NC500 on a 125cc bike? And camping?
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- Опубліковано 18 лис 2024
- Having watch some UA-cam videos of other bikers doing a tour on 125s of the Yorkshire dales ( look for Teapotone, Richy Vida and Mr Fish) I decided to tackle the NC500 in the same style. So I bought myself a Suzuki VanVan 125 and my Dad came along on his Honda CD175 and off we went. I decide to go camping to make it a bit harder as we would need to be careful with how much we could take.
Was it all a big mistake? Should we have just done it on our Triumph Tigers?
Thanks for sharing. I am a 125er and it is thrilling to know the NC500 is possible on a smaller bike.Well done man!!!..😍
I’d prefer to go and get another 125 to do it again than do it on a bigger bike. Have you watched the 125 adventure with Teapotone, Mr Fish and Richie Vida? It’s a good watch
advantages of125s are many.relaxing ride /safe,100 mpg and high acheivement level.also weight saving as well.you have time to view better. i had a honda forza 125 and enjoyed it more than my triumph 900 america..travel times only 20% longer. 120mpg other 43 mpg.also a fraction of the cost to maintain also.bikers often blank out those on 125s and think they are stupid or poor. it can cost 3 times the overall cost of a bigger bike compared to a 125.I,am not stupid or poor either.so 2 wheels are for all.
A small bike is definitely worth considering, especially if it’s a second bike. As much as I love the smaller bikes, there is a time and a place for the bigger ones too. I think that the 250cc bikes could be the sweet spot. Around 20-25 hp and somewhere around 150 kg in weight. Enough power to get you to 55/65 mph quickly and stay there, but not hooligan speeds. I suppose it’s down to how you want to ride and what bike suits the roads you plan to travel.
@@highlandroadrunner hi,also now have forza 300.90mph/90mpg. fitted top box/heated seat and grips etc i go with a motorcycle club and it keeps up no probs at all.regards tony
I prefer the looks of the ADV but to be honest I’d love to get my hands on either for a week. They look good fun. FortNine did a good video on the Suzuki Burgman 650. Bit of a different bike I know, but it was more how fun it looked to ride. An automatic with a good bit of power too
I’ve got a DR125, a Voge 300 Rally and a Honda 500X. I love riding the 125 around locally on and off road and have taken it camping a few times once at 1000m in mid winter. It’s not as good as either of the others when it comes to tackling long distances with camping gear. In a game of Top Trumps the Honda would win every time except in the more challenging off road section. It’s the most comfortable, the one with the best wind protection, the one with the best range and the fastest. It’s also able to carry more camping gear comfortably, covers the distance more easily and best of all it’s the most economical. Good things do come in small packages but there’s a difference between being good and being the best.
I did the nc500 clockwise end may, start jun on my 2021 cb125f as part of a 1504 mile in 7.5 day scotland tour staying in a mixture of youth hostels, backpackers and hotels. it was great, i had perfect weather and the bike never missed a beat. I didn't need a bigger machine and couldn't have enjoyed it any more on anything else anyway. Thanks for the vids and making it easy to relive the trip, next year i think i'll do it anticlockwise. To anyone with any worries about touring on a small bike i'd say don't, all you need is a 'can do' attitude and everything falls into place but at almost 62 with a bad back it did ache a bit at times lol. GL
Just done it clockwise on my Honda Super cub 2022 in two days including the Applecross pass, overnight at Ullapool camping, to say I was soaked would be an understatement so a four day tour ended up as a two day epic, 900 plus miles starting and finishing in Lanark ML11. It is more fun and easier on the smaller bike especially the pass. I do not think I could have done it easily on my Rebel 1100 it is a bit heavy to muscle over the pass and the narrower cub was easier to pass on the single track roads, I carried about 27kg of luggage, two saddlebags and a top bag as the new 2022 Cub can carry a passenger for a total weight limit of 150 kg so I was under the maximum using the passenger seat as a base for the top bag.
Nice one! I originally wanted to do it on a Honda CT125 but then they never released it. It’s great on the smaller bikes when you’re nipping past the campervans.
Shame the weather wasn’t the best for you, but you’ll still have a story to tell.
Best smiles per mile I've seen so far. Fantastic vid.
Thank you. It was a great run and we really enjoyed it. Glad you enjoyed it
Great video mate, love the bike choice, the scenery, the commentary. Got me looking at photos of my old '99 Honda CG125, stuffed away in storage waiting for me to get it back on the road some day.
Thank you very much!
The Van Van is a bike I’ve always like the look of so it was a good excuse to buy it and get it off the Motorbike Bucket List!
Hopefully I’ll get the second part out this weekend or next
@@highlandroadrunner Yeah a mate of mine had a VanVan for her 125 days and she loved it, they're good little bikes.
@@TheSpectre223 there is definitely a place for a small bike. Would love to try a Van Van 200 to see if it has the extra oomph that the 125 lacks. I’m convinced that the perfect small bike is about 150kg with 20hp-30hp and a low seat height. Pity there isn’t a Van Van 250!
I had a red CD175 back in the day, a great little bike that took me all over the place.
It wasn’t really my taste in bike but I had a wee shot of it a couple of days before we headed off. Really liked it. I thought about doing a video on it but it was sold before I ever got round to it.
Excellent and love it someone local.
Doing this on my kymco visar 125 start of July 2022. Can’t wait. Over 4 days clockwise.
I hope you have a great time and the weather is good for you.
@@highlandroadrunner thanks and I’m looking forward to getting cracking now as I don’t seem to be completely daft for doing it on my wee 125. Looking at luggage systems that don’t interfere as my hip flexibility is shit on my right due to an old hernia op gone wrong. Can’t swing my leg high so just side bags only.
I would love to do the trip again on a small bike. Maybe a 250cc or a classic bike. When you get to the single track roads you’ll be glad of having a small light bike to get round a car. Hopefully I’ll have part 2 out before you go. Some lovely bits of road between Ullapool and Melvich where we camped the second night. I hope you find the right kit for your bike to take luggage
@@highlandroadrunner aye, I’m looking at that now. Trying to find a suitable format to work for me
i agree with your comments,have a zontes 310m scooter now.its brilliant honest.i see you have a voge 300 rally also looking to add one of these but is itwise i thought the zontes was risky however great choice.my advancing years means i need somthing light .regards and thanks
This is really inspiring! Me and my cousin are wanting to do the run im on a pioneer navada torro 125 and she is on a yamaha YBR 125, where coming up from morpeth but we had worries which held us back
Wow, that will be an adventure just to get up to the Highlands to start the NC500! I keep telling people I want to do it again on a small bike. I’d be happy to do it on a 125 but I might do it on something a bit bigger. I like the new Royal Enfield 350 range.
As long as you give yourself plenty of time, I did it in 3 days but my job takes me along most of the route and you may want to stop and site see on your way up. We had issues booking some campsites because there was still some covid restrictions but you should have that issue now. Book everything well in advance if you can, whether you are camping or booking rooms.
I started just outside bradford and day1 was through the dales, i.e hawes, kirby stephen, carlisle and then to falkirk taking a look at the wheel before staying at stirling youth hostel, a distance that was 240 miles. i left about 6.15am and was in stirling by about 4.30pm. day 2 was about 185 miles to skye and then day3 onto the nc500 'proper' mid morning. there's totally no worries m8, but if you are doing it this time of year take midge precautions, especially the west coast. GL
Cracking video Highland Roadrunner 👏👏
My 1st bike 30 yrs ago was that exact colour. I wish i still had that sidney😊
I think it was a special colour scheme they did that year as a nod to the older bikes. I liked it but often got a comment about it being a “pink” bike. Wish I kept it though
Would love to do this but for me its 600 miles just to get their as in south of England which is a bit off-putting.
Funnily, there are a few places that I’d like to ride round in the south of England 😆 so I get where you’re coming from. I’ve seen videos of people who have put their small bikes in the back of a van and just started the NC500 from Inverness
Amazing. Any chance you could share your route? Am picking up my 125 next week and this is so on my bucket list!
Thank you.
You can get the NC500 map online but I’ll try and do some sort of map for the route we took on my next video if I figure out how to do it.
@@highlandroadrunner you can export and share as a gpx file. Then everyone can use whatever app they normally use for riding. Would be great as you had an amazing journey
I’ll look into it. I’m not the most tech savvy person. I’ve never even heard of a gpx file, I had to look it up!😆
@@highlandroadrunner if you ever need help with anything on the channel, let me know. I'm quite savvy with the old Adobe. Not a problem.
I'm planning this next year did you go clockwise or anti clockwise and did you stay at camp sites or at the side of the road? Any info would be much appreciated
Yes we went clockwise and stayed in campsites. First night was in Ardmair just north of Ullapool. Made it easy to nip back to Ullapool for dinner at night but there is a campsite in Ullapool itself. It was fully booked so that’s the only reason we went to Ardmair. Still a nice site though. Second night we stayed in a campsite in Melvich on the north coast, about 30min east of Thurso. It has a pub/restaurant on site
U sound like a Viking 😂🤣
This is my favourite message I’ve had on UA-cam! 😁
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