Sinnis Terrain 125: MINI ADVENTURE

A fully equipped adventure bike for less than £2500? Can it be taken seriously?

Imagine you’re about to order a BMW R1200GS. And why not, because thousands do. You might decide to treat yourself and specify the Dynamic and Premium option packages, which add things like electronic suspension adjustment, keyless ignition, riding modes and clutchless shifting... and add £2935 to the price. For the same money, you could buy a complete, brand new adventure bike with enough change left over to run it for a year.

There’s a drawback of course – the Sinnis Terrain is a 125. At £2499 this is the smallest, cheapest adventure bike you can buy, and it’s either an incredible bargain or an overdressed charlatan. But it could also be riding a wave of small bike popularity. For years, people have been doing big trips on small bikes, but Nathan Millward took it into the mainstream with his Sydney to London ride by 110cc postie bike, and now it’s reached a new popularity.

There are practical reasons for downsizing too – these bikes are a lot cheaper to run and insure than a big bruiser, whether you’re doing an overland trip or not. And for riders trading down from a bigger machine, they’re a lot lighter and therefore that much easier to handle.

They should feel at home on the Terrain, because this is a 125 which looks and feels a lot bigger than it really is. For a start, every adventure bike styling box is ticked. There’s the full set of luggage (albeit plastic, not aluminium), crash bars front and rear, high pipe and even a front beak. When you throw a leg over and sit on it, you’re confronted by wide bars, big mirrors, a screen and handguards. And yet the seat is only 800mm off the ground, allowing me (30in legs) to get one foot flat on the tarmac.

The tiny engine doesn’t play a big role in any of this myth making. In fact, it’s cowering in the shadows, painted matt black and hiding behind a forest of crashbars and bodywork. Press the go button of course, and there’s no doubt that this is a 125cc single. It’s polite, friendly and quiet, derived from the old Suzuki GS 125, countless thousands of which have been churned out by China in recent years. Now with fuel injection to comply with Euro 4 emissions limits, it offers 11.5bhp, and they don’t quote a torque figure.

Around town, all is well. The Terrain is smooth and flexible at low speed, happy to trundle along in top of its five gears at 20-25mph. You don’t have the Transit eye view of a highseat adventure bike, nor the traffic beating slimness of a little 125, but it’s fast enough to get safely away from red lights, well balanced when filtering past queues and (I’m sure this helps psychologically) feels quite substantial.

So far so good, but out of town it’s a different story. The Sinnis accelerates up to 40mph or so reasonably quickly but the urge soon starts to tail off. At 150kg, it’s far lighter than any other adventure bike, but by 125cc standards is more weighty than the British Library. This translates into sluggish performance over 40-45, and the bike was flat out at an indicated 55mph, admittedly into a headwind on the A23.

Of course, stick to quieter A and B roads, be prepared to go at the bike’s own pace, and none of this matters so much. You’ll still have to stir the gears to keep up momentum on hills, but at 40-55mph it was all very pleasant, bopping along over the Sussex Downs. The Terrain’s a comfy ride, thanks to a decent seat, pliant suspension and an upright position, something else that gives it a big bike feel, while the screen does a good job of keeping wind blast at bay at these modest speeds.

It handles quite well too, and the wide bars mean it’s easy to tip into corners while the blocky CST tyres hang on to dry tarmac okay. How it would be with a pillion and full load of luggage on board I’m not so sure,

since there’s no pre-load adjustment on the rear shock (though the rebound damping can be tweaked).

It looks as if passengers get a good deal, with a largish seat and a backrest on the topbox, but even a svelte one would devastate performance.

Since the Euro 4 spec became compulsory last year, all new 125s not fitted with ABS must have linked brakes. On the Terrain, the pedal controls both front and rear discs while the lever operates an extra piston in the front caliper. It all works pretty well, not prone to premature locking up, though for hard stops I was using the lever as well.

A key selling point of the Terrain is that three-piece set of luggage, which is part of the standard package. It’s more weekend away capacity than anything else, with 24 litres in the topbox and left-hand pannier, and 18.5 litres in the right-hand one, whose space is invaded by the high-level silencer. It may be plastic, but you can’t expect aluminium at this price, and the panniers do have netting to keep your bits and pieces in place, while a bigger topbox, large enough for a full-face lid, is optional.

The Terrain does pretty well on its other details, with big clear mirrors, serrated foot pegs and a dash which includes an analogue rev counter, digital speedo, fuel gauge, clock and even a USB port.

Best of all for this sort of bike, it’s got a potentially massive range; the 14 litre tank should give a theoretical 300 miles – now that’s a bit of genuine adventure bike credibility. Terrain owners are already out there doing big trips – someone on Facebook had ridden to Slovenia and back – and meanwhile, the bike has become Sinnis’ best seller.