I have always enjoyed riding motorbikes and have owned my Yz125 since 2010. I worked at McDonalds and would do side jobs to be able to afford it, along with making the 3 hr drive with my dad to pick it up when I was 16. I have owned the bike ever since and unfortunately it has become very worn out and needed to be refreshed. A local competition was taking place called the ‘Gypsey Tales Mid 2k Build Off’ which was a competition where people build the coolest 125cc motorbike that is from the 2000’s. Along with a laundry list of parts that need to be replaced this competition would also give me a chance to show off my bike.
Motorbike: Yz125 2008 model
I had used the bike for a high school graphic design project and although I liked the graphics kit, it highlighted how old and crappy my bike was looking, from rusted parts, multiple blown gaskets, bearings that weren’t rotating it was in need of some tender loving care.
Motorbike before restoration
There was a lot of work to do and personally i had never rebuilt a motorbike to this extent. I wanted to follow a black and blue theme and to keep a “factory” style. To achieve the look desired Powder coating was done to the frame/wheels and ceramic coating parts of the engine that would help with abrasion and engine temperatures. All the parts that needed to be coated, I couldn’t do myself so they had to be done by a third party, this taught me project management as I was trying to have the project done for the ‘Gypsey Tales 125 Bike Build Off’. Along with organising all the parts I had to rebuild and the entire engine something I had never done before, initially this was a very daunting task but with the amount of information that is available online I had some confidence diving into the engine.
Once I had completed the build I was very happy with the final product. The bike looked cool and the riding experience was greatly improved, I had realised how badly the bike ran before It was fixed up and now it was faster and presented excellently. This project taught me how to manage a project under time constraints and how to completely take a motorbike apart and put it all back together.
There were some smaller aspects of the bike I wish I had changed like polishing the hubs of the wheels but overall I couldn’t be more happy with the result. Unfortunately the competition had been postponed due to covid although if it wasn’t for the competition i may have never created such a good looking bike.
