Yamaha Elegance Archives

I just completed the December 2013 Looking Glass Magazine issue which includes my review of the Yamaha Filano motorbike. my review on the Yamaha Filano motorbike.

Which will show the bike bottoming out speed bumps when I have my girlfriend behind me. It’s a Vespa look a like. It’s cute and it’s well put together. But as the best Thailand City Motorbike, it cannot match a Yamaha 125 SX or Honda’s PCX 150.

Although it’s a beautiful little jewel the Yamaha Filano is not the best Thailand City Motorbike

The same is true for Yamaha Finos, Honda Scoopy’s and Honda Clicks. Clearly, the best all around bikes for city driving in Pattaya are the Honda PCX and the Yamaha 125 SX.

Which was a real tossup, until one day my Nouvo Elegance would not start. One hour later, I decided that the Yamaha Nouvo SX is the best Thailand City Motorbike.

It would have been the Yamaha Elegance that had edged out the Honda PCX 150. And that’s because I was finally able to start it with its kick starter. And drive it to a nearby shop to replace its battery. Trouble is, you can’t buy these new anymore. So I now rate the Yamaha Nouvo 125 SX as the best Thailand City Motorbike.

My Yamaha Nouvo Elegance — My Yamaha Nouvo 135 c.c. Elegance. Behind it is Yamaha’s replacement model the 125 c.c. Nouvo SX. Note all the stabilizing struts on the Elegance. Less bikes such as the Yamaha Filano, Honda Click, Honda Scoopy, do not have this structure that stabilizes the bike at higher speeds especially. This is why all “scooters” with floorboards cannot begin to match a Yamaha Nouvo, Honda PCX or equivalent in handling and stability. Although the Yamaha Nouvo SX offers fuel injection and is overall a very nice bike, the 135 c.c. engine of the Nouvo Elegance has a lot more guts

Larger motorbikes more suitable for highway driving won’t compare to a Yamaha Nouvo SX or Honda PCX 150.

This interesting statistic will explain why. Thaivisa reports that Thailand now ranks number three in the entire world for having the most highway fatalities. This is based on 100,000 registered vehicles, per capita, etc. The figure for 100,000 registered vehicles is 118.8 versus just 12.57 for the United States.

What this comes down to is because of the way Thais drive and the total lack of police enforcement driving high powered motorcycles with high speed traffic such as is common on expressways and superhighways, the possibility of death becomes even much higher. The way I’m thinking is if you have say a 650 c.c. or 1000 c.c. motorbike you have lots of power on tap and you are going to want to tap into all that power.

But you can never predict all the brain dead things all those brain dead people are constantly doing around you, and

too often the brain and reflexes simply cannot keep up with that person who just pulled in front of you. The hole that should have been repaired that you suddenly see in the middle of that four lane. Or the driver who suddenly decided to drive the wrong way towards you against the flow of traffic.

But now last night with my Yamaha Nouvo Elegance suddenly not being able to start, there is no longer a shadow of doubt in my mind why the Yamaha Nouvo is a better all around bike than Honda’s PCX. My bike had an electrical problem and would not start with the electric starter so the first thing I did is I pulled the plastic cover off the battery compartment, pulled the battery out, and loosed, then tightened the connections. THe problem persisted.

Because I still could use the horn, etc I figured I had a connection problem somewhere on the bike that I could not get to. I tried to kick start it but it turned out I did not try hard enough. So this morning I got our condo maintenance employee and security guard to help me out. We were able to get the bike going with the kick starter so off I went with the maintenance employee sitting behind me. He took me to a small place one normally would not notice and I bought a battery there for 600 baht. ANd that was it. My battery had gone defective even though it was less than one year old.

The same thing had happened to a friend who was renting a Honda PCX. He could not kick start it, and he wound up walking to the restaurant we were meeting at for lunch. So it really comes down to the fact that the Yamaha Nouvos are more reliable. Because even if the electric won’t work you can always kick start them. Furthermore they are more versatile as you can easily use bungee cords to tie all kinds of stuff across the bike’s rear seat.

So there we have it. Both the Yamaha Nouvo SX and Nouvo Elegance have enough tire and engine size to easily handle most driving conditions.

But I will discourage cruising at the fast highway speeds much larger bikes excel at. Lastly due to the Yamaha Nouvos having kick starters and their overall excellent build quality. In addition to the relatively large storage area underneath their seats. Both bikes have a plethora of hooks and bungee cord attachment spots. So their reliability and versatility is unmatched. Bottom line is the Yamaha Nouvo SX is the best Thailand City Motorbike you can buy.