Recent Posts  By   (Read times)

I'm not trying to be a smart@ss, but that's a tough question to answer.

My Givi mounting plate was designed for my Givi E26 top case and it has a quick release feature.

I don't know if the design of the Givi is generic/universal and I would have no possible way of knowing if any top case would be compatible unless it was sitting right in front of me...

That's right, exploring southern Arizona and New Mexico on an air-cooled 150cc scooter with a passenger

We've been known to take day trips covering up to 320 miles on our last steed, a 2012 SYM HD 200 EVO. I wanted to try something even smaller, my wife wasn't so certain. The HD 200 was a very capable touring machine, but finding parts is quite difficult and expensive, and traveling down dirt or gravel roads was a bumpy and very nervous undertaking.

Today we really put our little scooter to the test, covering almost 200 miles and cruising above an actual 50 mph for most of the day. We previously tested it off-road on a gnarly, steep and rocky dirt road, and to our surprise it handled it quite well (for a scooter). Our new ride is a Tomos Nitro 150 which uses a very common 157QMJ engine. But it is made by SYM with a Taiwanese engine, definitely not a Chinese made GY6, but it's still a generic design with almost unlimited parts options.

I re-jetted the carb, installed some Dr. Pulley slider weights, added some some additional padding to the seat (as well as a pad the extends the rear of the seat about 3"), made some custom footpegs for the passenger, installed a windshield and topcase, and relocated the front turn signals to the original body panel lens.

Today's ride started in Hereford AZ, nestled on the eastern slopes of the Huachuca Mts. only about 10 miles from the Mexican border. We headed north through Sierra Vista and angled off to the northwest traveling through Ft. Huachuca exiting at the remote west gate.
We've ridden this route several times before, and Canelo Rd. is a narrow and curvy ribbon of asphalt that has many elevation changes, traversing hills, ravines, ridges, washes, and canyons as it skirts the northern flanks of the Huachuca Mts. The pavement in rough is some parts and the posted speed limits vary from 25 to 45 mph.

Eventually you intersect highway 83 which gives you two choices. South to Palmer Canyon Lake or north to Sonoita. We headed north for Sonoita, continuing down a very twisty road that just had to be made with scootering in mind. With the Huachuca Mts. looming behind us, we had fantastic views of the more distant Mule, Whetstone and Santa Rita Mts.

Reaching the small enchanting ranching/farming village of Sonoita, we turned southwest on highway 82 in the direction of Nogales. At this point the Santa Rita Mts. are dominating the western horizon, but the road turns more south as you travel the 12 miles down to the tiny town of Patagonia. Continuing southward until you can see Nogales off in the distance, we reached the turn off to our destination, Patagonia Lake State Park.
We had packed a picnic lunch and explored the park for about an hour and half before heading back home.

The Tomos Nitro 150 performed flawlessly without complaint, fuel economy was mpg. The ride was smooth, the engine pulled us along at an actual 50 - 55 mph at 3/4 throttle. There were a few steep grades the required WOT, but the little air-cooled GY6 managed to pull us up maintaining at least 50 mph on the speedo. Most of the the time the CHT gauge ran between 300 and 340 f at cruising speed, briefly reaching 369 f on one particularly steep incline. This was one of the warmest days for the year so far, about f.

We had at least as much fun on the air-cooled 150cc scooter as we ever did on our HD 200, never feeling like it wasn't big or powerful enough. As a matter of fact, the ride seemed just a bit more relaxing and we thoroughly enjoyed the slighter slower pace. There isn't a place in southern Arizona or New Mexico we aren't willing to challenge on a little air-cooled 150cc scooter

Sonoita AZ looking west on highway 82 with the Santa Rita Mts. in view


Patagonia Lake State Park







lots of wildlife, this little guy was happy less than 10 feet away


Mt. Wrightson of the Santa Rita Mts.


cliffs on Nogales highway


looking north from highway 83 at the Mule and Whetstone Mts.


looking east from highway 83 at the Huachuca Mts.

A little large for my taste, but that Ducati is bad@ss!

I sold my SYM HD 200 EVO and bought a Tomos Nitro 150

A lot of people thought I was crazy, but there were two reasons I felt were well worth the trade off.

First: getting SYM parts is extremely difficult and expensive, the HD 200 uses a heavily modified 4-valve water cooled GY6 engine and almost all parts are proprietary.

Second: The HD 200 was a fantastic cruiser/tourer. My wife and I put 5000 miles cruising two-up all over Arizona and New Mexico. Sometimes we would cruise at 65mph for hours at a time, short stints on the interstate at 75mph were doable. But were the pavement ended, so did the fun. The HD 200's suspension was on the stiff side, it has a very high center of gravity, it's not really light weight at 297lbs, and the 16" tires were relatively narrow (especially the front) feeling nervous and slippery on anything not paved except hard packed dirt. I couldn't even find any dual sport tires in the sizes I needed.

I gambled on the Tomos Nitro (made by SYM) hoping that it would fare better on dirt roads. Through research I already new it was a generic GY6 (157QMJ) and parts were universal and abundant. The very first day we rode it we ended up on a relatively decent dirt road and we were very pleasantly surprised. Even with 12" wheels vs. the HD 200's 16" the ride was much smoother. Ground clearance was good for a scooter and it seemed to have a little more suspension travel that was more compliant. The lighter weight (55lbs less), much lower center of gravity, and wider tires made it feel secure and planted when cruising at a leisurely pace through loose dirt and gravel. Light ruts and rocky terrain (within reason, this isn't a dual sport bike) did not upset the chassis too much or vibrate us to death.

After a deliberate and proper break-in, we were happy with the overall performance. We could cruise two up at an indicated 55mph (about 52 actual) with some throttle left, and we could maintain 45-50mph on the steepest grades, CHT gauge maxing out at 360 f, but usually running 300-340 at cruising speeds.

The test: Let the tire pressures down to 18 front and 25lbs rear (normally 25/31) and lowered the rear shock settings a notch. Started on a rough dirt road that went up a canyon ending in a switchback road climbing the back of the canyon wall. The road got very steep and rough, more than we expected, but we kept going. One 50 yard stretch was very steep and rocky, I had my wife climb off. The back tire sawing back and forth loosing traction, the scooter powered up at low speed mildly scraping the plastic panel a couple of times on the underside, but not any hardware. I whipped out my trusty camera to take some gnarly pics and I forgot to put the batteries back in after recharging them!
I promise I'll get some next time, sorry.

I would never recommend anyone take anything but a true dual sport up a trail like this, and not without some serious off-road experience. The point? Well there were quite a few times the pavement ran out on the HD 200, and if the surface didn't look real nice we turned back. We did a few dirt road excursions, but again there was a few places we stopped. There are a ton of fantastic dirt roads in the mountains and hills in southern Arizona, and we just want to have the freedom of trying any of the reasonable looking routes.

I certainly do not plan on abusing the scooter up any rough mountain grades again, but it is nice to know we could if we had to. That opens up a lot of possibilities ;D

I was happy when I checked the air filter after the adventure and found that virtually no dust/dirt had been sucked in the stock snorkel. Another nice plus is that the second time I checked/adjusted the valve clearances it only took 15 minutes.

Simple, capable, and smaller. Call me crazy, but I really like this air-cooled GY6 scooter more than the HD 200 EVO. But then I've always liked the way a small 50cc scooter feels...

That's the same conclusion I came to, but it's nice to have some confirmation ;D

Thanks for the info.

Hmmm, been doing a little more research. Still can't find any valve clearance specs or a service manual. But the Lance Cali Classic 125, SYM Allo 150 and SYM Fiddle II 125 have similar engines and the valve clearance specs on all three for both intake and exhaust are .12mm (.0047").

So that has me wondering if the tolerances on my Nitro 150 were actually getting pretty tight? But then on the other hand it seems those other SYM engines don't really have the valves needing much adjustment?