The Yamaha TTR125 might look like just another starter bike made for absolute beginners to
learn to putt around on, but what if I told you it's actually a good bike for the money,
even for a non-beginner.
Yeah, we'll talk about how surprised I've been with this thing, and much more in this
in-depth review of the Yamaha TTR125.
The TTR125 comes in 4 flavors.
The standard TTR125, which is the small wheel version with a 17" front, 14" rear, and
a drum brake in front.
The TTR125E, which adds electric start.
The TTR125L, which is the big wheel version with a 19" front, 16" rear, longer swingarm
and a disc brake in front.
And the TTR125LE, which is a TTR125L with electric start, an adjustable rear shock,
and adjustable preload on the forks.
My TTR is a 125L so that's what you'll see me riding throughout the video.
The TTR125 was released in the US in 2001, and there haven't been significant changes
other than changes to the plastics, fuel tank, and a switch to a two-cable throttle setup
in 2008.
So any year ttr125 will feature an 124cc, air cooled, motor, a manual clutch 5 speed
transmission, orifice damped front forks, and a rear monoshock with a linkage.
And let's start this review off by talking about the engine, transmission, and fuel efficiency.
The engine is an 124cc four-stroke, air-cooled,
single overhead cam, two-valve, wet sump single with a 1:1 bore to stroke ratio, a 20mm round
slide VM carburetor, and a manual 5 speed transmission.
In bone stock condition, the little air cooled motor is a little bit miserable.
It was a bit slow to warm up on cold starts, it ran okay at low RPM, but at wide open throttle
the power signed off immediately right at mid RPM, had a gnarly stumble at high RPM
and wouldn't even pull past the point of encountering that stumble.
Of course, this is just a typical case of California Green Sticker.
The airbox only has a tiny opening which just ruins fuel metering at anything more than
low RPM, so as always the fix is to cut a larger opening in the airbox and configure
the carburetor correctly.
If you look around on forums you'll see a lot of people fumbling around with jetting,
claiming to never be able to get rid of the high RPM stumble and then swapping to a different
carburetor to solve the problem.
In my case, I fixed the high RPM stumble completely by just dialing in the float setting, and
I bet this would be the solution for everyone else too.
Super easy, and the price to adjust the float is zero dollars.
Seems to me like a better solution than a carburetor swap.
Anyway, with the airbox opened up and the carburetor dialed in, this thing runs so much
better.
It starts so easy, a half of a wimpy kick will usually get it running.
And The low RPM performance is just stinking good for a little 125.
You really get some fun pull at low RPM on this bike.
Of course, the response when breaking open the throttle at low RPM is still numbed by
a very heavy flywheel effect, so it's never going to have anything close to a mean punch
off the bottom without internal modification.
But man, I also do love the heavy flywheel on this thing, and here's why.
The clutch on the TTR is ridiculously powerful for this size of bike.
And with so much reciprocating mass in the engine, you can give this TTR a little rev
combined with a nip of the clutch and then it's basically going to dump a metric buttload
of force into the transmission, which is great for blasting around turns or lofting the front
end to the sky.
It is really so much fun.
But it does have a downside for the actual target market of this bike, which is beginners.
That powerful clutch, which I love so much, has not been my wife's best friend.
The engagement on it is too powerful and too sudden for her to modulate.
100% of the time when starting in first gear, she will spin tire and take off like a shot.
It's hilarious from my perspective, but for an absolute beginner it could be frustrating,
so some TTR owners may want to buy a clutch perch with adjustable leverage to help smooth
out the clutch engagement.
The Mid RPM pull is clean but the power definitely doesn't ramp up much transitioning from
low end to mid range, and while the little thumper will rev to some crazy high RPMs,
it just doesn't pull very well past mid RPM.
It is definitely happiest in the low to mid RPM range.
And that is fine, because if you keep this thing at reasonable RPM, it should basically
last forever.
The only common weak point I've seen on little air cooled engines like this is the
cam chain.
They use a tiny bicycle drive chain style thing which can wear pretty quick if used
at really high RPM.
But since the TTR doesn't like to scream, it should be really solid.
Just keep oil in it and, like the Yamaha advertisements say, it should literally last decades with
very little maintenance.
The oil capacity, by the way, is 1.2 liters, which is a very healthy amount for a little
125.
It takes forever to really darken the oil, and I've never noticed the oil level drop
on the dipstick even after riding for hundreds of miles.
The only power plant maintenance you'll have to perform are oil changes, though rarely
with this sump capacity, cleaning the air filter, of course, valve clearance adjustments
once in a blue moon, I mean really really rarely since these valves really just should
not move, and you might occasionally have to un-stick the cable actuated enrichment
plunger on the carburetor, if you even use it.
Why Yamaha even went with a cable choke up to the triple clamps, I do not know.
That was just a silly move by Yamaha.
The 5 speed transmission is geared appropriately for the application.
First gear is way short and I just skip it when taking off, but I'm glad it's there
because second gear will run out of steam on some longer, steeper hills, and that's
where that tractor first gear comes in handy.
The bike will never run out of torque in the crawler gear.
It would rather loop out or break traction.
The rest of the gears are spread out in a fairly even, wide ratio fashion, which is
great for trail riding out here in the desert.
Fifth gear is tall enough that I haven't been able to top it out in the dirt, and it's
not such a long shot from fourth gear that it feels unusable.
On the pavement, fifth gear with stock gearing will get the bike to a maximum of about 53 MPH.
Gear changes are really easy too because the TTR uses a linkage for the shifter, which
helps with leverage.
As I already mentioned, the clutch on this bike is amazing, at least for me as an experienced
rider.
The grab is just excellent.
I can't stress how impressed I have been with it.
I have ridden this bike aggressively for hours on end on many occasions and the clutch has
never shown any sign of fading.
It is just rock solid.
It's actually puzzling how the clutch can perform so well when the lever pull is so
light and easy.
Even my wife can operate the clutch with one finger.
Fuel efficiency on the TTR with the carburetor dialed in is just great.
When I'm on the back, riding this thing as wildly as I can through the desert, the
bike achieves 47 miles per gallon.
With the 1.8 gallon tank, that gives me 84 miles of TTR lunacy, which is really about
all I can take in one day anyway.
Riding at a more normal pace, I get 63 MPG on the TTR.
So the bottom line on the little TTR motor: It needs a good uncorking and tuning in bone
stock form to have any decent performance.
Contrary to what you'll find in certain articles and forum posts, the stock carburetor
can be tuned to work very well.
Once uncorked and tuned it has surprisingly tractor-like characteristics for such a small
engine.
It has healthy low RPM power with a massive flywheel effect, which should be easy to use
for absolute beginners, minus the tendency to lurch really hard right off the start.
Higher RPMs are best avoided since the power drops off early.
The clutch and transmission are spot on, but the clutch is probably a bit aggressive for
a true beginner.
Fuel efficiency is good even when the bike is wide open the whole time, so fuel range
is good.
And of course, it's one of the most reliable things out there, so cost of running is extremely
low.
Suspension, brakes and handling So, the TTR125L is a mid sized bike with a
19" front wheel, 16" rear wheel, and a 32 inch seat height.
It is not intended to be used by a full size adult, but that has absolutely not stopped
me from doing almost everything that I do on my full size bikes, and I've found that
I enjoy the small size of the bike much more than I am frustrated by it.
Sure, I can't stand on the pegs for more than 10 minutes at a time without extreme
thigh burn, nor can I sit on the ultra narrow seat for more than 10 minutes at a time without
a reapplication of Preparation H, but this little bike is so fun and capable that it
is worth the pain and suffering.
With that being said, let's discuss the suspension components.
The front end includes 31mm, conventional, orifice damped forks with about 7 inches of
travel and no external damping adjustability,
With their basic damper rod design, there isn't much damping control going on in there.
They feel very loose and they bottom easily on every small bump when I'm riding it over
smooth terrain, but at the same time the damping doesn't blow off at all on sharp rapid hits
like riding over rocky areas so it becomes really harsh.
So the forks are too loose normally, yet too stiff on sharp hits.
You can easily adjust the total damping by using a different viscosity oil in the forks,
but it will always be difficult to tune out the harshness over sharp hits without some
sort of internal makeover like cartridge emulators or modified damper rods.
The heavy steel front rim also contributes to the harshness over rocks, and the heavy
front rim, smallish front tire, plus inability for the damping to blow off over sharp hits
makes front end pinch flats very common on this bike.
The 15 psi that I normally run in tubes out here is just not enough on this bike, so higher
pressure is needed and that also contributes to harshness in the front end.
So rocky trails where the suspension encounters sharp hits are the TTR's
worst enemy.
But, at the end of the day, do I really care about front end harshness on this little thing?
Not at all.
My wife does.
She gets annoyed at how the front end pings around through rocks, and that's a little
disappointing because that puts many trails out here off limits for her.
But personally, I just don't care about it.
The bike is so light and easy to control that it would probably be fine for me with half
the front end suspension that it currently has.
When I'm riding this bike, it bottoms through rolling bumps, it's harsh on sharp hits,
but I just absorb it all with my body suspension and I don't even think about the bike's
suspension. Not something I can really do on a full size bike, but on this little thing I can.
One thing I do think about on the front end is the dual piston hydraulic disc brake.
Because holy smokes, the little thing is good.
Riding this TTR through the tighter desert trails, I am just all smiles because I can
come into a turn hot and then slow down all at once so easily with one finger on that
excellent front brake.
At first I thought it might be too grabby for a beginner, but I've been having my
wife just use one finger on it and she hasn't had an issue tucking the front end.
If a beginner hopped on and tried to whole-hand grab the brake like you can on drum brakes,
it might get ugly.
One last noteworthy feature of the front end is the you-can't-screw-this-up style axle
clamping method.
The front axle just slides in and then a nut threads on the end.
The only way to pinch the forks with this front axle setup would be to use the wrong
spacers or wheel bearings, so people just learning how to wrench definitely won't
mess up the forks on this bike.
The rear end has an aluminum swingarm, a preload adjustable rear shock with a funky looking
linkage and about 6 and a half inches of travel, a 16" steel rim, and a drum brake.
The rear end hasn't been half bad in my experience.
Sure it kicks around a little bit, but it doesn't try to buck me off like the original
shock on my CRF230F did and I can easily keep it under control when I'm bouncing through
repeated bumps in the trail.
It's definitely not a high performance rear shock, but it's still pretty amazing that
Yamaha made 6 inches of travel at least controllable
The 16" rear wheel is fine, until you try to tackle loose hillclimbs.
That's when it becomes frustrating because it just doesn't have the same level of traction
and control as an 18" wheel.
But at least going down hills is fine, because the drum brake on the TTR is actually good.
It has plenty of grab for slowing the little rear wheel.
The only thing I don't like is the folding lever.
If my boot comes down on it at even a slightly awkward angle, the tip folds in and I'll
slide right off the lever.
It wouldn't be a bad idea to just weld the thing in place for more reliable braking.
So how is the overall handling on the TTR?
Well it is super light and it feels that way too.
It's very easy to throw around, and since it's small and light with a decent rear
shock it will rarely throw you around, except when you're trying to carry a lot of speed
through really rocky stuff.
The brakes are really good, and the less than full sized wheels are rarely a detriment to
performance.
The 125L even easily floats through sand and gravel washes out here in the desert which
I was really not expecting given that it doesn't have full size wheels.
That should be helpful for beginners because some bikes are just so prone to instability
and tucking the front end in washes, but the TTR is not.
Taller people won't be very happy on the TTR of course, but at 5 foot 10 inches I get
by without getting too frustrated with it.
By the end of the day I'm hanging my cartilage free knees off the tank shrouds to get home,
but with a smile on my face because it's worth it with how much fun this bike is.
Electronics and Lighting The non electric start models have an empty
stator with just an ignition circuit, so there is no electronics or lighting, but the models
with electric start have a fully wound stator for the charging circuit, and most people
are able to power a 35 watt headlight without running the battery dead.
I say most people because the battery staying charged or not does depend on what RPM the
bike is normally operated at.
The electric start model's stator and rectifier can be added to the kickstart only models
or the original stator can be wound, and either way you end up with quite a bit of juice to
play with when charging a battery isn't a concern.
I haven't messed with lights or dual sporting on my TTR, but I am sure a TTR125 dual sport
build would be one of the most fun things ever.
Price vs. Performance TTR125's can often be found for around $1000
in excellent condition, which is a pretty low price for a dirt bike.
But are they too far at the low end of performance to even be worth $1000?
Well, I timed my TTR on the desert course that I've run all of my bikes on to see
what kind of section times it would crank out.
It pretty much got totally annihilated when comparing the raw section times, which was
a little unfortunate because I was kind of rooting for the little TTR to kill some of
my previous times and turn my whole world upside down, because that would have been
a great video.
But, when we look at the section times using a price to performance ratio instead of the
raw times, the TTR proves to be worth every penny.
Sure, based on the average speeds it posted, it would literally be miles and miles behind
my full size bikes in a matter of minutes, but it scraped by with enough performance
to show that it is indeed completely worth it's price tag.
And of course, fun factor can't really be measured, but if I had to give my own personal
assessment, I'd say the TTR is an excellent value.
By the way, if anyone has any ideas on ways to measure, score and rank fun factor, I'd
love to hear your creative thoughts on that.
Final Opinion So the TTR125 is supposed to be a beginner's
bike, and here's what I think about it in that regard.
It will suit an absolute beginner very well.
The power is nice and mellow but with enough bottom end grunt to not bog down on every
little hill.
The suspension will feel really chattery going over rocks for a beginner just sitting on
the seat but that's just a good reason to learn the correct standing position.
And the brakes are quite powerful for the little thing but with a little bit of instruction
that shouldn't be an issue for too long.
Overall I think it's a good platform to learn the very basic stuff and get those first
good crashes out of the way, because the TTR is not fragile at all.
But I know for a fact, once those basics have been learned, people, especially kids, immediately
start pushing the limits and that's where TTR will get frustrating for them pretty quickly
with the low power and 7 inches of suspension travel.
which is fine because the TTR will usually get kicked to the side for a more serious bike
But when you come back to it after a little bit of experience, it will actually be hilariously good in the tighter trails and so much fun to play around on.
Anyway, the bottom line is that I have been really impressed with the TTR125.
Whether it's for a beginner or for an experienced rider looking for some old school zero maintenance
fun, I think the TTR is an excellent bike.
But this is all just a bunch of my own personal thoughts.
It would be great to hear yours down in the comment section.
Thanks for watching, and a huge thanks to my crew members on Patreon for helping out
with this video.
Respect THE BEAST
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