Hello glady owners I was a proud owner of yamaha gladiator type rs which was my first bike and i loved my glady more each day. my glady inspite being a 125cc was a very good performer and was the best commuter of its class. i loved the way it accelerated from 0-80 and in 4 years of experience,it never gave any major problems my friends had big bikes like 220s,rx,fazer,karizma,rtr180 but my glady never held me back in any of those bike trips. i was proud about my glady. i have done a lot of short trips in my glady, most of the times i rode alone as i wanted it to jump like a horse in each gear which was not possible in presence of a pillion. i have seen many complaining about this bike but i never faced any major issues. i clocked 35000 wonderful kms on my glady in 4 yrs. i got a mileage of 45, i agree FE was less but it performed well for a 125cc bike. Top speed of 110 kms with a pillion in the bengaluru nice road and the bike was stable this was a short write up about experience with my glady some of the basic issues in my glady which is common in all bikes battery,tire,air filter and chain sprocket(first chain sprocket was never maintained but lasted for 33000kms) changed at 34000 kms. i want to post some of pic in memory of my glady hope most of you will like the pics














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Hello guys! It's great to be here. I've been browsing XBHP for more than a week now. Have checked so many threads about initial impression, ownership, etc. Truly helpful and also educating.

I've a Yamaha RX135 (Feb 2004) which I plan to give away to my cousin. Therefore I need a new bike for myself. Yesterday I visited 4 showrooms - Suzuki, TVS, Hero and Yamaha.

When I saw the SS 125 - I just fell in love with it. It was in blue color. So guys, I wanted to ask whether it's a good buy even today? Or should I be looking at something else? I've read many threads, and I think the average is about 50~55Kmpl. So that should be fine with me. I'm just worried about Yamaha discontinuing so many models and bringing out so many new ones that if the SS125 goes out of production there might be a problem with spares.

Do let me know your honest views guys! Whether I should go for it or not. I will post separate thread for "which bike?".

Thanks in advance.

If you can live with a relatively poor low-end torque and if your love revving your bike through all gears, then the Gladiator/SS125/YBR125 won't disappoint you. The power and torque are delivered quite high in the revs range, so low-end performance is not in the league of, say, Honda or Bajaj.

But the high-end performance won't disappoint. 62-65 km/h at 5000 RPM, a highway cruising speed of 80-85kph and a top speed of 100+ kph at 7500-8000RPM are very decent specs, even today, for a 125cc. Just compare with some modern bikes like the Stunner/Ignitor and you will get a picture. As of now, only a couple of 125cc bikes (like the Discover 125ST) can beat the Yamaha hands down. I'd suggest you to take a TD to see how the low-end power delivery feels in city/commuting situations.

The SS125 is based on Yamaha's time-tested and reliable international YBR125 platform and the YBR125 is sold in the UK and many other countries. That said, the YBR125 platform has been successfully running in India since over a decade, with many models based on the same platform (starting with the frog-eyed Fazer 125 in 2001 to the the several iterations of the Gladiator (Graffiti, JA, SS, RS) and currently available as the Sporty SS125 and the 'original' YBR125).

So yes, the model names (and appearances) keeps changing but the heart of the bike has essentially remained unchanged since a decade - a reliable YBR125 derived, air-cooled engine giving 10.8 BHP @6500 RPM and a 5 speed gearbox.

Hope that helped!

I agree to some of the points above, but i don't think that Discover is a match for SS125, I have ridden both discover and stunner several times, but believe me they are no where near as comfortable as SS125.

I haven't got a chance to ride Ignitor yet so i don't want to comment about that, but according to me top contenders in 125cc segment is SS125 and Stunner. Discover doesn't match either of them in either looks,smoothness or performance

Agreed, older Discovers are no match...but have you ridden the new 2012 Discover 125ST? I took a TD and really fell in love with the torque and the gas-charged monoshock at the rear. Still a puny bike, though! The Gladiator is really big for a 125, and it doesn't feel tiny when parked next to bigger bikes like the Pulsars, Unicorns and SZs.

BTW the Ignitor is nothing but a Stunner with new clothes!

I visited the Yamaha factory shop here, but they do not have Ss125 for TD. I can understand as it's not a hot selling model, so they do not have TD vehicle. They had TD for all the latest and moving models like FZ and so on.
So please tell me friends - how bad is the low end torque of the SS125? I liked the overall bike in terms of built, VFM and other aspects. The only things I cannot guess is performance, so I have to rely on your opinions/experiences. Can you tell me names of a few bikes which come close to SS125 in terms of pick-up? For e.g. One could say, the SS125 pick-up is similar to that of a Splendor. And so on.

I'm not looking at doing any races from signal standstill, but still, with pillion I would like the bike to accelerate well from standstill. Or say pick-up from standing on a flyover bridge. These are testing times for a vehicle, right?

This will really help me to confirm my decision to buy the SS125. Else I might have to shy away and look at Discover 150 or 125ST. But I really don't want to go the Bajaj way. Honda bikes are tad expensive compared to Bajaj, Hero or Yamaha.

hero ignitor is a good bike with all the goodies
like split seats etc
you can look for it in the hero website

• Adding to what Praj has already replied - its performance is slightly better than a Stunner/Ignitor and slightly below the new 2012 Discover.
• Torque is not at all low - it's just that the torque is delivered higher up in the revs range.

So for example you standstill at a signal with a pillion. While a Stunner/Ignitor/Discover can pick up nicely at 3000 RPM the Yamaha may need revving to 3500-3700 RPM to gather momentum. On singles, you will barely notice the difference.

But once it's gathered momentum, progress is rapid. Find and open road and keep revving all the 3 vehicles (Yamaha, Discover, Stunner/Ignitor) and you will notice that the Stunner/Ignitor twins lose their steam at 70-75km/h. The Discover is slightly faster to reach the 100 km/h mark but the Yamaha catches up soon without breaking into a sweat.

The bottomline is, if you have been using a 2-stroke or a low-revving bike which has very good low-end torque (like the Bullet/Fiero/Shine/Victor), you may need to improvise your riding style to suit the vehicle. Yamaha is a rev-happy bike.

Thanks @bbsrailfan and @Praj zm.
Does adding a K&N filter improve the performance by any margin?

Please don't! Those things do more harm in the long run. A K&N (or any other free-flow air filter) allows more air to pass into your engine compared to the stock filters, so you can't simply plonk a free-flow filter - it will destroy your engine. After fitting an aftermarket filter, you will need to make modifications to your carburetor to allow it to feed more fuel to the engine (to keep up with the increased air supply) - this process is called upjetting.

Pros:

• After suitably tuning your carbs and filters, you can extract ~10% to ~15% gain in performance.

Cons:

• It is dangerous for the engine in the long run, as the free-flow filters are not very effective and allow fine dirt to pass through into the engine.
• A corresponding drop in mileage will be noticed - basically you are feeding more fuel to the engine to extract more power.
• Not to mention that irritating "urrrrr urrrrr" tinbox sound (which some people love here, no offence to them)

All said and done, it's your call - you are the best person to decide.

@bbsrailfan - Thanks for the detailed information. Was useful.

OT: Sorry to go OT here, but does the same principle apply for cars as well? K&N filters would allow dust to get through to the engine? Or is that a different ball game and not to be discussed here.
Just one line quick answer would suffice. Or we can take this off-line.

@Squid:
Applies to all vehicles. Here's a very detailed discussion WRT the K&N on Nissan cars (with supporting statistics):
K&N air filter or OEM, why OEM is better

Dude. go for ss125.... best bike for performance, thought the mileage is bit low. but apart from that is awesome to ride. be it city traffic or highways it cruises like a knife thought butter.
even if you are at 100kmph speed you will not feel slightest of vibrations, this gives you more confidence.
As others say low end torque is not that low, sufficient for city ride with a pillion. handling is superb coz its a light weigh bike. Tire grip is also good. the best part is suspension. ask many bullet riders are envy the soft suspension of this bike.

Problem after getting my bike serviced from service center

Hey Guys, I got my Bike Get serviced around 15 days ago, since then i am facing a problem, please help me to spot the fault and rectify it,

Suddenly after I got my bike serviced from Bangalore wheels, the mileage dropped down from 53 to 40, and the bike jerks while accelerating (the same sensations which we get when the bike run out of fuel), I spoke to the service center folks and they changed settings in carburetor, but still the same problem persists, it would be a great help if you guys can give me suggestions about what the problems could be.

Poor mileage could be attributed to carb tunning. They must have screwed it up. And now that they have tried rectify this fault, they must most probably have changed the air-fuel nut. Which is further going to reduce mileage.

Please try to get it checked from another workshop.