After reviewing the Honda Click 125 I wanted to Road Test Honda Click 125, Yamaha Nouvo 125 SX and the Yamaha Nouvo 135 using a stop watch while recording actual gas mileage results.

Sure, I had already reviewed the Yamaha Nouvo 125 SX and Yamaha Nouvo Elegance 135, but a Road test of Honda Click 125 and its two chief rivals would settle the issue once and for all.

Which of these three 125 class motorbikes is the best all-around bike?

in my review of the Yamaha Nouvo 125 SX and the Yamaha Nouvo 135 Elegance,  I found both bikes to be excellent.  And that they outclassed the Honda Click in most respects. But the Honda Click had so much acceleration  that my good friend PlOne commented to me.  “The Honda Click is much faster than my Yamaha Nouvo SX.”

So before returning the Honda Click to the bike rental shop, I borrowed  PlOne’s  Nouvo SX to see how slow it felt in comparison.  PlOne was correct. The Click accelerated like a sling shot at city traffic speeds.   Whereas it would take a while to wind up the power on the Nouvo SX. But PlONe also commented that he felt the Honda Click 125 i accelerated more quickly than the Yamaha Nouvo 135’s he rented before purchasing his Nouvo 125 SX.

But when I rented the Honda Click 125, I timed the bike’s acceleration , from zero to 50 kph and 0-80 kph. I had never done accelerations runs on 125 c.c. class bikes before.

No one was doing acceleration times for small 125 c.c. bikes before.  So I decided to do what no one else was doing.  It was time to Road Test Honda Click 125 against the Yamaha 125 Nouvo SX and the Nouvo Elegance 135

But using a cell phone to test the Click’s acceleration had proved problematic. So I  purchased a Seiko stopwatch from Amazon.  Which would be much easier to use while driving a small motorcycle on a busy motorway in Thailand.

I just had to stop watch my beloved Yamaha 135 Elegance to see if it really was slower than the Honda Click 125. I could find just one horsepower rating for the Honda Click 125 on the Internet.  11.7 horsepower.   Finding out how much horsepower my Yamaha 135 Elegance had was  easy.  Because Yamaha is not squeamish about publishing horsepower figures.  According to Yamaha the 135 c.c. Elegance produces 11.2 horsepower.   If these figures are accurate,  the Click has one half horsepower more than my Elegance.  Which  would tend to substantiate PlOne’s claim that the Click seemed the faster of the two bikes.

I was also having reoccurring thoughts about two other characteristics of the two Yamaha Nouvos.

The first one was my thinking that the new fuel injected Yamaha Nouvo SX lacked the range that I felt it needed because of its comparatively smallish 4.3 liter fuel tank. The second was the commonly held perception that the carburated 135 c.c. Yamaha Nouvo Elegance was a gas hog compared to its fuel injected competition.

And yet, my Yamaha Elegance had matched the PCX 125.  As well as the PCX 150, and the Yamaha 125 Nouvo SX.   At least in highway fuel economy.  Because all four of the bikes turned in fuel economy figures exceeding 100 miles to the gallon.

But city driving in Pattaya would be different with all the traffic jams, speed bumps and having to wait for stop lights to turn green to contend with. But as frugal as it had been on the highway, I believed that my Nouvo Elegance could not compete with the Honda Click 125 and the fuel injected Yamaha Nouvo 125 SX’s fuel efficiency in city driving conditions.

When PlOne was purchasing his new Yamaha Nouvo SX,  the salesman told me the new fuel injected bike would easily outdo the older carburated model for fuel economy in the city.  But he also told me  there wouldn’t be much difference driving in highway conditions.

The German bike rental shop owner had told me the Honda Click would get 100 kilometers from 2 liters of fuel compared to 2.5 for the Nouvo SX and 3 for the Nouvo Elegance.

In earlier gas mileage tests my Nouvo Elegance 135 had managed only 32.33 kilometers to the liter. I felt this figure to be very accurate since I had gone through several tankfuls of fuel and diligently recorded the results.

But my girlfriend had been riding behind me most of the time I had been testing my Elegance’s fuel economy thus adding close to 45 kg to the weight. Obviously a complete retest for city fuel economy was necessary.

I also had a theory that Yamaha had stuck with its “antiquated carburated 135 c.c. Elegance  for four years because it knew it had a winner.

So why fix what had never been broken?  But I really didn’t have any real data to support this theory.

And it  wasn’t that Yamaha was new to fuel injection. After all, it had been selling 125 c.c. and 250 c.c. fuel injected X Max models in Europe for years.  Not to mention 500 c.c. T Max’s in the U.S.

I also didn’t believe the German shop owner when he told me the  Nouvo Elegance could only get 3 liters per 100 kilometers to the Honda Click’s 2 liters.  Because the man also told me the Honda Click had only a 2.5 liter fuel tank.

And when I showed him a spreadsheet on which I had typed in the tank capacity of 5.5 liters for the Honda Click, he crossed  the 5.5 liter figure out.  And wrote above it 2.5 liters.

This really surprised me because the owner runs a first class bike rental shop which provides meticulously maintained rental bikes. Which is about what one expects from one  from most Germans.

Then the German’s ex partner reappeared on the horizon while eating at a restaurant on Naklua Soi 33. He still had his bike rental shop there, and most of his rentals were Yamaha Nouvos, either Elegances or fuel injected SX’s. And although he had a Honda PCX or two available his personal bike of choice was a Yamaha Nouvo SX 125.

This German rental motorbike  shop owner had no use for a Honda Click or any other floorboard style motor scooter.

I had always liked the man, having known him for nearly seven years. And I even knew where he lived. He’s an East German who once told me how years ago he had tried to get past the Berlin Wall when East Germany was Communist.  He told me the East German police had caught him and put him in jail (luckily he hadn’t been shot).   But his friends had bailed him out.

Even though this had been an unlikely story, I half believed him. Because through the years I found him to be one of these really happy go lucky Germans.

While we talked over possible bike rentals, the East German walked behind one of his Nouvo Rentals.  Then he told me, “Look.  Two shocks.  Honda Click has only one.  Not strong.”

Yeah, my thinking exactly. I had finally found someone who knew what I already knew.

When I asked him about the fuel economy of a Nouvo SX 125 versus the 135 Nouvo Elegances, the East German just shrugged his shoulders and said, “Same Same.”

I decided I would rent from him.  And wound up renting a Yamaha Nouvo SX 125 for four days. By renting for such an extended period, I figured I could really do a thorough road test.  While getting a real good feel for Yamaha’s newest creation so I could later decide when it was time to get a new bike.  The biggest question I kept wrestling with was “Will a little 125 satisfy me.  When there are larger alternatives available.  Such as Honda’s PCX 150, Honda’s 150 SH or even  a Honda CBR 250 or even a new CBR 500?”

Four days living with Yamaha’s 125 Nouvo SX

To put the experience into just five words, “I loved that little bike.” One week earlier I had rented still another Honda Click 125 on Koh Larn Island.  This time for two days.  And found that the seat did not latch properly without a great deal of coaching. This was the second out of two Honda Click rentals that had seats that failed to close properly.  Moreover, the turn indicators were badly located.  Which made the process of signaling for a left or right turn to be very unintuitive.

I was now starting to realize that Yamaha was making better bikes than Honda.  I had never driven a Yamaha motorbike that had exhibited such poor attentiveness to detail.

But one drives at low speeds on Koh Larn.  So the Honda Click’s handling was adequate for those two days. But there is no way that I could be satisfied driving a Honda Click through the variety of driving conditions I had been putting this new Yamaha 125 SX rental through. I found the little bike to be an enormously satisfying mount.  No matter what I tried to do with it.

But the Yamaha Nouvo 125 SX was not fast.  On route 36 on the way to Rayong I managed to do zero to fifty kilometers per hour in 7.51 seconds.  Whereas the Honda Click took just 6.3 seconds.

The Yamaha Nouvo SX took 12.16 seconds to get from zero to eighty kilometers per hour versus 10.39 seconds for the Honda Click 125.  I do want to mention that for most of us getting good acceleration up to 50 kph is much more important than it is getting good times up to 80 kph. This is because when you really think about it, when you are driving in such cities as Pattaya when you go much faster than 50 kph you feel as if you are really flying and that it starts to get really unsafe going much faster than 30 miles per hour.

The thing is one doesn’t really feel that one is being deprived by the Yamaha Nouvo SX’s apparent lack of power. The power still seems to be there, but only when you want it. But it has more than enough power on tap. One simply reels it in by twisting the grip. In passing situations around Pattaya the bike performed splendidly.

Even while I was doing the timed acceleration runs on route 36, I really couldn’t’ detect any difference between the Honda Click and the Nouvo SX. Only the stopwatch showed a real difference.

The Nouvo SX has an interesting little gadget that’s a lot of fun to play with. That is, its little on board computer that resides in the instrument cluster.  The 135 c.c. Yamaha Elegance has a simple gauge array  of a speedometer, odometer, and water temperature gauge.  Not only is  the Yamaha Nouvo SX’s  little on board computer fun to play with.  It also provides a lot of useful and interesting feedback on what kind of fuel economy one is getting.

One can set it to measure fuel economy at any instant in time.  Or  set it to register fuel mileage for his current trip. But the most addictive feature of this on board computer is that you can set it to constantly record the bike’s fuel efficiency.

For example, as soon as the bike starts to go up a slight incline the digital display might go from 2.0 (liters per 100 km) to 2.5. Or if I ease up slightly on the throttle the digital display might go from 1.8 to 1.2

. This thing is a blast to watch and it really does help the driver smooth out his driving technique so that he can get better fuel economy. I found myself constantly trying to drive the little SX with a more constant application of the throttle than I had been doing with my Yamaha Elegance.

I started to notice that the SX was averaging 2.1 liters per 100 kilometers.  Which is a far cry from the 2.5 the first German rental shop owner had been telling me.

One thing I noticed about the Nouvo SX is that it seemed to inspire its driver to drive smoothly and sedately.

The bike’s handling is top notch. It’s so enjoyable to drive.   And the more one gets used to it the more it feels part of your body. However, when I first got on it, I could detect a very real difference in this bike’s handling and my Nouvo 135 Elegance’s.

The SX’s front wheel felt lighter, not as firmly planted and not nearly as precise. But if there was any lack of preciseness in the bike’s handling the lack went away as I started to get used to the bike and began to appreciate its charming ways. The reason for all of this was the over sized aftermarket tires I had installed on my Elegance. These were Michelin Pilots that were roughly 14 % wider than the bike’s stock tires. I also suspect they are of a softer rubber compound than the Nouvo’s stock tires.  Which offers superior handling at the expense of less longevity. I would rate the SX’s handling and overall feel as excellent even with its stock tires.  But I have to rate my modified Nouvo Elegance’s handling as superlative.

So I took the Nouvo SX back on my fourth day’s rental out in the  middle of a pouring rainstorm.  Which was flooding many of the city’s streets.

The rain got so bad that I walked to a nearby restaurant on high ground.  And called my girlfriend to get me on her motorbike. After a few minutes she called me back to tell me that the street we normally took had flooded.  The water had gotten so high that she decided to take a different route and meet me somewhere else.  Which forced me to walk a kilometer away from the restaurant.

My girlfriend’s bike is a Yamaha Filano which rides on 12 inch diameter wheels and tires. Certainly my Nouvo Elegance is a far superior bike  through flooded streets with its much larger diameter 16 inch wheels and tires. Moreover, there’s several speed bumps I’ll ground out on if I’m driving her Filano, and it doesn’t matter how slowly I drive it to cross those speed bumps.

The Filano simply lacks the ground clearance to be up to any Yamaha Nouvo when it comes to crossing obstacles or getting down flooded streets.

And then there’s those times that I need to drive over curbs. Those situations do not occur very often but they do occur. I’ll take a 16 inch diameter wheel and tire anytime over anything that has 12 or 14 inch wheels and tires.

This now brings us to the subject of my Yamaha Nouvo Elegance. It had performed astonishingly well for fuel economy in highway driving conditions.  But not so well in stop and go city driving conditions.

But the Yamaha Nouvo SX had achieved an overall average of 44.5 kilometers to the liter in four days. That’s over 100 miles to the gallon in the city.

Which means that all those know it alls who claim small automatics get miserable fuel economy have no idea of what they are talking about. The fuel injected Yamaha Nouvo 125 SX wound up registering   2.1 liters per 100 kilometers on its on board computer.

So theoretically according to the computer I was getting 47.61 kilometers to the liter which meant that the computer was 7 % too optimistic. However, unlike both the Honda Click 125 i and the Honda PCX, the Yamaha Nouvo SX 125 lacks the stop start switch that shuts the bike’s engine down while the bike is stopped at traffic lights idling at stoplights.  Therefore it’s using fuel while there is no simultaneous registering of miles being driven.  Since there are none. The bottom line from my road tests–the Yamaha Nouvo SX’s on board computer is pretty accurate. But now I would use the Nouvo SX’s on board computer  to  improve on the 32.33 kilometers per liter I had gotten with my Nouvo Elegance in my earlier city driving fuel economy tests .

My more immediate concern was to see how fast my Yamaha Nouvo Elegance could get up to 50 kph, and then 80 kph.

So once again I headed out to route 36 on the way to Rayong. This time there was less traffic than I had encountered while testing the Honda Click 125’s acceleration. With the Click it had been a one shot deal due to all that heavy traffic I encountered. And also the fact that I was using my cell phone for a stop watch.  Which had given me at least one false reading.

The Seiko stopwatch was so much easier to use than the cell phone.  The cell phone had almost fallen out of my hand while I was testing the Honda Click. The stopwatch had a lanyard that I wrapped around my wrist.  And its start-stop button was large enough for me to be able to feel it while I concentrated on the road ahead of me.

On the zero to eightly kilometer runs I recorded times of 12.56, 11.79, 10.54, and 11.72 seconds for an average time of 11.65 seconds which about splits the difference between the Honda Click and the Nouvo SX. However, on my two runs up to 50 kph I got 5.75 seconds and 5.41 seconds out of my Nouvo Elegance.  Both times being superior to the 6.3 seconds the Honda Click 125 had managed.

I ended up doing close to 100 kilometers on my Yamaha Elegance over several days of testing.  This took just 2.17 liters of fuel.  So I had used less than half of my tank to travel a considerable distance.  I had to negotiate around a lot of city traffic.

I got 41.9 kilometers to the liter with the Nouvo Elegance’s larger 135 c.c. engine.  With its  stone age carburetor.  That’s a far cry from the 32.33 kilometers per liter I had gotten before.

I can attribute this huge discrepancy to two reasons. Number one.  I didn’t have my girlfriend riding with me.  So the Yamaha’s engine was contending with roughly 45 kilograms less weight.  Number two.

 I was trying to drive the Nouvo Elegance in the same type of driving conditions I had encountered with the Nouvo 125 SX and I was trying to drive the Elegance the same way I had been driving the Nouvo SX 125.

For example…I was not trying to accelerate unnecessarily with either bike.  This habit of not trying to give the bike any more throttle than I had to had been induced by the little on board computer I had so much fun playing with on the Nouvo SX.

From the Road Test Honda Click 125, Yamaha Elegance and Nouvo SX

I learned that the Honda Click 125i and Yamaha Nouvo Elegance 135 are both slingshots when it comes to acceleration at lower speeds.  Say up to 30 miles per hour or so.  But the Yamaha Nouvo 125 SX isn’t. The power just doesn’t seem to be on tap as it is on the other two bikes.  Yet it is there, ready to be reeled in when needed. But the Nouvo Elegance in particular seems to be always on the boil while driving in the city.  With its torque right there providing instantaneous acceleration.  And it is constantly inviting its driver to hit the throttle by being willing to respond with an immediacy that makes the engine seem even larger and more powerful than it already is.

From the specifications I’ve compiled from a variety of web sites, it appears that the torque of the Yamaha Elegance 135 exceeds the fuel injected 125’s by just 1.2 %. However, both the seat of the pants feel and stop watch measurements, especially from 0-50 kph would seem to put the Elegance much father ahead than that.

My opinion is that Yamaha deliberately tuned the 135 Elegance to deliver superior torque and acceleration at the lower speeds that are common to city driving.

Keep in mind that 0-80 equates to about 50 miles an hour. You just never make use of it in cities such as Pattaya.  Because driving 30 miles an hour already seems a bit too fast. So when Yamaha engineered the 135 Elegance it engineered it exactly right for the kind of driving most of us do in city conditions.

Recently, in my opinion, Yamaha decided that it was starting to lose sales to other manufacturers such as Honda. It had a terrific little bike, knew it, and stayed with its carburated Elegance line for four years.

But out of total ignorance and the inability to think for themselves, many potential customers started to back off from Yamaha in the mistaken belief that fuel injection automatically provided superior fuel economy and horsepower to carburetors.

And in the case of the Elegance, it might have seemed that way.  Since the 135’s superior torque and low speed acceleration was constantly inviting drivers to tap into all that power. After all, it’s really a lot of fun twisting that throttle of the 135.  While feeling the bike surge like a much more powerful machine than what it really is. That’s the reason I was able to get only 32.33 kilometers per liter in my previous tests. But this time I kept resisted the urge to accelerate convincingly around slower moving vehicles. charge up hills, or just accelerate with authority simply because it felt good.

The Yamaha Nouvo Elegance 135 will get excellent fuel economy provided that the driver does his part. It’s just that it’s a lot easier for the driver to get outstanding fuel economy with the 125 Nouvo SX than it is with its carburated sibling.

But I doubt if the carburetor had anything to do with it. Yamaha always had a great engine in the 135. I don’t know how much better fuel economy it can get over its predecessor the air cooled 115 c.c. Yamaha Nouvo MX.  But I had one, and drove it 13,000 kilometers before replacing it with the 135 Elegance.  Although I never measured the fuel economy of the Nouvo MX, I knew that the Elegance delivered far superior fuel economy while delivering over 25 % more power.

One thing I find disturbing about the Nouvo 125 SX is Yamaha decreased the size of the fuel tank from the Nouvo Elegance’s 4.8 liters to a 4.3 liter tank.    I view this as a step in the wrong direction.

When we are comparing two motorbikes that  get over 100 miles to the gallon , the dollars saved  is really meaningless.

What is more important is range. And when it comes to highway driving where the 125 Yamaha SX and the 135 Yamaha Nouvo Elegance turned in identical fuel economy numbers, at a figure of 50 km/liter, the Elegance will get 25 kilometers farther down the road than the Nouvo SX.  And a Honda 150 PCX with its even larger 5.9 liter fuel tank will have 80 kilometers more range than the Yamaha SX.  Provided both bikes are getting 50 kilometers per liter, which is easily obtainable for all the bikes I have mentioned.   Whether it’s the Honda Click 125 i, the Yamaha Nouvo Elegance, the Yamaha Nouvo SX 125, or either the 125 or 150 PCX .

Probably the greatest virtue of the Honda Click 125 i is that it has a 5.5 liter fuel tank which will probably give it the same range as the larger Honda PCX 150.

Its second greatest virtue is its speed. If what I am reading is true, Honda stuffed the Honda PCX 125’s engine into the smaller and lighter Click.  Which must make it one of the fastest 125’s around. Keep in mind the 125 PCX is already a good highway bike even if it is eclipsed by the 150 PCX.  And with a weight of around 280 pounds compared to a Honda Click’s 246 pounds the Honda Click 125 will be noticeably faster.

The main disadvantage of the Yamaha Nouvo Elegance 135 is its carburator but not for the reasons that you might suspect. It’s got one helluva carburator setup, one that offers great fuel economy and excellent power and driveability.

The problem is if you let the Elegance sit around for anything longer than 3 days it starts to get harder and harder to start due to gasoline settling in the carburetor.

If you go back to your home country for several weeks and return to Thailand, you will find that it’s going to take a lot of cranking of your bike’s starter to get your bike moving again and your battery might just wear down before you get done doing it. So far, knock on wood, I could always restart my Elegance on the bike’s battery.  And I never had to resort to the bike’s kick starter. But if worse comes to worse, I’ll always get it started one way or the other.

Getting back to that issue I have made about range, most of us aren’t going to be doing a lot of highway driving. I could do a lot of city driving with the Yamaha Nouvo SX without using more than half a tank of fuel so the problem is not nearly as severe as I suspected. Nevertheless, I think Yamaha should have increased the Nouvo’s gasoline tank’s capacity instead of decreasing it, and if there was any improvements I’d wish Yamaha would make on succeeding models I would prefer that it would offer increased tank capacity over any horsepower increases it might make.

 The new Yamaha Nouvo 125 SX is the finest all around bike for most driving conditions in Thailand.

It really offers everything a person realistically might need.  And if he thinks he needs something bigger, I think he’s dreaming. Okay…the PCX 150 is definitely bigger, and it’s certainly got more power.  And it is going to be a better motorbike out on the highway trying to keep up with car traffic.  But the Yamaha Nouvo 125 SX is big enough and competent enough to be driven all over Thailand. But I suggest you don’t. Just one example should suffice to explain why.

 I didn’t have any problems doing my zero to fifty and zero to eighty kph runs with my Nouvo Elegance.  But I was almost killed afterwards.

On the way home on the motorway, I found I had a choice between veering off the road to the left which would have taken me further South into Pattaya or traveling straight which would have taken me to Sukamvit at the Pattaya Nua intersection.  Which would take me directly into Naklua.  So I went straight, accelerating to about fifty miles an hour.   I  just didn’t want to hold up traffic behind me.  As there was no shoulder to get onto and I was already in the slow lane.

But an idiot wanted to pass me who simply couldn’t wait.

He wanted to turn left.  So he zoomed ahead of me and then he cut to the left.  So that he could veer off onto the road that would take him away from Naklua.  The moron pulled right out in front of me almost colliding with me as he suddenly swerved to the left ahead of my bike.

It was a very close call, and it was almost certainly caused by a Thai driver who had no respect for human life,  driving carefully, or with consideration. I will also mention now that three times Thai drivers have passed me on the shoulder of the road while I was driving my Honda Civic in the right lane at over 65 miles an hour.  And that each time I was forced way off to the left to avoid the accident the other driver was about to cause. This is what I call driving with homicidal intent. It goes beyond driving stupidly or negligently.

It is because far too many Thai drivers drive with homicidal intent. As well as too many unqualified drivers  that now causes me to not even consider buying a highway cruiser that’s capable of running with the big dogs.

I have my Honda Civic for the highway. At least some of these drivers  might be worried about dying themselves. And certainly a car is much safer in a crash than any motorcycle which has virtually no chance against a car.

Also one must consider all these tour buses that are proliferating on Thailand’s highways and streets. When it comes to homicidal intent, I think the tour bus drivers take the cake for being homicidal maniacs. Check them out at night. Very seldom will you ever see Western faces in those tour buses.   Most of them are Chinese. Consider that this year compared to last year the number of Chinese tourists nearly doubled.  And god knows what increases we are going to see over the next year or the year after that.

There will be a huge proliferation of tour buses that is already at an unacceptable level.  This means that Thailand’s highways and streets are going to become deadlier than ever.

Nope.  Forget having a large bike. You are going to be far happier with a 125 c.c.class bike which weighs less than 300 pounds.  And you are going to probably live a lot longer if you do.

Specifications Click here to get more easily read specifications

Honda Click Yamaha Nouvo SX Yamaha Nouvo Elegance 135
displacement c.c. 125 125 135
price 46800-52500 baht 57000 baht N.A.
Horsepower 11.7@8500 rprm 10.4 11.2
Torque 14/7500 Nm/RPM 10.47 Nm @ 6000 rpm 10.6N-Nm @ 6,500rpm
Weight (Kg) 246 lbs 244 lbs 244 lbs
Tire Size Front +80/90/14 +70/90/16 +80/90/16
Tire Size rear +90/90/14 +80/90/16 +90/90/16
Fuel Economy test loop 59.8 km to the liter 53 km to the liter 53 km to the liter
Fuel Economy City N.A. 44.5 km to the liter 41.9 km to the liter
0-50 kph 6.3 seconds 7.51 seconds 5.58 seconds
0-80 kph 10.39 seconds 12.16 seconds 11.65 seconds
Handling (judging) Ok Very good Rock stolid
storage beneath seat good good good
fuel tank capacity 5.5 liters 4.3 liters 4.8 liters
Cooling water cooled water cooled water cooled
Fuel System fuel injected fuel injected carburator