I began to feel that the fact that the rental bike had just 2200 kilometers on its clock to my almost 11,000 on my Elegance might be having something to do with it.  Before refilling our fuel tanks, Pier and I would spend something like 3 hours driving the two bikes, after which he remarked, "I could feel a little numbness in your handle bars, Jack, so I almost wanted to stop and rest my hands a bit."  But speaking for myself, I have never felt that this slight tingling in the handle grips make me want to stop and rest my hands, or at least not for the hour and a half it might have taken me to reach my destination on the several longer outings I've taken my Elegance.  Visions of having my dealership replace my drive belt started to fill my head as I considered the various reasons for why the new SX was surpassing my Elegance in overall smoothness.  From what I could determine from the experiences of other bike owners and what both Honda and Yamaha recommended for drive belt maintenance 25,000 t 30,000 kilometers was about what one could expect for the average life expectancy of a drive belt.  And here I had only 11,000 kilometers on my kilometer for the nearly four years I have owned my bike.  But what the hell, it costs less than 1000 baht or $32.00 to replace a belt and then I might get a little of that initial newness back I had first experienced upon buying my bike

Such thoughts went out of mind upon returning to my condo however.  There I met up with my neighbor, Lenny, who was just coming back on his Nouvo Elegance from some errand or another.   Lenny had passed me on my way to exercise at the Centara Hotel.   Both of us had our girlfriends on the back of our bikes, but I had been driving the rental instead of my own bike.  I noticed that Lenny's bike seemed a little loud coming into the condo parking lot.  Lenny then volunteered how quiet the Nouvo SX was compared to both of our two Yamaha Elegances.  But Lenny had just 5000 kilometers on his Elegance or just 3000 miles which meant that his bike was barely broken in.  I therefore concluded that Yamaha had simply once again improved what was already a great thing by somehow engineering into its Nouvo SX even greater quietness and smoothness than it had achieved with the 135 c.c. Elegance.

The truth is, the Elegance is not a loud bike.  Nor does it lack in smoothness.   It's just that the new Nouvo 125 SX is so refined and so perfect that it makes the Elegance look a little rough by comparison.  As far as the lack of vibration on the highway, part of this can be explained by its smaller displacement of just 125 cc's compared to the 135 of the Elegance. This means about 8 percent less rotating mass of its piston.  Still, the overall quietness of the SX seems significantly greater than that. 

But is there to be a price to be paid for all that overall smoothness along with Yamaha's decision to downsize what I considered to be a terrific engine?  We soon found ourselves on a four lane highway where we were able to open up our bikes more.  If found myself driving 80 kph much of the time with an occasional burst up to 90 kph.  But never did I get anywhere close to 100 kph whereas Pier and I had often been exceeding that when we had driven his PCX and I had taken my Elegance to Rayong over a year earlier.  The SX seemed just about as quick to 80 as my Elegance.  If there was any difference, that difference would be meaningless as both bikes seemed equally proficient.


On much larger bikes which typically weigh in the neighborhood of 400 pounds to the 230 pound Nouvo's and their much larger tires 60 miles per hour seems pretty slow.   But on a 230 pound bike with its much skinnier tires, 60 miles an hour is pretty fast.  At such speeds I would have expected my Elegance to feel a lot more comfortable than the Nouvo SX which was riding on its stock tires whereas my Michelin Pilot's had to be clearly superior, particularly since they were appreciably wider.  But to be truthful I really couldn't say that I could feel that they felt all that much more stable.  But there were some stretches while traveling over bumps that my Elegance showed off the superiority of its tires.  Suffice it to say that while on the highway Pier and I found very few Thais driving their Honda Waves, Mios, and Finos keeping up with us.  I believe it's all on account of the small tires such bikes use which causes them to be completely outclassed by a Yamaha Nouvo or Honda PCX. 

Truthfully, a man really can find happiness on a 125, and if one considers it logically, a lot more happiness than one can find on much larger bikes.  One can easily tour Thailand with one, but this requires a few words of explanation.   On two lane roads they are a blast to drive and fast enough.  I've toured around Krabi on a CBR 150 Honda, a 125 Honda PCX, and even a Honda Air Blade and thoroughly enjoyed myself on all three while not wanting anything larger.  No, they won't do it on American superhighways where one is often driving 70 to 80 miles an hour.  But this is Thailand where driving such speeds amounts to a suicide mission.   Twice, I've had motorists pass my car on the shoulder of the road coming back from Rayong even though I was driving over 100 kph, and had I not gotten my Honda Civic several feet over both motorists would have sideswiped my car.  I've seen a lot of examples of miserable driving in the U.S., but not once have I ever experienced this degree of complete lunacy.  I have owned a number of much larger motorbikes in the U.S. starting with a 350 Honda from which I moved up to a 450.  A few years later I got a 500 Honda dual purpose XL which I traded a couple years later for a 650 R-65 BMW.  My last street bike was a BWM 1000 c.c. KRS, a four cylinder that developed 90 horsepower and which never felt in its element until one got it up to at least 80 miles an hour.  Although it could do even faster, I once had it up to over 130 miles an hour over a bumpy two lane road.  So fear of larger bikes and higher speeds than these 125 c.c. class bikes can go is the least of my concerns.  I'm just scared shitless of all the idiots driving around me, and the fact that the police do absolutely nothing to enforce the existing traffic laws.  No matter how good a driver one is or how responsive his bike is, it's impossible to deal with the handcart that suddenly appears in one's traffic lane or the Thai guy who suddenly pulls in front of you, stops his bike, and starts to tie his shoes at the speeds such larger bikes are capable of.

For that matter, even such 125 c.c. class bikes can go a lot faster than their light weight bodies are capable of dealing with.  Now that I've upgraded to the larger Michelin Pilot sporty tires, I'd have to rate my Nouvo Elegance as the equal to the Honda PCX in the tire department.  The Honda has fat tires that seem to be as large as much larger middleweight motorcycles of the past such as my Honda 350 and 450 used to have.  Because the Honda PCX weighs roughly 50 pounds more than my Yamaha Elegance even though my new tires are a match for the PCX at highway speeds, the extra weight gives the Honda PCX more stability than my Elegance at high cruising speeds.  But the 280 pound PCX is not nearly as stable on the highway as my 350 pound Honda CB 350.  For that matter my old 350's replacement, the Honda 450, weighing it at 400 pounds was noticeably superior at express hi way speeds.  The 125's were designed to slice and dice heavy city traffic and to handle exceptionally well at urban traffic speeds while delivering phenomenal fuel economy.  In city traffic the larger bikes are simply outclassed especially when the traffic is piled up bumper to bumper and all I need is a two and a half feet gap and to squirt through the cars in front of me.   There is no way I can do that on a much larger bike which means from point A to point B the smaller bikes are much faster than practically anything else.  Around here, over 99 % of my driving is in the city.

In spite of some possible advantages in hill climbing ability that might be evidenced by the subjective feel of the Elegance's greater torque, there is no real advantage to the larger engine size of the 135 c.c. Elegance over its replacement, the 125 c.c. Yamaha Nouvo SX.  Both machines are equally road worthy whether in the city or out on the highway.  If anything the smaller new offering is even better under nearly all road conditions due to its having less vibration in the hand grips and its greater quietness.  On the other hand, one should not knock carbureted engines.   Whereas the new Yamaha SX has the latest and greatest fuel injection technology, the larger displacement 135 Elegance matches it for fuel economy on the highway.  And from the one city test loop I put the SX through, the Elegance also seems a match for it in city fuel economy.  (small wonder then that Yamaha held onto the Elegance's carbretor technology for so long

This means the 135 c.c. Elegance with its larger 4.8 liter fuel tank is going to get a little longer range than the SX with its smaller 4.3 liter tank.  However, one must put this in perspective.  It only took 2.32 liters of fuel on both bikes to manage the 124 kilometer test loop so both bikes had ample reserves of fuel left even if their fuel gauges might have said otherwise.  Once again in the new 125 c.c. SX Yamaha's engineering prowess showed itself.  As I have said in an earlier article, the 135 c.c. Nouvo Elegance had trumped its predecessor the 115 c.c. MX in a number of ways besides its much greater horsepower and superior water cooling system.  For instance its seat had been moved forward 2 inches closer to the front tire while being raised another inch or two.   Most people would never have noticed this, but what it did was to make the Nouvo Elegance a more responsive quicker handling bike compared to the MX while still possessing all the smooth riding characteristics of its longer wheel base.  By the same token, even though it's lost 10 cc's in engine displacement the new SX is significantly quieter than the Elegance's 135 and it is almost completely free of vibration.  It also seems just a bit smoother in its transmission and throttle response.  And it's not that the Elegance is rough in either department.   It's just that the SX is so close to perfection.  Most people wouldn't notice all the subtle little improvements Yamaha keeps making in its top small automatic.  In my mind this is by far the best small scooter out there, regardless of manufacturer with the possible exception of the Honda PCX, which will be the subject of my next review--a road-test of the new Honda 150 c.c. PCX against last year's 125 model.

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