Cagiva Mito 125SP Sport Production Lucky Explorer
Cagiva Mito 125SP Sport Production Lucky Explorer | |
Manufacturer | |
---|---|
Production | 1991 |
Engine | Two stroke, single cylinder, electric variable power read valve |
Compression ratio | 13.0:1 |
Top Speed | 164.2 km/h |
Ignition | CDI |
Transmission | 7 Speed |
Suspension | Front: USD Telescopic forks Rear: Swinging arm single shock |
Brakes | Front: Single 320mm disc 4 piston caliper Rear: Single 230mm disc 1 piston caliper |
Front Tire | 110/70-17 |
Rear Tire | 150/70-17 |
Weight | 117 kg / 258 lbs (dry), 125 kg / 275.5 lbs (wet) |
Fuel Capacity | 12.8 Liters / 3.38 US gal |
Manuals | Service Manual |
It could reach a top speed of 164.2 km/h.
Engine[edit | edit source]
The engine featured a 13.0:1 compression ratio.
Chassis[edit | edit source]
It came with a 110/70-17 front tire and a 150/70-17 rear tire. Stopping was achieved via Single 320mm disc 4 piston caliper in the front and a Single 230mm disc 1 piston caliper in the rear. The front suspension was a USD Telescopic forks while the rear was equipped with a Swinging arm single shock. The Mito 125SP Sport Production Lucky Explorer was fitted with a 12.8 Liters / 3.38 US gal fuel tank. The bike weighed just 117 kg / 258 lbs.
Photos[edit | edit source]
Overview[edit | edit source]
Cagiva Mito 125SP Sport Production Lucky Explorer
The myth Racing Lucky Explorer (or Sport Production)
Launched in December 1990 at the Bologna Motorshow and sold since April 1991,
Mito Racing, also known as Lucky Explorer or Sport Production, is thought to
participate in the Italian Sport Production championship. Motion in one livery
Lucky Explorer as its progenitor Arrow SP, Racing take only minor changes to
risopetto Myth "base." We see such as:
Adoption of a new cylinder (cylinder 66650E) Lamellar carbon fiber New exhaust system and carburetor magazine Ratios shortened primary New rear shock adjustment
The benefits identified by the various magazines of the period are not, as usual, homogeneous: some detect a maximum power to the wheel 29.76 bhp at 10,750 rpm (and thus lower the Myth base) and others to collect over 32cv 11000giri. The same applies for the maximum speed ranging from 166 to 172km / h. Definitely elevated, but as always subject to the particular mechanical state of the tested machine and many other factors. You can still cautiously suppose that the same conditions, a better performance of Racing is a "base". The Racing is not a limited edition.
It's tough being a kid in Italy. I mean, quite apart from enjoying a
seemingly unending supply of sun, sand, sea or snow (according to season) and
lots of luscious Latin lovelies, Italian youth has the opportunity to choose,
buy and ride at the age of just 16 the widest selection of high-tech 125cc
motorcycles in the world. Hell on wheels, that's what it is.
Honda Italia's NSR125 in 'nude' and fully-faired versions, three types of
Aprilia depending on body style and technical specification, the Gilera SP01/02
terrible twins, Yamaha's strangely anonymous TZR125 which anywhere else is the
object of lust and envy but in Italy hardly rates a second glance, the line of
Cagiva Freccias, and even the little marque that started the whole 125 race
replica craze almost a decade ago with their weirdly-named Silver Horse, HRD -
the choice is seemingly endless. And these are just the road rockets. That list
doesn't even take into account the street enduros and mini-Dakar pseudo-replicas
that each manufacturer feels obliged to hedge his bets with.
Hedging your bets is vital in this fickle market, where fashions can change
overnight and today's hot seller is tomorrow's discounted leftover. Nobody has
proved more adept at forecasting, and even creating, the next bandwagon in
two-wheeled Italian chic than Aprilia, whose climb to their present supremacy
among Italian manufacturers has been attained almost entirley on the back of
their domination of the vital 125 market. Where Aprilia led, the others have
latterly had to follow, with the noticeable exception of Honda Italia, whose
brave introduction at the '87 Milan Show of a 'nude' version of their NSR125
proudly displaying its cast-alloy Grimeca chassis for all to see proved such an
immediate hit with the teen trendsetters that Aprilia actually had to rush out
their own nude-bike, the Europa, to compete. Too late, though, to make a mark in
1990. They'd missed the boat and now they all have the Cagiva Mito to worry
about.
Cagiva had been known to have a 125 streetbike lookalike version of Randy
Mamola's racer under development for many months - I first saw the prototype
back in July '89, complete with bodywork that was a scaled-down replica of
Randy's red rocket and just about as awesomely sexy, sort of like Grace Jones on
wheels, clad in svelte red form-fitting fibreglass. But the Milan Show came and
went without any sight of the Cagivina, which instead was launched in a
half-hearted fashion in mid-May without bodywork. Were Cagiva so
desperate to play catch-up to Honda Italia that they forfeited the chance of
imposing their own imprimatur on the 125 roadster market in favor of following
Honda and Aprilia? Where was the bodywork the Mito (Italian for 'legend') so
obviously lacked?
Answer - on a slow boat from China, or to be more precise, Taiwan, which is
where Cagiva obtain an increasing variety of components (just like the Japanese
Big Four do), including designer Massimo Tamburini's aggressively curvaceous
injection-moulded bodywork. As a major player on the world stage, with assembly
plants all over the world, there's nothing so strange in Cagiva doing this, only
that shipping times being what they are, logistics sometimes prevent delivery
meeting expectation. You won't get anyone in the Cagiva Group to admit so on the
record, but that's clearly what happened here. So fearful of losing a summer's
worth of the crucial 125 market, Cagiva made lemondade out of the lemon by
rushing out a nude version of the Mito in late spring, with locally-made seat
and metal tank.
The result failed to dent Aprilia's market supremacy but at least it gathered
a few thousand sales pending arrival of the fully-faired version once the boat
came in. That duly happened in August just as Italy left for the beach, but once
the properly-dressed Mito finally hit the shops, it was no contest: even kids
who weren't figuring on buying a new bike this year, or maybe had even bought
one already, just had to have one -always assuming they had the odd 5,770,000
lire (£2500) lying around to buy it with (£256 more than the 'nude' version) or
could borrow from their dad. That, by the way, is a knock-out price, obtainable
thanks to and fully justifying the decision to obtain components in places like
Taiwan: the Aprilia Future by comparison is 6,200,000 lire (£2695).
Eighteen-year old Luca Ramazzotti found himself in that very position - we
met him and his chums (one Mito, one NSR125 and an Aprilia Futura between them)
while taking action pics high in the hills above Lake Maggiore. 'I had a Gilera
SP02 earlier this year,' said Luca, 'but then when the Mito vestita
(clothed) was presented, I had to have one. For me, it's the most beautiful
motorcycle ever made, not like that ugly Honda of my friends! I got a good price
from the Cagiva dealer for my Gilera and borrowed the rest from my father. I
don't care if maybe by next year the other factories bring out something new -
the Mito is lovely to look at, it's based on the bike my hero Randy Mamola rides
in GPs and it's fantastic to ride.'
That it is. Having run the gamut of Italian 125 street racers over the past
year or so, I've got to tell you there's no contest, the Mito is The Business.
On paper it looks like it should be; in photos it seems like it must be; on the
road, it is - the horniest-looking, best handling, fastest 125 street bike in
the world, tested by MotoSprint magazine in Italy at no less than
107.3mph, the first eighth-litre bike to break the 170kph barrier. But - so
what, I hear you say. This bike is only aimed at Italy's pimply youth, teenage
members of the style council, what has that got to do with the real world of
adult motorcycling? Well, for once, quite a lot.
Because for the first time, one of the Italian manufacturers has built a 125
road rocket that deserves to find a much wider public than Luca and his fellow
teenage mutant hero bikers. For a start, it's actually tailored to a
normal-sized person, with a 1380mm wheelbase (same as the'89 Cagiva 500 GP bike,
no less), surprisingly low-set footrests which are a little further forward than
normal on race replicas but are still high enough to prevent grounding even with
the amazing grip offered by the wide Michelin radials. They were specially
designed for the Mito and its 2.75in front and no less than 4.00in rear 17-inch
three-spoke wheels. The fully-adjustable cast-alloy bars have a pronounced
downwards droop for serious race-replica posing. Like everything else on the
bike, and especially the Taiwanese bodywork, these are made to an incredibly
high level of quality, from the deep lustre of the Ferrari-red paintwork to the
clean welding on the race-type exhaust and the handsome GP-style twin-spar alloy
chassis, fabricated from extruded aluminum spars welded to cast steering head
and swingarm pivot castings. The banana swingarm is cast, too, with the
hunchback design not only adopted for The Look but also to give a straighter
line to the exhaust in pursuit of improved engine performance.
All this results not only in a very comfortable riding position even for a
six-foot rider like myself, but amazingly stable yet fast handling - just the
sort of recipe Cagiva were searching for (and obtained) on their 1990 500cc GP
bike. A 100-mile run before stopping for fuel left no aching limbs nor vibro-massaged
extremities, thanks to the effective counterbalancer in the single-cylinder
reed-valve two-stroke motor. The wide, flat, race-style seat is set quite high,
but doesn't slope forward like on the Mito's Freccia predecessors, and though
there is a certain amount of weight on your forearms and shoulders thanks to the
dropped bars, it's not excessive. This is a little bike that thinks big. It
could almost be a 500 twin in terms of stature, though that illusion is rudely
shattered when you thumb the fast-spinning electric starter and the little
engine explodes into life with a raucous rattle. This subsides once on the move,
effectively silenced by the Mito's all-enveloping bodywork, which incidentally
fits together perfectly, with no squeaks or jarring from the five-piece fairing,
not even where its flanks met the metal tank. Again, this has a very solid feel
for a small bike.
The same thing applies to the handling, which has none of the twitchiness
you'd rightly expect from a 125 and which certain of its rivals display in full.
Part of this must surely be thanks to those fat Michelins, curiously different
in aspect ratio from those fitted to the 'nude' Mito but offering exceptional
grip on the bike I rode. However, the rear suspension is really brilliant, for
once living up to the rather fatuous 'Soft Damp' epithet Cagiva insist on
applying to their rising-rate designs. It irons out road shock and smooths out
bumps in a way that seems impossible on such a light bike, scaling 266lb dry
against the 'nude' version's 259lb. Steering geometry is fairly conservative by
125 sportbike standards, at 25.5 degrees head angle and 98mm trail which
doubtless helps explain the feeling of ease and predictability with which the
Mito assaults a winding mountain road - the steering is light, but not
over-sensitive. Less impressive are the 38mm front forks, which have 123mm of
movement but felt definitely too stiff on compression, so that they hopped
noticeably over some rough surfaces. This could probably be ironed out to some
extent by playing around with the preload adjustment (the rear shock is also
adjustable for this, not always a feature of Latin 125s), but one has to wonder
why Cagiva didn't complete the specification of this ne plus ultra 125 road
rocket by fitting the currently fashionable upside-down forks which their 500 GP
bike and, more importantly, the Aprilia Futura both boast. Probably the answer
lies in the price gap between the Mito and the Aprilia, but it would be nice to
have had the extra sensitivity of Marzocchi's new range of inverted teles for
the street.
No such complaint can be levelled against the Mito's monster front brake, the
very same as fitted two-up to its eight-valve Ducati 851SP cousin, a 320mm
fully-floating Brembo with latest-spec four-pot caliper, which looks great and
works brilliantly. It's more than powerful enough for the Mito even with a full
fuel load and rider of, er, 'mature weight', but it also has lots of feel yet is
great in panic stops.
But where the Mito really scores over its rivals is in the usability of the
little 56 x 50.6m engine - again, the same cylinder dimensions as the 500
GP bike, rather than the Honda-like 'square' configuration of the Aprilias'
Rotax-built lump. That means the Cagiva is a rewer, just like the Gilera SP01/02
with similar dimensions, but unlike the Gilera I spent a fraught weekend with
last summer (which was basically unusable in town because of its extreme power
band and abrupt delivery) the Cagiva once again has the feel of a larger bike.
That's not to say you don't have to exercise the left hand to get it really
motoring away from the lights, and a smartly-driven Fiat Uno will still give you
cause for grief in certain situations, but unlike the Gilera and all the other
street rockets I've sampled, the Cagiva can actually be ridden at low speeds off
the pipe quite happily.
So, trickling through town in a stream of traffic is bereft of drama. You
don't need to keep snatching at the clutch lever to persuade the engine to
respond to commands, nor does it hunt and snatch at part throttle openings.
There certainly isn't a lot of power on tap till the revcounter needle hits the
3000rpm mark, but it will drive smoothly albeit slowly away from the mark at
those revs. The engine is basically the same as that in the C12 Freccia, with
the same flap-type electronic exhaust valve but the revised pipe, so that strong
power now comes in a little earlier than before at about 6500rpm. Clutch it so
the motor gets into that bracket, and the result is quite vivid acceleration for
a 125 - nought to 60mph in a tad over seven seconds from a standing start.
There's a noticeable extra shove at around 8500rpm when the power valve is
presumably fully open, and the engine will keep revving to over 11 .OOOrprn on
the tacho (maybe a little less in real life), after which it's all done and
power drops off sharply. But by then you should be doing over 105mph in top
gear, which is to say, seventh. Yes folks - the Mito (and the C12) is the only
bike in the market anywhere in the world with a seven-speed gearbox.
What this means is that the top three gears are all in fact overdrive ratios
and very close together - less than 150rpm difference between sixth and seventh,
as far as I could make out. But though you tend to get lost coming down the
gears for a corner, in practice this don't matter a damn -just keep rowing that
slick-shifting lever till you run out of gears and/or steam. The bottom four are
wide enough spaced so you can ride the bike 'normally' in town, yet get
reasonably rorty performance under
acceleration; the top three are for keeping the eggcup-sized motor on the
boil once you get it there.
The Mito deserves to live up to its name: it provides loads of fun for far
from loadsamoney - 5.7 million lire (including 18% tax) equates to £2600 in
Britain, and given the level of equipment the baby Cagiva boasts, and those
sensational lines, that's a fair price. Doubtless if a few thousand more teen
style judges like my mate Luca feel the same way, the Mito will achieve its
intent of dislodging Aprilia permanently from that number-one slot.
Source Cycle 1991
Make Model | Cagiva Mito 125SP Sport Production Lucky Explorer |
---|---|
Year | 1991 |
Engine Type | Two stroke, single cylinder, electric variable power read valve |
Displacement | 125.6 cc / 7.6 cu-in |
Bore X Stroke | 56 x 50.6 mm |
Compression | 13.0:1 |
Induction | 28mm Dell'Orto flat slide carburetor |
Ignition | CDI |
Starting | Kick |
Max Power | 33.5 hp / 23 kW @ 10500 rpm |
Max Torque | 19 Nm / 14 lb-ft @ 9000 rpm |
Transmission | 7 Speed |
Final Drive | Chain |
Front Suspension | USD Telescopic forks |
Rear Suspension | Swinging arm single shock |
Front Brakes | Single 320mm disc 4 piston caliper |
Rear Brakes | Single 230mm disc 1 piston caliper |
Front Tire | 110/70-17 |
Rear Tire | 150/70-17 |
Dry Weight | 117 kg / 258 lbs |
Wet Weight | 125 kg / 275.5 lbs |
Fuel Capacity | 12.8 Liters / 3.38 US gal |
Braking 60 - 0 / 100 - 0 | 13.1 m / 37.0 m |
Standing ¼ Mile | 14.0 sec / 148.9 km/h |
Top Speed | 164.2 km/h |