2019 Sinnis Terrain 125 Review: The £2,500 Adventure Motorcycle

Can you really produce an adventure bike for two and a half thousand pounds? I've been riding the sinister rain for the last couple of weeks to find out but before we get into today's video We probably ought to define what constitutes an adventure bike to me It's a machine that can be a practical everyday commuter given how many 1200 GS's I see in central London It also needs to be able to carry you over long distances at a good speed As well as go anywhere on any type of road surface So that's how I'm going to break this review down the city the motorway the green lanes and a river crossing So first up is this little bike a capable commuter? So I've been riding it for a couple of weeks now in London mainly commuting and I think for the money It's an amazing practical city bike So I thought we'd start with a little walk around just so I can show you how much bike you get for your British pound 2,500 of them to be precise starting at the front end here. You've got Some off-road type tires. I think they are. Oh, no. Wait, here we go. CST Absolutely, no problems with them so far. I mean on the tarmac you're not really going to challenge the bike with that 125 CC 11 horsepower engine, but No problems at all Upside-down forks. They look the business feel pretty good as well. And then you've got LED daytime running lights here Not on because the bikes not started LED indicators a screen so this takes a bit of the wind off your body off your chest Hangards these definitely keep the wind off your hands so much so that it's like 35 degrees now And actually my hands are a little bit warm the perforation on the back of the gloves isn't letting any air through So I have to kind of lift my hands up a little bit great mirrors here as well. Really good visibility good adjustment They seem like quite good quality given the price point of this bike nice wide bars You can see they're risen up quite a bit there as well LCD dash with you know trip gear indicator clock USB port here a couple of buttons That's your neutral indicator indicator lights fuel gauge and rev counter 14 liter tank here, which is absolutely plenty for a bike of this size a bit of bodywork This just looks like a radiator, but I think it just books the front of the bike out crash bars here those are handy from a practical perspective and they look pretty substantial a Bash plate here. This is plastic but quite thick plastic not too bad nice chunky grips here with the rubber insert Is that removable? Yeah, take those out if you want off-road it same for the pillion seats comfy Decent pillion seat grab rail LED indicators at the back little LED strips down the back of the taillight there And then you've got this full luggage. Now. This is a 70 quid option a bigger top box that will fit a helmet in it But you've also got these panniers this one a bit smaller because of the exhaust but decent capacity You know not as big as like a full size bike But more than enough for you commuting at least enough. I found it so practical just to be able to sticker You know some extra clothes in there if I want to get changed when I get to the office be able to leave your lid in There when you park up, so yeah, that's pretty great And then this particular bike has the Toro full system exhaust on so it's a little bit louder than stock Or probably quite a bit louder. So that's it I mean what more can you ask for for two and a half grand? So despite the fact that all that equipment means it has a bit of a big bike feel You know, it's still only a hundred and fifty kilograms Which means it's perfect for traffic around town like this perfectly nimble for filtering Nice wide bars and the seat isn't too high either at 800 mils. So it's a doddle in traffic really Especially when it gets a you know much heavier than this and traffic's at a standstill. I've found it really easy I'd say the only downside of the Crash bars is that they do make the bike a little bit wider So if you're trying to squeeze through those very narrow gaps You've just got to watch those crash bars especially at the back when you think you've rounded the front of a car or the back if You're waddling the bike along and they're protruding ever so slightly further than the panniers You've really just got to make sure you don't clip people not that you'd be any worse off because they're crash bars after all But we're all considerate road users as motorcyclists, aren't we? The brakes are pretty decent as well Which is obviously important when you're riding around town, but the one thing that does Great on me somewhat is the linked brakes. So any new bike nowadays I believe that doesn't have ABS has to by law have linked brakes So the front brake on this bike operates as normal, but the rear brake pedal Operates both the front and rear brake So if you stamp on that you get this weird sensation of the front diving which you're totally not used to it's got to be a legislation thought up by someone who doesn't ride a bike because it's really Annoying and makes it far more difficult to ride from my perspective. Anyway, I'm not sure if you're a beginner Perhaps that's different. But for anyone who's ridden a bike for any amount of time, it's just way less nuanced You feel like you've got a lot less control So things like if you want to drag the rear brake just to give you a bit of stability doing your low speed maneuvers Which some people like to do myself included you can't do that because it'll heave on the front brake as well But perhaps more annoyingly you can't balance the front and rear brake so whatever you you know, you get out of the pedal is what you're stuck with you can maybe give the front brake lever a pull and get a bit more pressure out of that, but I've found myself occasionally come into a sharp stop and the back locks up so much easier because As soon as the front brakes go on the front end dives and the tail of the bike doesn't you know much less weight on it and So the the rear wheel locks up whilst the front is under heavy braking. I don't think this is Sinise's fault at all because Generally, the brakes are excellent when you consider what you're paying as well It's just a stupid law and I do wonder if there's any way to put a blanking Stopper or something like that in the brake line from the pedal to the front brake Apparently there's a decent community of Sinise terrain owners on Facebook. So perhaps it's worth checking there as for power 11 horses from the air-cooled 125 is plenty enough around town Yes, you have to leave a little bit more space or a little bit more margin for error if you're overtaking and that kind of thing, but When I say overtaking as well I kind of mean filtering around town if you see that there's a bit of a gap in the traffic up ahead and you want To make it past a couple of cars. You've got to make sure you've got ample time to do so but in a way, it's a beautiful thing because When else do you get to hear your motorbikes engine if you're a you know a city rider? When else do you get to hear it? Like really? Making that kind of noise never You know, I can't really ride my street twin like that because you'd be way over the speed limit before you know it But every time you pull away from the lights on this bike You can just absolutely pin the throttle and bang through first second third and it gives you that Sound of a bike that they use in the races before the MotoGP if you know what I mean, allow me to demonstrate I'll open my lid so you can hear a bit better See that's good fun, you know If you've got to go to work for a boring day in the office At least you get to do that for half an hour beforehand and then half an hour at the end of the day as well So yeah as a commuter I've thoroughly enjoyed riding this bike for the last couple of weeks a big part of it's been the practicality You know, it's a comfy bike with wide high bars good mirrors Easy to get through the traffic Lots of luggage space, but I've got to say it surprised me with how much fun I've actually had doing it as well Well, I haven't done a lot of motorway riding on this bike But I thought I owed it to you to give it a little bit of a go But I'm going to start out here on the a20 Where it's just at 50 miles an hour and just see how we get on Thankfully, we've got a little ramp To descend here which will get us up to 50 nice and quickly but I've got a feeling that 50 might be about the extent of this bikes capabilities when it comes to a slight incline That's not to say that it's an uncomfortable riding position I think you could really go far on this bike if speed wasn't really an issue The position of the bars is good. The seats good the foot peg positions decent as well The screen gives you a bit of protection here. So do the handguards and The fuel economy on this thing. You've got a 14 liter tank and I think it can do Something like 300 miles on a tank, which is handy if you want to do a bit of touring. Okay, we're up to 70 speed limit here. We're in fifth gear at 8,000 revs. It'll redline at 9,000 revs and we're at 62 63 but we're almost at the redline Probably have to let this guy in so that's gonna screw things up for me ever so slightly because now I'm down at 55 and there's no way this bike is gonna accelerate uphill Well, I can a little bit Maybe because I'm in the draft of this van in front. So there's not as much wind resistance, but It's going a little bit better uphill than it was before I'm probably a little bit lucky that this guy isn't going that fast To give the illusion that is this guy holding everyone up, but not me. No, he's pulling off Come on 55 57 Properly got the throttle Entirely open here 59 As soon as you get behind a lorry or something and get the benefit of the slipstream So maybe this is it only take it on well-known trucking routes that way you've got some buddies around you to trundle along with This is actually not all that bad. I mean It's comfy but It's probably not the most fun. You can have on a motorcycle either. I think I might come off here and find something else to do Look brands hatch Probably not that See this is more so the kind of touring that you want to be doing on this bike is little villages and back roads and B roads and 11 horsepower doesn't sound like much but it's pretty much enough if you're riding solo to have some good fun on these roads and Despite it being quite a lightweight bike Because of all the you know, the two mudguards on the front the decent headlight clustering and instrument cluster Decent mirrors handguards. It has a certain weightiness to it. It almost feels quite planted for such a little bike There's no problem really keeping up with traffic on these types of roads Cruise along easily can even overtake people look Cheers, brother, especially if someone moves over There's absolutely no reason you can't have a bit of fun on corners like that, you know, you don't get that Acceleration rush that you get with a big bike, but the brakes are enough to slow you up quickly the fact that their link doesn't matter so much when you're rolling into a corner like that and the suspension It's not bad. It's comfy, but it holds this line fairly. Well Definitely feels more at home on this kind of road the fast single lane roads all right, so you're probably not going to do the Dakar rally on this one two five, but You know if you're buying a little adventure bike like this, you might want to do a little bit of green lane in Be able to ride over some trash that someone's fly-tipped No problem So yeah, I thought I'd include a quick segment of pilgrims way Which is a byway that I found through the byways maps Website, but this is exactly the sort of thing. You want a little adventure bike to do like this is well handle a little bit of gravel track like this and It's decent. I mean at least it's nice and light the bars are wide You can stand up easily on these big foot pegs and the bars are high enough for it The suspensions up to the job on stuff like this I mean if you jump in it or taking on some massive bumps it might not work, but Seems fine and actually these tires have decent enough tread and grip for this sort of stuff I Guess the limiting factor again for some riders especially those who know how to slide it around a little bit will be the Link brakes are a bit shit aren't they but well Where can we go from here? What a beautiful day? See I would love to just give the rear brake a bit of a stomp and get it sliding around Because although I don't ride motorbikes off-road much. I did mountain bike a bit when I was younger not that successfully I'll admit but Certainly know how to rip a fat skid whoa Hmm this might be the end of the road for me in the Sinise Can I sneak through Lock the front up a little bit there prime example of those well now that was just probably rider error Stupidly I'm actually looking a little bit low on fuel of all the parts of this ride to run out of petrol on It's this bit, but oh This is absolutely loads of fun Seems like a good spot for a picture man I've had a lot of fun with this bike this afternoon So I'm on the way home, and I'm in Ainsford Ains Ford hence there's a There's a Ford here, and I'm thinking this can make an epic end to the video if I ride through it On the other hand Sam Danny the guys at Sinise if I drop the bike in a river I would totally understand if he never spoke to me again, but then again It's the mark of a true adventure bike is a river crossing I know it to my audience to test out this high-level exhaust then again There's lots of people here if I do drop it. I'm gonna look stupid Then again, it's like 35 degrees, and I'm boiling this be a nice way to cool down. I'm just gonna do it So there you have it ladies and gents If it can go through a Ford it's an adventure bike a two and a half thousand pound adventure bike or be it Should I go back through the other way I? Became pretty fond of this bike over the two weeks I had it of course it's not the quickest and the brakes got on my nerves a bit but it's super practical for city riding really comfortable for daily commuting and Ultimately about as much fun as you can possibly have for a two and a half grand motorcycle brand new