Dear Marco, being 56 years old, I have experienced the evolution of the 125 cc first hand. The period of the 34 HP ones I remember as a meteor, a moment of madness that he saw sixteen-year-olds who had been driving for a month flying at 170 km/h on state roads. When I started riding a motorbike, with a ’79 Gilera Arcore, all the sixteen year olds were obsessed. In high school, during recess, we only talked about motorcycles but the typical powers were around 12-14 HP, with a few exceptions, such as the Aspes Yuma with 25 HP and 140 km/h. The most common motorcycles were the Cagiva SST, the Honda CBX, the Gilera TG1.
Then the delirium began, with the increase in powers and with increasingly sophisticated aesthetics. 20, 25, 28, 34 HP… Motorcycles came out that looked like prototypes from the distant future, but they were already on sale. Personally, every time I see a faired Cagiva Mito first series, with gold rims, my heart skips a beat. But it was right to put a stop to this escalation. What went wrong is that the “after” was expressed with an excessive step backwards. Too many 10 HP motorcycles, with antiquated Chinese engines, ugly aesthetics and poor chassis… The imposed limit of 15 HP is rarely reached. But perhaps today’s sixteen-year-olds, terrified of cameras, tutors, veloxes, rumoxes and so on and so forth, that’s fine, with motorbikes to learn.
