Ducati replica sports 125 a real looker! (Cagiva Mito)

Name: toby_s223

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Product:	Cagiva Mito
Date:	21.06.02 (18138 review reads)
Rating:

Advantages: Very fast, Handles well, Best looking 125

Disadvantages: Not as comfy, Quite loud, Er.....hello?

I first got into bikes when I got my scooter in June last year. I couple of months after that, I saw the Cagiva Mito, and decided that was the bike I was going to get when I was 17. I started saving in September. I have a job at a hardwear store and I was earning about £270 a month. This soon mounted up and by Christmas I was well on my way to be able to afford the bike. In April I started to look around for second hand Mito's. I was never planning on getting one new as you loose a lot of money from depretiation. These bikes are generally between £1,900 and £2,500 second hand for a good one. New, they are between about £3,200 and £3,700, although you can get them for as little as £3,099.
Bike Trader proved to be a good place to look for second hand bikes, but when I saw two in Adtrader (the on-line version of Diamond Free-ads), which were fairly nearby I decided to ring up. The two I saw, were £2000 and £1,800. The first one was sold, but the second one for £1,800 was still there. It was about an hours drive from where I live. The bike was a T reg and was in generally good condition. The kid had obviously come off it as there were two scuffs on the right hand side of the fairing and a crack near the fuel tank. But they weren't very noticable. It had done 18,000 miles, which is a massive amount of miles for a bike of that age. Even so I arranged to buy the bike. I couldn't take the bike straight away as the owner was going to put the bike in for an MOT, get a new front tyre, which he assured me was going to cost £180 and a new battery.
He arranged to drop the bike off at my house on the back of his trailer a couple of weeks later. The two weeks passed (very slowly!) and he delivered the bike. I was well chuffed and I have a big driveway where I could get practice before taking to the roads.
The bike has a very useful campartment under the pillion seat, which is lockable. It also has a helmet lock just under te seat as well, although my one
was missing. I wouldn't really want to leave my helmet with the bike anyway because of kids spitting in it and stuff. The bike looks incredably like the Ducati 916. The speedo dial is exactly the same, so is the temperature gauge and tacho, although the temperature gauge on the Ducati goes up to 250 degrees! It also has a steering damper to control tankslappers, which is when the bike snakes and eventually spits you off if you don't manage to control it. Again this is exactly the same as the Ducati.
The insurance, was pretty expensive as I expected with I bike like this. I ended up paying £400 third party only. Third party, fire and theft is between £750 and £950 and Fully comp is about £1,700 - £2,000. In this case, more than the value of the bike! So I bought a big chain and paddlock and went with third party.
Two days after my birthday, I was all set to ride the bike. I had to ride to work on it, but I didn't mind going to work that day! This is probably the hardest bike to ride out of the 125s. Trail bikes are easy to manouver and are generally more user friendly. I have found the bike has a massive turning circle and you end up doing a 3 point turn in anything but the widest main roads if you want to do a U turn. I would not recommend that anyone takes their test on this bike because of it's manouverability. It would be easier to pass the test on one of the training bikes.
My bike is de-restricted so it goes faster than standard. If you want to de-restrict the bike get something like an Arrow or Gianelli exhaust. This will improve performance a lot. At the moment the bike has a 45 tooth sprocket rather than the 41 tooth standard one. This will take about 20mph off the top end speed but make the bike accelerate a lot faster, which it does. Top speed at the moment is about 90mph with the revs nearing the red-line, which is just after 11,000. So you can expect to go over 100mph with the 41 tooth sprocket. You will also loose some o
f the acceleration but you'll get slightly better fuel consumption.
To ride the bike you need to first let it warm up so that the dial reads just below 60 degrees. It should warm up within the first mile and a half. You should invest in a radiator cover in the winter, because if it is a very cold day, the bike simply won't warm up at all.
When you are riding, you twist back the throttle in whatever gear you are in and when the tacho needle goes over 7000, you get a meaty boost and the bike goes bonkers and accelerates like a beast. It is also very
loud when you are riding fast. A pair of ear plugs would be a good investment if you are planning to ride for more than about 10 miles in one go. The bike handles very nicely and you can find yourself leaning over so your knee is pretty near to the ground on roundabouts. As the Evolution is the seven gear version, the gears are very close ratio and you only loose around 400 rpm every time you change up. Although this is partly because of the bigger than standard rear sprocket.
Over -taking is pretty easy (vehicals traveling below 55mph anyway!). Simply get ready, make sure the tacho is reading about 6,500 rpm and then open the throttle and fly past! You can also over -take other 125s as long as its not a Cagiva Mito or an Aprilia RS125! The brakes are very good as well. Most of the time it just takes the front brake, and in heavier braking situations, a little help from the rear as well, although I do try to keep in the habbit of using both brakes. You have to be quite careful, with the back. On my second day of riding, I was turning off and using the back brake, when it skidded and almost resulted in a high sider!
Over all it is a great bike. Top speed and acceleration are excellent, so are the brakes. Probably not the best bike if you have just started riding, but you can get used to it very quickly. Twisty roads is where this bike should be, and this is where you'll definately get t
he most fun out of it. It's not a bike for doing long distances on, no, it's about speed, handling and looks, and rest assured it will turn heads in the high street! A reccomended buy.

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