Belkwinith wrote:
Excuse my big Americanized brain...Got it! Thanks!
No problem. I started the thread to simply bring attention to a new scooter. I realize it might have limited appeal to the US market. I've lived abroad long enough to know that while cultures are different, one is not necessarily better than another - just different.
Again, what is interesting, from a general scootering perspective, is Yamaha's categorizing certain scooters as "urban", others as "sport" and others as "50 cc". And as my dealer friend noted, both the TriCity and D'light were specifically designed for the "Urban" category, while some existing models were placed in that category once the company started making these distinctions. One Yamaha promotional video hypes the TriCity's performance on cobblestone roads, for example.
And, much to my surprise,
one rider documented a 110 kph top speed with his TriCity.
Yamaha's "urban" category does not appear to be just displacement driven. Thus your "downtown or college campus" categorization, typically applied to 50 cc scoots, misses the mark. Yamaha's "urban" scooters readily handle a 80 - 90 kph commute to the city, but are designed to also be amenable to urban streets and traffic. While a major portion of US commute to downtown is done on Interstates, even for short distances, much of Europe and Asia is quite different. Freeways in the US often completely replace secondary roads, while here, they tend to supplement and complement them.
What I like is the idea of building a 125cc
urban scooter from the ground up, rather than "detuning" a larger scooter to meet the 125 cc licensing scheme and then calling it "urban". Thus, the XMAX 125 is categorized by Yamaha as "Sport", probably due to it's longer wheelbase and footprint. In that vein, I would be hard pressed to call Piaggio's X10 125cc an "urban scooter" under Yamaha's scheme.
The Yamaha "urban" definition makes sense, and can meet a rider's long term needs while still being A1 license holder.