I've written about the MadAss before. After my ride on my bicycle yesterday and some thought, I decided to post some thoughts on what it would take to turn that monkey-bike into something useful, with broader appeal than a toy.
First, let me state that the single most popular model motorized vehicle is the Honda SuperCub. Its popular because its nearly indestructible and was designed to work on crappy roads. As we're getting crappy roads bit by bit here in the USA, thanks to the terrible Obamaconomy, we need similar kinds of vehicles to retain our specialized skills and not collapse utterly. I have studied this for 12 years. I'm not joking. Transportation is critical.
The MadAss is a good start, but not perfect. Its got sufficient wheel travel and wheel diameter to deal with crappy road surface and potholes. Front and rear disk brakes. It can be fitted with knobby tires. The engine is big enough to climb the hills. Front and rear disk brake are good. A solid 4 speed transmission is good. Its fast enough for post-oil speeds, just not freeways. Its better than the SuperCub, all improvements over it.
What its getting wrong is the rear trailing arm of the suspension is short, which puts the balance too far back, so it has a tendency to wheelie. This is dangerous in traffic or when going uphill. Hills are a everywhere around here, they're on most of the roads. Many of them are steep, which would put the balance BEHIND the rear wheel hub so any acceleration would make it flip. This is dangerous enough that I haven't bought one of these. Not unless I can verify a longer trailing arm exists to prevent the problem. The upside is its made me look a lot harder at used motorcycles. Those are hard to get parts for, however.
The fuel tank inside the frame is a gimmick, holding barely a gallon. Its fine for around town riding, but if you wanted to do a tour, it would help if you can mount a plastic saddle-bag type tank with tubes to link to the main tank and thus engine. If you could carry another 2 gal of fuel, that gets you a lot more range.
The front forks are famously soft. Who were they designed for? The Germans knew they'd be selling this bike to people who weighed 160-220 pounds. Monkey bikes aren't ridden by light kids or women. Why aren't the forks designed properly, with stronger springs and better fork oil? This is massively dumb, and a nearly bad enough a flaw to drop the design altogether. Any new bike you have to spend money on to get working right, out of the box, is a bike that was designed badly. This is another good reason to step back and reconsider other options.
The local used bike (motorcycle) shop has Ninja 250s out front. Four of them, last time I drove past there. They'll cost about the same as a new MadAss, and can do freeway speeds thanks to their 6 speed gearbox and 250cc engines. Too big to park on the back porch, but maybe that's not going to be important much longer. I need to think bigger picture in many things. I'm not ready to be on the freeway on a motorcycle. I'd rather go slow and smell the flowers, hear the birds sing. As long as the Ninja 250 remains a cheaper fallback option, a scooter that costs more is ridiculous.
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