SUZUKI T125 STINGER

Steve Cooper rides the bike that almost broke him!

Road testing your own motorcycle raises any number of questions. Might the words written be biased, could they be overtly sympathetic, will they gloss over any shortcomings? Well, maybe, but you (the reader) has every right to know that facts and I have a responsibility to deliver the truth even if it is my bike. So in the twin spotlights of openness and honesty I’ll lay my cards on the table and say: I love and hate this glitzy little bike in equal measure. I adore its frankly bizarre lines, its strange looking engine and those crazy upswept exhausts with their cute end-cans but I hate it for the countless hours, days, weeks and years that it took to turn a total wreck into a viable classic motorcycle: as one of CMM’S readers put it, the bike fought me every step of the way. Even when fully sorted it was remarkably reluctant to actually run properly; it’d happily tick over but stubbornly refused to pull with anyone on-board. We had words and finally it agreed to run properly for the first time in 30 years. Last year saw Satan’s Suzuki Stinger finally hit the road; but enough preamble… In the camera’s eye is an early MKII, UK market, T125 that had previously been ridden into the ground by just two owners. Looking at the state of it and the relatively high mileage (circa 21,000) the bike had lived a hard life as a commuter machine, something Suzuki’s designers probably never foresaw. As a MKII the bike should sport painted, satin black exhausts and chrome tail pieces yet it’s running the diametric opposite. Why? Well when someone gifts you a set of freshly rechromed Stinger pipes it’s damn hard to say no! Oh, and of course the original pipes were heavily corroded and probably well past their sell by dates. If your perception of Stingers is that they all came with high braced bars and similarly supported front mudguards then, sorry to disappoint, but that wasn’t always the case. Detective work, Suzuki parts books and what was there when the bike was purchased confirm that the plainer front guard and the gently upswept bars are period, model, correct... Suzuki had a well-deserved reputation for adopting a mix-and-match parts approach! Suzuki Stingers are skeletally thin machines yet it’s not until you get close to one that it’s truly apparent just how diminutive they are. A moped on steroids is a fairly accurate description of them and stacked up against period rivals such as Honda’s CB125 or Yamaha’s AS1 they do look a little weedy. Much of this is an artefact of the almost

horizontal engine which looks like nothing else ever exported from Japan. By virtue of the laid down cylinders the upper frame rails can be set lower hence ‘anorexic racing snake’ profile. It’s been suggested that Suzuki cribbed the engine from Italian manufacturer Moto Rumi who used something similar in their Formichino scooter. Yes the general look is the same but there’s nothing inside a Stinger’s bowels that follows a Latin theme. Standing directly in front of or behind the bike shows just how thin the bike actually is. This is partially due to a total absence of side-panels, the oil tank takes their place on both aspects but even that is minimalist. The mass of electrical spaghetti below the seat on the left of the bike is the official site of the rectifier. Sharp-eyed readers will already have spotted that the bike in camera runs a modern unit instead of the OEM selenium plate device. The original unit was broken and replacement NOS rectifiers now well into treble figures; therefore my bike runs a modern solid-state version that costs a fiver! Ideally I would have liked to cosmetically refresh the old unit and fit it, mounting the modern one in some hidden location. On a Stinger such a place simply does not exist. Those signature exhausts swoop down, then up and out from the barrels only to immediately turn from here again to nip in surprisingly close to the frame only minimally impacting upon the rider’s legs. And protecting said limbs are a pair of pressed metal heat shields that are the very devil to polish and rechrome let alone replace. Know that a single, NOS, heat shield has sold for more than a hundred quid… this if the price of Stinger ownership. Oh, and once the exhaust are fitted access to the carburettors’ air screws is limited at best or decidedly cramped and hot at worst. The top-end of the motor is narrow, leaving only the tiniest air gap between the pots whose inner edges rather worryingly carry no cooling finning whatsoever. Adding to the motor’s unique look is a frankly huge carbuncle of painted alloy on the left-hand side that houses the 6V, AC, generator. The bulk of the gearbox sits between the rear engine mounts where five ratios are somehow massaged in a space used for just three on the TC120 that utilises the self-same frame. If you’re beginning to think that Suzuki crammed a quart into a pint pot, few