Anyone have a TMEC200... please answer

[steve_newbie]

Interested in buying a TMEC200 in the next few weeks and wanted to hear from anyone who may have one in terms of their thoughts...

Is it a reliable bike? Is the headlight bright enough for night use or does it need a new bulb? Any real world gas mileage numbers? Can you flat foot it with a 32" inseem?

Any other information you can add will be very helpful to me...

Steve

[culcune]

I have one. Bought it used over the Thanksgiving weekend for $800. Don't know how many actual miles it had because the cable was broken when I bought it. It seems to have been properly broken in, although the story I got from the dealer listed on the MSO, Supersportz of Riverside, told me he had sold it to a guy to be destroyed for a lower budget film. The guy who I bought it from was probably a friend or friend of friend of the aspiring filmmaker who got it for a good deal since they couldn't be registered for the street in Calif. They are legal for the other 49 states, however.

I started commuting to work in early December, and have used it daily since. I ride 15 miles to work each way and put on 30 miles daily. I ride a few city miles, the rest being county roads posted at 50 mph being the fastest. The Zongshen engine works great!

After a few months, the 56 tooth rear sprocket started getting on my nerves, especially since it limited the bike to 55 mph at the max-- but SCREAMING (front is 17t). After fruitless searches on the UK Ebay sites for a replacement rear 48t sprocket (the 17" motard tire setup utilizes the Derbi Senda 125 r [a European motard] sprocket pattern--the smallest available replacement sprocket is JT Sprocket 48t for the Derbi), I found a company out of the US called Rebel Gears who made me a 40t. In retrospect, I should have gone 46t, or 44t max since I had to custom anyway due to the lack of a JT 48t, and 48 did not seem like it would affect me much better than the 56t stock. 5th gear was useless with a 17t front, and I ended up ordering a 15t front (the front is based on what the Honda CG 125s were put into back in the day which are far more plentiful to find).

Fit and finish on the bike are okay to poor (the exhaust was already rusted when I bought it, for instance), but nothing to cry about.

Pretty much, the headlight is not great, and in need of a brighter bulb. I only ride in the dark in the late fall to early spring seasons on the way to work, so have not changed the bulb, which I will research once my commute goes to darkness in the next couple months.

My inseam is 30", as I am only 5'7" and I find the bike tall for me. I am on my tip-toes at the few red lights I encounter in the city part of my commute.

I would recommend reading the long thread from the guy out of Texas who ordered his from Supersportz where mine w as(they no longer carry the TMECs anymore-they used to get their bikes from TMEC's US office who have since closed and sold the rest of their inventory to Excalibur www.atv4usa who are now the official distributor of these bikes). I don't remember the guy's nickname who blogged about his TMEC, but he ended up buying a Honda CBR 250 because he qualified for financing when he put in a credit application on a whim. This was after several months of ownersip and upgrades (I remember he ordered the JT 48t sprocket from the UK, and jetted his carb, for instance). He paid $1500, including shipping, for the 2009 model (which was the only year model available and sold until inventory ran out a year and a half or so ago). The new ones sold by, and through, Excalibur, are 2013 models, which offered some minor improvements to the trim.