with motorcycle gangs wearing leather jackets. Aside from offering a much better image for future motorbike owners by hits marketing slogans and Hondas excellent engines, Honda offered in its underbones a design that permitted much larger diameter wheels (16 or 17 inch) as well as an overall design that seemed to be similar to a scooter's but which in reality was decisively superior due to its metal bracing within the plastic hump between the driver's legs which replaced the traditional floorboard of the scooters.

I invite anyone who is interested in looking up underbones and do a little checking on their own. One of the things you will find is that with Honda's revolutionary Super Cub, handling was vastly improved over scooters of that era. And the reason is all those braces that anchor the front to the rear of the bike above that area where the floorboards of scooters attaches front and rear along a single axis. Now I will admit that having all that foot space on a scooter's floorboard is more comfortable and certainly it can be said that you have all that space in front of you where you can hang grocery bags. When I go grocery shopping with my Elegance that hump is in the way so I have to hang my grocery bags from the hook in front of me and then swing them to one side or the other where they can get in the way of my legs, but that's only a minor discomfort.

As to the personal experience aspect again, I recently bought my girlfriend a Yamaha Filano. It has 12 inch wheels and it most definitely is a scooter. I tried to get her to spring for a new Nouvo 125 SX knowing all too well how superior a bike it is, but she wanted the Filano. I would have told her, "Honey. You are getting either a Nouvo SX or a PCX or you aren't getting anything at all." except for the fact that I know she's deathly afraid of all motorbikes and there was no way she'd ever travel more than 2 km away from home on it. The Filano also has as much storage space under the seat as a Yamaha Nouvo, unlike another scooter offering from Yamaha, the Fino. That meant that if I ever wanted to get a larger motorbike such as a Honda CBR 250 we'd still have a bike that was suitable for shopping at the supermarket without my having to outfit the new motorbike with a luggage trunk.

When we drive the Filano (I usually do the driving) it's nearly always for very short hops to nearby restaurants or to go to the fitness center for our exercise. It's a cute machine and I'm sure it gets terrific fuel economy. It doesn't have anything like the horsepower of the Elegance, but that's okay being that it's fun to just idle along at slow speeds. But it really is grossly inferior to the Elegance. Because of its 12 inch diameter wheels it will bottom out on certain speed bumps unless I take it all the way down to about 1 mile an hour. It seems unbalanced compared to my Elegance. It certainly does not feel to be part of me. And I can actually feel a little flex in the bike due to the anchoring of the front to the bike's rear only through the floorboard. Still, it's charming. One had just better not expect too much out of it.

Let's face the facts. All those Honda Clicks, Honda Scoopy's, Yamaha Finos, Mios, and Filanos have floorboards. Each of those bikes permits too much flex in its chassis. Honda knew it had by far the superior design way back in 1958. But much later on Honda started to realize along with Yamaha and other bike manufacturers that people will buy practically anything so long as you can successful dupe them away from checking out the real facts. All those braces in an underbone cost money to manufacture. Isn't it far better to offer a lot of thin air instead of all those expensive goodies that make a bike really handle well? And while we are at it, it's certainly cheaper to offer one shock on a bike instead of two, and then we can offer a link to the past for those who are nostalgic for those old scooters, the kind that Dustin Hoffman used to drive in "The Graduate". After all, money is number one.

"what I don't really like about the PCX is that they have speed limit of 110Km/h. that bike can easily handle 130-140Km/h safely because it's a very big and stable, big tires and not too bad breaks.

Yamaha seems to have higher top end speeds and very good acceleration from the ones I've tried."

According to my road tests my Yamaha Nouvo Elegance has gotten up to 112 kph (as shown on its speedometer). The 150 PCX we tested has shown 115 kph. As for acceleration, in my opinion the PCX 150 has plenty but my 135 Nouvo Elegance in city traffic conditions is quicker. As for getting 135 kph out of this type of bike, Honda already has this one covered with the Forza. But, in order to have the capability for getting that extra 20 kph a huge fuel penalty is imposed.

With most of these bikes big tradeoffs must be made in order to trump this machine's or that machine's attributes. The Yamaha Nouvo Elegance and Nouvo SX has terrific handling at slow and moderate speeds. But....and you can read in my latest review it was engineered to have this capability by Yamaha and in order to get it sacrifices had to be made. It will not feel as stable on the highway as a PCX for example. And as for the Forza, it's going to do quite well in highway conditions compared to the PCX 150 but as Peter my sidekick during many of these road tests, commented, "it uses so much fuel I'd always have to be bringing my own fuel pump along". And, if you live in such a place as Pattaya, that Forza is going to be overly large for the conditions. For getting through traffic or parking the new Honda CBR 500 will be far superior--and a CBR 250 will be absolutely Lilliputian by comparison. Why it's got the ass on it of a 300 pound woman and the Sym 300 or 400 is even worse.

A couple of weeks ago, my friend, Per, and I did still another heads up road test comparison that amounted to traveling from Pattaya almost all the way to Rayong and back. You can see the review on my web site in the Looking Glass Magazine section. Per's bike is a 125 PCX. I rented a 150 PCX and then we tested them against each other for top speed and fuel economy. I will do a test of the 300 Forza soon, but Per jumped the gun. I think it was the very next day that we did our run together that he rented a Forza and did the same loop we had done. Bottom line on the Forza is it took 200 baht of fuel to cover the same distance we covered the day before for just 70 baht.

Another bike worth considering is the 125 Yamaha Nouvo SX. It trumps the PCX in handling over many situations although it is not quite as good traveling at higher speeds on the highway. But it is so good in handling in your typical Pattaya driving conditions that my girflriend commented that "it's like a snake, so quickly." She rarely drives my bike which is a Yamaha Nouvo 135 c.c. Elegance fitted with larger Michelin Sporty tires rather than stock. Her bike which I recently bought for her is a Yamaha Filano which rides on 12 inch diameter wheels.

If I go to the zoo, Nong Nooch Botanical Garden, the Crocodile Farm and nearly all similar places here in Pattaya I get the Thai price. Same experience in Chiang Mai. And if I go to Koh Samet I only pay 40 baht...the Thai price. I simply flash my Thai driver's license. When I was living in the St. Louis Metro East just 10 miles from St. Louis on the Illinois side of the river and would go to Shaw's Botanical Garden I'd have to pay the out of state price which was significantly lower than Missouri residents got in for. When I lived near Springfield, Illinois I could not use the Springfield public library for free because I lived outside Springfield. When I lived in the St. Louis Metro East I could take out books and movies on dvd all day long from the Collinsville public library because I was a resident of Collinsville, Illinois. When I go one block up the street from my condo I will usually pay between 105 and 120 baht for my lunch, and and this includes my girlfriend's as well. I'm getting the Thai price. Most of the clientele there is Thai but there are a few Westerners who frequent the place, but most tourists never go and for that matter most residents in my condo building won't either. I think it's because most tourists and for that matter a lot of expats don't have a lot of things figured out yet.

I wear Raybans and I get them at Amazon for around $90 or so which is far cheaper than I can get them here in Thailand. I have a strong preference for the cable temples because they don't allow the sunglasses to easily fall off. The Aviator style Raybans I find do not have cable temples so I now buy the "Outdoorsman" style which is almost the same as the Aviators except they have a reinforcement cross piece at the top.

We have two Real Ozzie helmets. When I got mine I used to taunt my girlfriend by pulling down the helmets dark visor while driving the bike. She had a pretty new full coverage Index helmet but I had read in this forum that the Real helmets were much safer in the event of a crash so I ponied up and got her one as well. Although I still use my Rayban sunglasses while driving during daylight hours I will often use the dark visor which is kept tucked in out of the way from dust and dirt when it's not being used. The helmet fits a lot better than my previous Index helmet so that when I'm driving at relatively high speeds it never starts moving around my head or threatens to come off. Also as previously mentioned the ratchet mechanism makes it so much easier and quicker to adjust the strap for tightness. At 1800 to 2000 baht getting one of these is a great investment as the helmet is light years ahead of similar models from Index and it's probably a lot better than many much more expensive helmets from other companies.

Yeah, well, I just bought a Yamaha for my girlfriend and I noticed straight away that the bike's handling was terrible even given its 12 inch wheels. Later I noticed that it would bottom out on speed bumps even at low speeds. Turns out the dealership did not put any air in the tires.. neither tire that is on a brand spanking new bike. We were running 3 to 4 pounds of pressure in tires that no doubt call for 35 pounds. Bike's a different animal now but that goes to show that the attitude of Mai Pen Rai simply doesn't get it when it comes to cars and motorbikes.

elliss, on 02 Mar 2013 - 00:52, said:

would be interested in performance , compared to the Nouvo 135 cc .

i have rented , and was very impressed , i understand the 135 cc is no longer available new.

my next new runabout will either be a honda or Nouvo.

There used to be a link to a review here that I did directly comparing the Nouvo SX 125 against my 135 c.c. Elegance. I rented the SX and then a friend of mine and I drove the two bikes to Rayong and back filling up both fuel tanks at the same pump before and after the test. I do not think there is a review like it anywhere. However, one of the moderators took exception to my posting a link to my own web site and removed the link. I was given the option of having it posted here without the link. I declined so you will have to use Google to find it. just use my user name here when you do your search.

I have no idea if the after market shocks will improve the ride. I do think my Elegance has a rough ride across speed bumps I am thinking it might be because of the light weight of the bike, which isn't much over 230 pounds Your mechanic claims he can offer you better shocks, but can he really? Let me know how this turns out.

First off I bought Michelin Sporty Pilots to replace the stock hires on my Elegance and in doing so got them one size bigger...from a 70/80 on the front to 80/90a and on the rear from 80/90 to a 90/100. The shop is on Sukamvit here in Pattaya on the West side of the road North of North Pattaya Road within a 100 meters or so of the next light.

Recently I replaced the mirrors with mirrors similar to what is used on the Honda PCX. These I got for less than 1000 baht at the German bike rental shop on Pattaya Soi 16 which is just past the 7-11, Lotus Express and Family Mart on the left. These provide a wider view and do not need to be adjusted nearly as often.

And, not part of the bike at all but I got a Real helmet for around 1800 baht or so. According to other members of this forum, and the woman who waited on us at the second shop (my girlfriend liked mine so well I had to get her one also and Mityan was out of them), actually works when you have a bad crash. That is of course the primary reason I insisted on "Real" with no substitutions. However this helmet also does not slide around my head while driving at high speeds (unlike its Index predecessor). Its visor is also infinitely superior and also has an inner dark shield as well as the clear one. They are both there available for instant use. Normally I dispensed with the visor and simply relied on using sunglasses. But with this setup the inner or dark visor sits up inside the clear visor where it is protected from the dust, grime, etc and then when you wish to use it you just pull a little lever and it pulls down into place.

For me the 125 Nouvo SX is every bit as good as my 135 c.c. Nouvo. In fact I even went through the trouble to do a very extensive comparison test of the two bikes by spending my hard earned money to rent the SX for two days. I got a friend of mine help me do the comparison test driving from Pattaya to Rayong and back, put the review up on my web site and put the link up here. However, I broke the rules of this forum by calling attention to my own web site. I could have played ball by cutting and pasting my review here, but I figured if anyone was interested they could just find it by themselves. That way I'd get both the credit and the blame for all my hard work I put into the few bike reviews I've done.

Why risk it? They say benzine 95 is either already available or coming soon almost everywhere in Thailand, so there is no need to put that awful stuff (gasohol) in your bike. The savings in baht over a year would be negligable, and it is reputed to get worse mileage anyway.

If you... believe that over 100 million cars in america are going to crap from gasohol. Then by all means spend that extra money. I am sure the oil companies wont complain.

The kind of cars I like - very old cars - probably are going to crap from gasohol. But none of this really has anything to do with the oil companies - its more of a political/agriculture boondoggle. I'm sure the oil companies would prefer to sell people what they actually want - plain, real gas (leaded too, for that matter), but the government and the agricultural constituency won't allow it.

Oh Yes...That evil government and agricultural constituency pared off against those benevolent oil companies. Did you know that in by 1918 farm prices for corn were up to $2.00 a bushel yet during the 1980's corn farmers often received less than $1.50 a bushel? Did you know that in 1980 U.S. President Jimmy Carter initiated a grain embargo against the Soviet Union that all but killed US. export grain exports with the sole purpose of punishing the Soviet Union for its invasion of Afghanistan? (lesson to be learned here that it's okay for the U.S. to invade Afghanistan but not okay for the Russians to do so) so that the American farmer could be the main weapon against the Soviets during the Cold War? Needless to say that grain embargo taught the entire world that the U.S. could not be considered a reliable grain farmer (the U.S. was producing roughly half the world's supply of corn) so not only did the U.S. lose its best customer, the Soviet Union, entire agricultural economies were created to compete with the U.S., notably in Brazil. The U.S. farmer was made into almost the sole offensive weapon against those evil Soviets as the U.S. consumer benefited by the resulting basement prices. Did you know that farmers were all but forced to sign into agriculture programs in which they had to raise non-revenue producing crops such as alfalfa and clover on 20 % of their corn acres which they then had to plow under after having to mow those cover crops with lawn mowers all summer long? I'd like to know where all these powerful agricultural constituencies were back then. May I suggest that if it weren't for gasohol that the American agricultural infrastructure would have been destroyed and that by now you could be buying all your grain overseas as well as nearly all your fuel and that you could now be paying a lot more for your food than you are now.

This little graph which I got from the Washington post should give you a hint of how good we Americans have had it compared to the rest of the world. Note that these figures are shares of expenditures paid out in several of the world's more affluent countries.

As for today's high grain prices, they have been caused by the worse drought in nearly 70 years and that has caused them to nearly double in a year's time. Your so called political/agriculture boondoggle had nothing to do with it.

A few months ago I bought a Nokia cell phone at Tuk Com. That thing was so unreliable friends could call me at the same table we were all sitting at and it wouldn't go off. So I took it back to a dealer stocking Nokia's and there I was informed it was Chinese. And it wasn't a Nokia licensed Chinese made phone. The reason they knew is that phone had features no Nokia had. I will blame this on 1. The Chinese for making and selling such a worthless piece of junk and 2. Those Thais who are supposedly responsible for keeping things legit at a supposedly legit computer and electronics center such as Tuc Com. So until Chinese motorcycle manufacturers compile an absolutely impeccable reputation for producing high quality bikes and they are backed by a network of dealerships that have earned a first rate reputation supporting such Chinese bikes, I'm going to be viewing Chinese bikes as tinker toys.

Just fifteen minutes ago I saw a post in our little chat room from a very good friend of mine who is leasing for one year at the View Talay condo next to the Central Shopping Mall. There are three elevators in the building and now one has been down and out for two weeks. The excuse is the Elevator is Chinese and that they are still waiting for the part. Needless to say it takes a lot longer for him to get up to his condo or downstairs due to the two remaining elevators jamming up. I've now been living in my condo for six and a half years now, and Thank God I bought from the Germans. We have had a number of elevator outages, but not once has the elevator been down for more than a few hours. The elevator company is Scandinavian and our condo community does have a monthly maintenance elevator contract. Let me check for a moment. Ah.....in 2009, we spent 38,092 baht on our single elevator--25,680 of it on the contract and the rest for a part. The key here is our condo committee which is Western clearly knows what it is doing (substitute here dealer) and it's willing to spend the money. Point two is the builder had the common sense to buy from a reliable company (Kone) which is certainly not Chinese.

I didn't go riding today and it is a slow day!

I thought importing carburetored bikes was forbidden by law. Obviously I am wrong. I think generally any bike built using or copying the Honda Cub is probably OK as all the parts are interchangeable. So if anything goes wrong it is a simple matter of taking it anywhere. to get fixed.

The problem occurs when bikes need proprietary spares. Then the question of dealer network and availability of parts becomes an issue. Some owners have problems with Tiger for instance but if I lived in Samut Prakan it would be OK. The same for Chinese bikes they are only as good as the network that supports them.

My observations about Chinese bikes comes from Indonesia. Someone would open a shop in the town and start selling cheaper bikes. As soon as the container(s) load of bikes were sold the shop would disappear. So the owners were left to fend for themselves.

The old adage is that "the bitterness of poor quality linger long after the sweat taste of low price has been forgotten". As long as potential customers of Chines bike remember that. Oh and "you get what you pay for"

Lets us not forget that Taiwan is not China, there are more Taiwanese or maybe even Korean scooters coming here. They should not be tarred with the same brush as the Chinese ones.

There are still bikes with carb officially produced or imported. Here some examples of threads about such low tech chinese (or thai made) bikes that are street legal:

Lifan Cross 200

Keeway Dorado 250

Keeway RKV 200

Platinum PX250

... there are some more

I don't know the reason why the Japanese manufacturers have stopped producing/selling similar bikes in Thailand. But there is still a lot of interest in such "low tech" bikes. Some people claim that quality of chinese bikes is getting better. Many people say quality is still very poor. Its important to have people talking about their actual experiences with there actual bikes. So we can compare the bikes/brands and keep ourselfes informed without falling back into stereotypes.

The latest Yamaha Fino is still manufactured and sold without fuel-injection, it also has an air-cooled engine and according to stats from the Department of Land Transport it's one of the most popular scooters in Thailand for the last few years.

Actual you can find a few more motorcycles/scooters that have a Japanese brand name badge which still use a carburetor...

Fino is probably on the last production run, yamaha

Will likely move to the newer economic fi engines in the

Ttx and the filano before long if they even keep making

The fino

Also the emissions laws will probably get stricter every

Year for bikes to fall into line with pollution figures

I would not buy a carb bike right now because injection is

Simply better

You are sure of that? I have just done another road test--this time pitting a pristine Yamaha Nouvo SX with FI against my Yamaha old fashioned 135 c.c. Elegance with its defunct carburetor on a 126 kilometer test loop through a variety of driving conditions.

I've had a total of one puncture since going mag wheel and tubeless with my Nouvo Elegance and even that was a small nail resulting in a tire that would slowly lose air (It never went flat). I had four or five flat tires when I was running spoked wheels with tubes on the Nouvo MX I had before the Elegance so there is no question in my mind that the mag wheel tubeless tire setup will result in far fewer flat tires.