| Written by Zac Kurylyk on Tuesday, 11 May 2010 |
Gorgeous styling but is a claimed 26 HP enough?
It
was designed
in England, manufactured in Taiwan and China and sold all over the world; now, the Megelli 250r may be coming to Canada.
Word
on the street is that SAGA Power, mostly known for their enduro
and scooter line brought in from China,
may be looking to add the fully-faired 250cc sport bike to their lineup this summer. The company is
shipping sample units in this spring for testing.
The
bike is supposedly very light (weighing in at less than 250 lb), but
the quarter-litre, liquid-cooled, two-valve single isn’t about to deliver scary power to rice rocketeers — company reps say it
puts out around 26 horsepower. That drops it behind the competition with
Kawasaki's popular Ninja 250 putting out a claimed 33 horses. Front brake is a single two-piston caliper (rear brake features one
piston), wheelbase
is 1,349 mm (just over 53 inches) and
transmission is a five-speed.
It looks like a good looking 1125R Buell from the front.
The
styling is slick with T6 aluminum trellis frame and swingarm, underseat exhaust, and swooping bodywork, but it remains to be seen what the paint and metal will look
like after enduring a few months of the Canadian climate — previous
Chinese
motorcycle
imports have not fared well under these conditions.
Megelli
says their bikes are sold in about 30 countries, so the upstart UK-based
company must be doing something right and their European engineering may
give them an edge over other bikes built in China. However, it
will be interesting to see how the Megelli sells if SAGA decides to
import the machine.
Of course, no pricing has been set, but the 250r was sold in the States under the Q-Link name for $3,499, so we'd expect to see something around $4,000 Cdn, which would put it about $500 below Kawasaki's Ninja 250 that still sets the standard
among small-displacement sport bikes.
Question is, is the small-capacity sport market getting too crowded with bikes such as Honda’s CBR125, Hyosung’s GT 250R, and Kymco’s new 150cc Quannon sport models? We'll see.
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