At the recent MotoGP in China, the Maxtra 125 from Maxtra Racing was unveiled. Unless you follow 125 GP racing, it was something many of you may have missed, I paid little attention myself. Then I saw another article and took another look at Maxtra, … I’m paying attention now, because it is much more than a 125 GP racer, it’s a big red flag that describes a process showing where the motorcycle industry may be heading in short order.
The Maxtra 125 is a new Chinese 125cc 2 stroke racer designed to begin racing in the 2009 season. After a year of learning, their aim is to place well in 2010 and seriously challenge in 2011. For a new racing team with a new bike, those goals might be ambitious but this team and motorcycle is different.
International Expertise
The Maxtra team is made up of some well known names drawing on knowledge and top level expertise from the racing world; Garry Taylor, involved with teams from Barry Sheene to Kevin Schwantz and Kenny Roberts Junior – John Surtees, former auto and motorcycle racing world champ – Dutch engineer Jan Witteveen, previously with Sachs, Cagiva, Aprilia and others and well known for his knowledge of 2 stroke engines – Steve Harris of Harris Performance Products, frame builders for both street and track – it’s quite an array of talent.
Chinese Manufacturing
So you have a Dutch designed engine housed in an English frame and bodywork, why is this motorcycle Chinese? The reason is Haojue, one of the leading motorcycle manufacturers in China. Haojue, turns out somewhere around 3 million motorcycles every year! They decided they wanted to go racing and found Taylor and Surtees who were evidently looking for a Chinese factory with just such an intention so they could do a bit of consulting. The English pair brought in Witteveen and Harris and a race bike took shape. The Maxtra name is simply something they came up with as more easily recognizable and pronounceable than Haojue, ergo, the Maxtra 125.
Import Knowledge – Build in China
Taking the knowledge from an international team and building a new motorcycle at the Haojue facilities puts the Maxtra name on a top level machine. Everything on this bike, except for some things like suspension components and the like, was designed for this bike, not purchased elsewhere, what was purchased was the know how.
Now, … take that idea one step further. Import the knowledge of how to build any type of motorcycle from an international team, pass that knowledge on to your own engineers, build those motorcycles by the millions then pay your employees (housed in factory apartments) the prevailing wage in China, pack those bikes in shipping containers and export around the world. If you can build 3 million plus motorcycles per year, you have no need to build them anywhere else.
Remember, this is not some cloned Honda or Yamaha, it’s a bike designed for Maxtra by a top level team.
If this doesn’t get the attention of every motorcycle company around the world, I would suggest they take another look. A motorcycle built like this is no second class machine, it’s top shelf equipment. There is absolutely nothing wrong with this method of learning what you need to know from anywhere in the world, but until recent years, no country had the ability to manufacture products on this scale at these prices. After years of ramping up their motorcycle industry, China is in a position to flood the motorcycle market with far better machines than they have previously been known for.
The Chinese are learning far more here than how to build a 125cc racebike, they’re learning how to build a world class motorcycle of any type. The knowledge is for sale, they have the factories, …
Link: Maxtra-Racing via Gizmag
taxman says
i hope i’m not the only one that is excited about this. one thing that i hope this does is bring in smaller CC bikes to the US. that should give people a low cost choice when it comes to bikes.
some concerns of mine will need to be addressed before i would buy one though. and those are quality of components, and easy of having the bike worked on by a local bike mechanic. just having the development team and a good design is a good step, but it can’t be the only step. China has been importing bikes into the US for a little while now and quality has been a big hold up i think.
i hope i see the future when i close my eyes and imagine a 125cc (or 250) street legal version of this bike at a cost of $4,000 give or take.
cheap, reliable, fun.
you meet the nicest people on a Maxtra?
Ed Barrett says
While the concept and brain trust is top notch, I can only wonder about the decision making process that chose a 2 stroke engine, the entire industry has been moving away from them for at least a decade due to emissions issues. While it may fit well into a racing class (though a recent article stated that one of the 2 stroke classes was being eliminated in Europe in favor of a 4 stroke replacement), I think that it will have a limited production appeal in the North American and European markets, again due to emission restrictions.
kneeslider says
Although the first commenter was thinking about a production street bike version of this, I’m suggesting nothing of the sort. The whole point of this article is the “buy knowledge – build bike” process which can be applied to any kind of motorcycle. The Maxtra 125 is a GP bike, not a street bike in any way. It’s the process of how this is being developed that’s important.
OMMAG says
What Ed Barrett said!
A day late if not a dollar short. Even though this project has enlisted the skills of some great people it’s just more of the Chinese “Me Tooism” that really illustrates the lack of capacity to originate anything.
Expect to see various Chinese “Brands” at a WallMart close to you in the near future.
Ry says
It seems to me that the English and American manufacturers said the same thing about the Japanese manufactures after world war 2.
Knowledge of manufacturing and engineering has always been for sale. Inventors and industry have patents to protect that knowledge, Patents are usually for sale.
steve says
The chinese can and will do whatever they set thier minds to do. Like Ry said, the Japanese stuff wasnt that great before.
todd says
I imagine the two-stroke motor is the lowest cost to go racing with. Remember, the engine is only about 25% of a racing effort. It’s smart to start with a two-stroke; learn what you have to about racing and chassis development all the while developing a competitive 4-stroke you can use when it’s ready.
This bike would still cost an arm and a leg. Sure they are building 3 million motorcycles but I’d suggest that none of those existing components are on this bike. If they could sell three million of these that would bring the price down to the $4,000 as suggested. As far as comparing this manufacturers motorcycles with the sort of CRAP that gets shipped to the US is unfounded. The Chinese bike that we get are built to be as cheap as possible (because that’s what we want to pay for). The bikes running around town in China are a bit higher quality otherwise people wouldn’t buy them and rely on them.
-todd
mark L. says
As an engineer working on the Roehr HD/V-rod powered sportbike, I travel to China and Hong Kong each year for various trade shows.
In 2003, I met up with a company that had just opened an office in LA that was importing Chinese made scooters, so I bought 2 of every model they made, 21 different models, and had them shipped to me in Missouri.
The TOTAL cost for this purchase of 42 scooters, ranging from 20cc electric start 2-stroke skateboard/go-ped style scooters, all the way through 125cc 4 stroke electric start streetable scooters? $ 5,100 USD, which included the freight from LA.
We decided to open a local business for my two sons, one of which was in college, and the other in high school. We sold about 700 scooters from May 1st through August 30th, including running out of scooters 2 times that summer.
I still have my Pizzazz 125cc scooter, and my wife has her 50cc scooter, and we ride them around the neighborhood a lot. Mine has about 550 miles on it, and gets about 160 MPG, her hers gets about 200 MPG.
I paid $ 530 each for the 125cc, and $ 300 each for the 50cc, electric start 4-stroke, with aluminum wheels, hydraulic disc brakes, headlights, turn signals, etc.
When you work on the volume of scale that the Chinese do, manufacturing costs drop to some stunning levels. Complete engine/transmission unit for $ 55 USD. (125cc 4-Stroke)
Also, keep in mind, that the total annual Chinese motorcycle production is nearly 15,000,000 units per YEAR.
Don’t ever discount the Chinese and what they are willing to do to expand into a new market.
The 125cc 2-stroke bike being discussed is not a volume production bike by Chinese standards, but would still be a $1,200- $ 1,800 USD bike if built to order. (at an annual volume of 500-2,500 bikes)
If you think not, get onto any common web site like ebay and look at the RETAIL price of these Chinese scooters.
The ONLY thing that has kept them out of widespread US market acceptance is that no one has set up national level distribution and after sale consumer support.
WHEN that happens, you will see sub $1,000 scooters and sub $ 2,000 motorcycles everywhere.
Phil Phartman says
Mark,
Where did the 700 scooters that you sold within 4 months get serviced?
Was there any parts/labor warranty support on these scooters?
Pizzazz scooters must be where it’s at. A 125cc air cooled 2 valve scooter that gets 160MPG? Are you sure that your speedometer wasn’t in kilometers like most chinese bikes? 200MPG on a 50? I’m pretty sure that’s a world record. All of the Chinese scooters that I’ve seen get about half of that.
Are you still in business?
It must be good, what with the gas prices and all.
M. FT. says
Phil, I think 200 MPG is not impossible (80 km/Ltr, if I’m not wrong 1 US gallon is 4 ltrs. right). Acutally world record for mileague racing is nearly 3000 km/Ltr or about 7500 MPG, but It’s a special design for racing I would say.
(… edited by kneeslider…)
Anyway, It’s quite un believable for 200 MPG with Chinese bike. It’s nearly the best result on latest Honda CUB bike which equip with PGM-FI (progamable -fuel injection). I don’t know if they tuned for more mileague with emission trade off, since America does not concern about emission that strict, even worst than China.
Greybeard says
I own several examples of semi-commercial grade Chinese machine tools.
Accuracy and repeatability for my needs are there but reliability is something I’ve had to work on.
Better bearings, improved materials and designs for mechanisms, CLEANING (you wouldn’t believe the amount of swarf and sand hiding in these machines) and finishes all needed attention.
Ok, so I saved a ton of money over contemporary alternatives. I can absorb the costs of improvements and still be ahead.
I’ll accept that in a machine tool.
I WON’T accept that in a motorcycle.
And I don’t think affordability alone is what keeps millions of people off motorcycles.
motoxyogi says
On the subject of fuel consumption it’s worth noting that as the degree of high performance tuning increases the fuel consumption decreases dramaticly for example some of the first motorcycles (and by first i mean leather belt final-drive, side-valved, total loss engines) made approximatley 70mpg, your bog standard Honda CG125 makes at least 100mpg not sure bout the cub but 160mpg is not beyond belief
mark says
The “buy knowledge — build bike” process is a nice idea, but the thing that might kill it is build quality. Are the Chinese capable of building a high-quality machine? Sure they are, but it does not seem to concern them greatly with most of their other products. Quantity seems to be of much greater interest than quality. And naturally, if quality is emphasized, production yields will decrease and price will increase.
I’m sure that with high-level talent and a non-production project of this type, the Chinese can build a decent race bike. But I don’t think that will translate into cheap, high-quality bikes that will take the world market by storm.
And personally, I think we need to move away from cheap, low-quality, disposable products that get used for a couple of years and then fill up junkyards and landfills. I’d much rather buy a 30-year-old BMW or Honda that will easily run another 30 years if I take care of it than a brand-new cheaply-made mystery-metal contraption that will probably self-destruct within five years whether I take care of it or not (and before people jump on me for that, I’ve read repeated stories of cheap Chinese motorcycles doing exactly that within months, not years).
Ctrot says
I guess it is a good thing the Chinese are going to be exporting lots of cheap motorcycles to the US. As the US manufacturing base shrinks even further and more Americans find themselves working in low paying service jobs they can buy those cheap bikes since they’ll no longer be able to afford a decent car.
motoxyogi says
“Quantity has a quality all of it’s own”-Joesph Stalin
therock says
My prediction, within 50 years:
Petrol goes up – we buy cheap chinese bikes – china becomes wealthy – china likes mercedes – china decides quality is better than quantity however builds quality quantity – us dollar goes down – china imports cheap american made stuff like harley – china wonders why usa make such high numbers of low grade bikes – harley decides to build a 125 racer…
skadamo says
therock, your right! IMHO. Actualy US companies are already snuggling up to Chinese mates. The US will get its cut. People will lose jobs but new jobs will be created.
China is on the verge of turning reverse engineering skills into innovation. Dig into that gizmag article and you will find a link to a “iClone” article by popsci. Great read about China’s coming jump into driving the market instead of copying it. Not just with motorcycles.
todd says
therock is on to something. I’ve usually been impressed with what China can do with so little and what little the US can do with so much.
Never been very impressed with the quality or innovation of… Pontiacs, Cadillacs – any american car newer than 1972, any 1981 or newer Harley, labor unions, political parties, MacDonalds… The US needs a cold slap in the face.
-todd
benson mwaura says
Kindly do you sell motorcycles in kenya and do you support them technically
skadamo says
Have you heard anything about Maxtra Racing progress lately? Website has been password protected for a few weeks…
nobody says
Their site is open as I write this. They were a DNS at the GP this weekend. But they have a real racer with a real rider – it isn’t just another “we’re gonna/CADtoon” effort.
Ken Simon says
Orbital in Australia could make this street legal with direct injection. Thailand had 2 stroke 125cc – 150cc street legal bikes until 2003, ie Honda NSR 150SP (30 actual hp) retail $1,500 and Honda LS125 retail $1,300. Then they went to 4 stroke CBR150 with half the power. If the Chinese could sell a ton of 50cc 2 stroke pocket bikes, at dirt cheap prices, they could sell a 125cc racer, but better yet, make it street legal. Who wants to pay $4,000 for a 30 hp Ninja 250 or $7 – 8k or more for a 600cc? The Japanese have the sport bike market cornered for too long. Maybe in USA we need to restrict a 125cc 2 stroke to 15 hp for 16 – 18 year olds, like they do in Europe, then they can de-restrict it to 30 hp if they have a clean driving record for at least 2 years.