The Yamaha XN125 Teo

July 12, 2007 at 7:27 pm | Posted in Uncategorized | 1 Comment
Tags: Scooters

In the brief three months between my old DNA getting stolen and buying my present DNA, I was the owner of this MBK Doodo, the French built version of the Yamaha Teo and a contender for the worst named scooter all time. (Doodo – part extinct bird, part product of a baby’s rear end!)

Now this bike would be considered a pretty sad affair by many but also had virtues over the DNA worth extolling here:

It kept the rain off
It kept my feet dry
It had a big, fat, comfy seat
It revved high so had a respectable speed for it’s 12hp with a firm and steady delivery
It had an excellent front brake, much better than the DNA
It had one of those shopping bag hooks (which I used and it was good.)
It was cheap
If I crashed it or it got stolen I would get over it (it had obviously already been crashed before I bought it)

Downside of all this of course is that it was just not funky!!! The bodywork was held together by plastic latches which had been roughly handled so they gaped and rattled. Parts took a month to come and you couldn’t easily reach the coolant as it was all sealed up. It was unsteady and too big for the sort of close filtering I do on the North Circular and there are no dedicated Yamaha mechanics around (who are any good) to keep it going.

I think what comes across is that this was a good bike let down by a lack of coolness. I would hope my next bike would have meany of the features described above and yet will be styled from the point of view that the first bite is with the eye.