I’ve got a prior back injury which means the leaned over position of the R125 can be a bit much on longer journeys, and over christmas I’d been commuting on the bike every day and my shoulders weren’t getting a break so was constantly aching, not ideal. So I’d been wondering about the possibility of fitting some clip-on risers for a slightly more upright position.

I’ve also been doing some local exploring on mixed terrain and whilst the leaned over position is great on tarmac, if things get a bit loose you can feel somewhat “over committed” to the position given the movement options the bike has. So I was thinking perhaps a slightly more upright position might help with that too. I was fully expecting snow over the winter so I was hoping it might help there too since I was looking forward to going out in it 🙂

It might just be me but being leaned forward in the “race position” puts me in a “race” mindset and sometimes I’d like to perhaps just chill and enjoy the ride a bit more rather than go full banzai all the time, though I appreciate the sentiment.

Great so I’ll get some risers and some motox bars and off we go, right? Nope. Obviously. As it turns out this was waaaay more complicated than just slapping on some different risers. It is doable however.

I’d found this thread on one of the 125 forums:

http://www.yamahar125.com/threads/thinking-about-changing-the-bars.434/

Perfect, just what I’m after, the person doing it for the same reasons, seems happy with the outcome. Great, where do I get those adapters? Ah nobody has them. And as far as I’m aware nobody on the internet sells risers or adapters to fit the 33mm fork legs of the R125. You can get risers but not on 33mm and you can get 33mm clip-ons but no rise.

The only possible solution I found was by using parts from a set of generic stunt bars off ebay (search “pro caken stunt”) and making a couple of adapter bits on the lathe. It’s annoying that there’s nothing which I could just buy off the shelf but hey at least I’m actually able to make up something if needed.

I got hold of some aluminium tube off ebay, ordered a set of the stunt risers, some motox bars, and a couple of pairs of regular motox risers just in case they were useful.

The plan was to use the main bit from the stunt bars, which clips onto the fork leg, and the handlebar clamps into), and then make a custom insert to let me bolt some handlebar risers on, then fit the motox bars (see pic below).

Many many hours of machining later (it’s only a small lathe so doing anything takes ages) I’ve got a prototype, which should illustrate what I’m trying to achieve a bit more clearly.

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I did a test fit of one side of the prototype and it looked like it might work, but I was concerned about the cable lengths. My setup was possibly going to be a bit beyond what the standard cabling would allow. Getting a custom front brake line is no problem but where do you get a custom length clutch cable? Nowhere apparently. Excellent!

Well eventually I got the adapter section for both sides done and along the way realised that although they were my preferred outcome, the motox bars weren’t going to happen, but since the stunt bars are so adjustable, I should be able to put them in whatever stance I wanted. There seemed to be a few too many links in the stunt bars though – I know if it’s all tightened down it should be fine but idk if I really want any more axes of movement than are absolutely necessary on my main means of controlling the bike.

Well it turns out one of the youtube stunters whose videos I’ve been getting into recently had (unsurprisingly) stunt bars much like the ones I’d bought. For some reason seeing his setup make me realise I could remove one of the links from the bars I had and still get exactly what I wanted in terms of seating position.

So I ordered a custom Hel stainless brake line, a spare clutch cable to cannibalise and a couple of “universal clutch cable” kits and figured I’d just have to have a go and see what I come up with. In the worst case I can revert to stock. In fact the idea was always that I should be able to revert to the stock setup if i want to.

So off we go, I had two days to get this done or revert to stock so figured let’s dive in and see what happens.

Fitting the actual bars bit worked fine. I’d test fitted everything so I wasn’t looking for surprises there. Once I got to the brake cable, despite having measured it and the cable being the length I measured, somehow it was waay too long.

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I ordered 90cm, 80cm would have been fine. 80cm would have seemed too tight if you were to measure it (e.g. with string as I did), but with how the cables route themselves it turns out 80cm would have been perfect.

So I had a rummage around the bike parts and found a stainless brake line I must have ordered for a scooter. The fittings, dimensions etc seemed the same as the R125 and the cable fit absolutely perfectly. I couldn’t have ordered it better – in fact I had literally already just failed to do exactly that. Either way, win, with brand new fittings and crush washers to boot.

The clutch cable

Brake sorted, on to the clutch. I know this is going to require some ingenuity. As suspected, the standard cable was way too short, even with routing everything optimally, not happening.

So I look into the “universal” clutch cable kit I bought – and tbh the cables all seemed a bit weedy compared to the OEM one, plus I had no idea how the brass fittings were supposed to attach, and there were no instructions.

As far as I can tell in retrospect, you’re supposed to solder the little brass bits on and that’s fine apparently, but I didn’t think the cable would take solder so had mentally ruled that out.

The best option I had come up with was to get the brass insert out of a cable connector, screw that down with both screws as tight as possible, and then fill the hollow part with solder and hope for the best, since I thought I had no other real option.

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Either way the universal cables looked flimsy af and it looked like the cylinder bit which goes in the clutch lever may have been the wrong size too, so I wasn’t feeling them as an option.

Parts bin to the rescue again, and it turns out a rear brake cable for a Yamaha Neos/Jog scooter has the same cylinder bit for the clutch lever and is identical in terms of cable & sheath size to the R125 clutch cable. It has a different end on it to operate the brake but that’s going anyway so is irrelevant.

So yeah – top tip for anyone doing this, get yourself a yamaha jog or neos rear brake cable. Sorted for under a tenner.

With both cables sorted there was just a bit of fiddling around with the position of everything left to do, but it all worked out quite well.

The R125 control clusters (ignition, indicator etc) have a locating pin which sits in a matching hole in the R125 clip-ons. On the accelerator side I made the mistake of grinding that pin down so as not to scuff or have to drill the bar, but then realised that was a mistake since it means going back to the standard bars it won’t locate as it should. In fact on the new bars it also doesn’t locate quite as well as it did so it was a mistake either way. I got it fitted ok but wasn’t an ideal outcome. On the clutch side I just drilled a little recess for the pin in the bar like a normal person and the controls fitted without modification.

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As you might notice I had to trim a bit off the corners of the windscreen. That wasn’t a complete surprise since it had been mentioned in the original forum post I looked at (re motox bars) that the brake reservoir fouled the corner of the screen. That was just a case of marking it off with tape and trimming with a cutting disk.

One last adjustment was to bring the fork legs through the yoke an additional few mm so that they fully engaged with the clamp of the riser. You can see on some of the pics it’s sitting just shy a little. I don’t know if that tiny adjustment would affect the steering geometry or not, I think probably not or only a very small amount. I may have even read that it’s a thing people do for whatever reason. Whatever. I wanted it all to fit flush and nice and now it does and it still handles great 🙂

So how is it?

I *really* like it so far – but there is one potential downside to be aware of.

In terms of position for my back, waaay better, perfect. In terms of position on the bike being sat a bit more upright is good – it actually makes me feel a bit more confident in cornering.

It’s hard to explain but for me the bike feels like it’s just downed a redbull & vodka and is up for literally anything. It makes what was quite a “polite” bike into a bit of a hooligan. I suspect that’s as much to do with the gearing change as well as the stance change though – I wouldn’t expect different bars to imbue your bike with magical powers.

BUT!

ah yes the “but” – in this case it’s wind-resistance/drag.

With my bars setup I ended up going maybe a couple of inches higher than the stock bars and maybe an inch back, but also maybe a 1.5″ wider on each side.

The slightly wider stance is fabulous because you have more authoritative control over the bike but it turns out the aerodynamics are actually pretty important when it comes to small-engined bikes and being able to hit that magical ~82mph top speed of the 14:48 gearing.

In fact on my first ride out (using the stock 14:48 gearing) I noticed considerable top-end loss. Like you’d have to properly scrooch down behind the screen to even break 70. Though bear in mind that day it was crazy windy so I think we could have done better than 70 in less than hideous conditions but hey. either way the strong wind highlighted the issue. I’d have expected peaking around 75 on that stretch of road under pretty neutral conditions.

I guess the more upright position means you don’t tuck in automatically (not really a surprise, and was sorta the point), but what was a surprise was how much of a hit the top end took from the change in aerodynamics.

For my case that’s probably not a problem – I was looking to do some mixed terrain stuff and was going to gear down anyway so I put a 13T front sprocket on it and went right back out, and it’s amazing (up to 70mph). It *tears* through the first few gears and the new riding position is both super comfortable for me but it’s just so FUN that it makes me just want to keep riding \o/

Yes the 70mph top speed is a bit of an arse and I wouldn’t want to travel across the country on this gearing, but for local travels it’s just SO much fun, and hey 70 gearing limit helps avoid speeding tickets 🙂

Since doing the bars, combined with the insane grip from the winter tyres and the short gearing of the 13t front sprocket, the bike has become SO much fun, and this is without adding any power whatsoever.

It’s both ridiculous and amazing. It’s changed my approach to other traffic too – somehow I’m more indifferent to it. Now other traffic is basically just “stuff I have to go around” to get to my next exploring spot.

Finishing the bars modification coincided with some very sad news about a close friend and as a means of trying to work through that I basically ended up abandoning work for a few days and just going out and exploring on the bike to try and see what it could do on varied terrain, as well as test the recent changes and kit…culminating in coming off a couple of times whilst attempting some green-laning in fairly deep mud, in the rain. lol. Because of course that’s a normal thing which people do on sportbikes.

Whilst I didn’t get injured falling off (because mud and armour) I did end up twanging my back dragging the bike out of the mud to get it back to the trail..so I’ve been trying to let my back recover this last week since. Those sessions also coincided with my first tests with the gopro (clone) so it’s all on video too :o). More on that soon I’m sure.

On the upside I’d had my doubts about how strong the stunt bars would be but having dragged the bike out of the mud by them as well as fallen off a couple of times, they’re still exactly as they were 🙂

Conclusion?

I’ve just done another round of adjustments today, which involved dropping the bars a little for better clearance of the screen, and angling them in a bit tighter to try and minimise the drag a little and maybe bring it a teeny way back towards a sporty pose. It actually feels a little bit more natural now and think this position might be where I want to be. Scrooching down behind the screen doesn’t feel weird or uncomfortable and the (potentially) slightly reduced exposure should mean warmer hands in cold weather.

It’s still on the 13:48 gearing and it reached its geared maximum (~70) with ease when testing, so that doesn’t really tell me much re whether the aero is improved at this point, but you can turn full lock without hitting everything now so that’s already better and it felt like there was a little less drag, though that’s obviously a subjective observation.

I’m aiming to test on the 14:48 gearing quite soon so I can see how much top end has been lost (or not). I’m hoping to do another long trip on it with this setup and the 14:48 so that should highlight any issues and give the best overall verdict.

In an ideal world I think we’d stay on the 13:48 gearing most of the time for max fun and just go to the 14:48 for longer trips. Changing front sprocket takes under 30min so swapping them out isn’t a big issue, and is just the cost of not having oodles of power on tap (yet).

I can’t really do more power modifications at the moment since I’m still on a learner plate on the bike and that means power is limited and I suspect we’re approaching the upper limit with the existing changes. So instead I’m trying to just optimise the absolute shit out of everything so it all runs harmoniously, and to see whether I can, which it turns out is also a whole lot of fun.

Hopefully once I’ve got my full bike license (april-may with a bit of luck) I’ll have more options open to me as far as what I can ride or how ridiculously further I can modify this bike, but for now this is where I am and that’s perfectly fine. I’m having so much fun rinsing the absolute tits off this bike whilst still completely under the speed limit, learning loads about riding, the bike and myself and isn’t that kinda the point of all this? 🙂