The Most Popular 125cc Motorcycles in 2022

Riding a 125 is a right of passage. The vast majority of bikers you meet will have – at once stage or another – clocked up a few miles on a 125.

For some bikers, their only experience of a 125 was while doing their CBT and then from there, they went straight onto a ‘big bike’ to do their full motorcycle licence.

Whereas for other bikers, a 125cc motorcycle is their only experience of biking! You see, your Compulsory Basic Training certificate allows you to ride a 125cc motorcycle for up to 2 years. After that, it expires and you need to renew your CBT if you want to carry on riding a 125. Some bikers spent their biking lives just renewing their CBT every couple of years and riding around on a 125cc motorcycle on L-plates. It’s a simple way to get a motorcycle and commute or ride for fun.

If you’re new to biking and you’ve got aspirations on riding a ‘proper’ motorbike, don’t write off the idea of running around on a 125 for a year or so.

While many bikers with a full motorcycle licence might turn their noses up at a 125, the fact is, they’re easy to ride, cheap to buy and run. They’re less expensive if you drop them and they’re lighter so you’re less likely to drop them in the first place.

In fact, in my experience (and there is no scientific evidence to support this), the bikers I know who did a year on a 125 are better bikers. Why? Because they weren’t riding heavy expensive bikes that they were afraid to delve into or afraid to drop. They learned how to perfect their slow speed control on a manageable 125. They rattled around at relatively low speeds and had the time to explore what the bike could do and how their inputs affected things.

If you jump straight onto a big bike, you’ll have strong brakes, lots of power and lots more weight. Bigger bikes are more intimidating and I think that people who jump straight onto them don’t learn the dynamics of how a motorcycle works as well as those who pile the miles on their 125.

Yes, I’m biased as I spent many a happy month buzzing around the lanes on my Yamaha TZR125 but it helped me learn about the most important aspects of motorcycling, including slow speed control. Just watch this video of my U-turn on a Ducati Diavel – a long and heavy motorcycle, with an eager clutch! I put that control down to hours spent messing around on industrial estates on my 125.

Feel free to disagree about my 125 versus big bike opinions in the comments section below!

The Most Popular 125cc Motorcycles

We have already written two great articles on the best 125cc motorcycles and best 125cc scooters, which will hopefully guide you on some of the best new or nearly-new options you can buy today.

However, for this review, we have taken a different approach. To help you choose a 125cc motorcycle, we asked a motorcycle insurance provider to share details of the most insured makes and models of 125cc motorcycles on their books.

This data gives you a real-world view of what 125cc bikes people are actually buying and running. If a bike’s on this list, then it’s obviously popular and it’ll be popular for any number of reasons, from being cheap to buy to cheap to run, easy to insure or just plain good-looking or fun to ride.

While we will never know the exact reasons people buy the motorbikes on this list, the fact is thousands of bikers have been in your shoes and they’ve all made decisions about the best post-CBT motorcycle and they’re all on this list.