1974 Suzuki TS125 review from United States of America

Nothing at all in the riding season I owned it.

The Suzuki TS125 was a two-stroke dual-purpose on/off road motorcycle.

It featured oil injection so you just had to keep the oil tank full.

An interesting feature was that it was set-up to run without the battery, although the battery was needed to power the headlight, tail light & directionals.

Although only a 125cc motorcycle, my bike came equipped with passenger foot pegs. This little bike came fully equipped. A tachometer and center-stand was standard equipment.

It was a fine bike to learn to ride on, and it was great fun on the trails as well. Perhaps the most fun I had on a motorcycle was the summer I rode my TS125 practically everywhere.

I was a great little bike to run about town on, and fortunately there were a lot of trails nearby.

I bought the bike new in 1975 for $700. It was a new 1974 left-over.

I actually drove my little Suzuki on the highway a few times, but having such a small displacement, it topped out at 70 mph on level ground and worked hard to maintain about 65mph on grades.

This was my first "real motorcycle", having had a mini-bike before. During the entire time I owned it, I was driving on my motorcycle learners permit.

Once I felt really comfortable riding on the street, I sold my little TS 125 and bought a new Yamaha RD 350 street bike.

I really liked the Yamaha, but it was fun having a little runabout that you could take off road.

These little two-stroke dual purpose bike were very very inexpensive to buy, extremely cheap to run and maintain, and also got unbelievable gas mileage.

It was also extremely reliable, all it asked is that you kept it full of gas and oil and it never let me down. Back in the '70's there were so many good choices available in small displacement two stroke dual purpose bikes, and also small street bikes.

I miss these little two-strokes. I have fond memories of my little TS125, as well as memories of all the great little two-strokes available at that time.

Besides the dual purpose two-stroke singles Suzuki offered some great little two-stroke twin street bikes such as the GT185 and GT250, as well as the the GT380 triple.

Yamaha had an entire line of little RDs, the RD250 & RD350's probably being the most well-known. (Yamaha even made a 200cc twin the RD200.)

Kawasaki was famous for it's two-stroke triples. The KH400 was a nice little street bike.

Wouldn't it be nice to be able to buy a nice little dual-purpose bike that you could actually commute to work on, (getting over 60 mpg in the process) for under $1000? Yes, those were the days.

I would love to hear from other riders out there who have fond memories of these little two-strokes that could be seen at every high school & college campus (not to mention shopping malls) back in the '70's.

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