AN125 ADVENTURES

By Hanne

The mighty AN125 in its natural habitat

Over the past few weeks I have been riding a 2008 AN125 around town and it has been an enlightening experience. The thinking was that my hip would be less prone to injury if I didn’t have to swing my leg over the seat to mount and dismount several times each day. While this injury prevention strategy seems to have been effective, I have discovered that there is more to a scooter than not having a tank between your knees.

While the AN125 is wider than the AX, it is still nippy around town and can happily squeeze to the front of queues. The drivers around me were not so happy though and I noticed a massive difference in the way traffic treated me when I was on the scooter. The AN125 is a 99kg, aircooled 124cc machine, so it is heavier and has a greater capacity than my regular AX100, yet in the respect stakes the AX wins hands down. I had never had any issues with cars leaving me space before boarding the AN125. Cue cars on the motorway speeding up to make pointless overtakes and wedge themselves in my two second zone and cars at the lights squeezing themselves just a little too close to my left foot for comfort. Apparently the shiny maroon façade lacks that bad-ass factor that usually keeps such drivers at bay. It does have several neat features though:

The Tardis under the seat

PROS
The underseat storage. I don’t have a top box on my bike, so I have never had the luxury of a cavernous space in which to store the books and pens that make me look like a hermit crab as I scootle down the motorway. It’s like a tardis under the seat and I couldn’t believe what rubble I had collected in there when the time came to sort through it and return the bike. Two complete outfits, three library books, half a pack of chips and a DVD of ‘March of the Penguins’. I was wondering where that had got to…

CONS
Actually getting the seat open to access the storage area is something of an aptitude test and figuring it out without the aid of a manual or an SOS telephone call should qualify for immediate MENSA membership. I had four guys from the SMC all over the thing, inspecting every surface for something that resembled a key hole and may unlock my access to the fuel tank. Squiggles had mentioned something about the ignition, so one by one we locked the steering, unlocked the steering, locked the steering and one by one we all drifted off and succumbed to the lure of the beers waiting on the deck. It turns out that pushing the key in and turning locks the steering, while turning without pushing is the ‘open sesame’ we had been searching for… Here’s the diagram, so go figure!

Open... Push... This stumped three degrees and an IT guy

PROS
Filling up at the pump was amazing. $12 to overflowing? It was as if Alice has come out from Wonderland and slipped the tank a cupcake or two on the sly. Of course it meant I didn’t qualify for the Shell ‘fishing’ vouchers they were handing out in store, but it did mean that takeaways were on the menu that night. Hooray!

CONS
I am still quite wary of the small wheels and my experience on the motorway with a raised tar snake did nothing to ease my existing anxiety. Travelling in the left lane, I suddenly found the scooter steering itself to the right, apparently of its own accord. In fact the front wheel was following the groove in the road instead of mounting it like a larger wheeled bike would. Pot holes are also more of a danger than they were before, as if Alice fed them some tea while she was out on her spree.

Riding the AN125 has been fun and has given me an insight into the clutchless world of automatic transmission. While my hip is thanking me for the interlude, I think I still prefer having a tank for my patellas to guard. So thanks Adrienne, for the loan of the bike and letting me in on the scooter experience!