Cheap Chinese

Geez I'm wordy today. TL:DR Check out my new pit bike, its surprisingly good

When I was a teen in the late 70's and had just left home, I had a standing date with my Mom for lunch. We'd get together, talk about nothing and everything and always have a good time. I know we equally enjoyed those lunch dates and we always went to the same place, the Sherwood. One of those bars that was already oldschool in the 70's, and still had the ladies entrance on the side, though I doubt it was still used. If you weren't around in those days, I can tell you what these places were really good for, aside from a 40 cent draft, was a solid, inexpensive lunch, and the Sherwood served it up in small plain room, on one side , away from the hotel main. You got a huge plate of good Chinese food for a couple bucks, and we always called it Cheap Chinese. That phrase stuck in my vocabulary and became  more commonly used as we started to import practically everything from China. When I think pit bikes now that phrase, that story, and those times with my mom come to mind.

And I present to you, Cheap Chinese, the bike.

Not so much a build thread as a bit of an information thread, as I don't think these are well known outside the main circle.

Pit bikes sold like crazy during Covid, when people were buying everything they could get their hands on, and worldwide manufacturing couldn't keep up. But the Chinese manufacturers were more than happy to comply. Fast forward a few years and it's a buyers market. Most of those aspiring pit bike riders have gone back to whatever it was they were doing pre-covid, want to clear their garages and sheds out, and get some of that money back in their pockets.

This is a 2021 YCF SP150, a race machine, a serious pit bike.  A local guy bought it, rode it around a little bit, and it sat in his garage for a couple years. I knew exactly what he paid, and the bike's story because after I read the ad on MP,  I searched his name on FB and found everything on one of the YCF groups. So it turns out that FB is worth something after all, most of his ad was a lie. He started out asking $2850, and dropped it after a few months. I went to look at it with the intention of offering him $1500, but raised that $1750 when I saw how nice it was. He turned it down, I told him I understood, we shook, and I left on good terms. I continued to watch the ad, and months later he dropped the price to $1650. I contacted him that day, told him if he'd take $1500 I could be there in an hour.

Have a look the quality on this bike. Yes, it's Chinese, but this is a real race bike with a lot of aluminum, adjustable suspension, decent build quality. There are European pit bikes that are 10k, and they are better, but there is a great deal of value in this machine.

Look at the welds on this aluminum swing arm, and damping adjustment on the shock that actually works like a shock

Nice aluminum triples with three adjustments for the bars, risers, and damping adjustment that actually works. The bar mount areas are finish level, the rest is roughing quality finish, but that's fine. Anodizing is very good  

More later

Just take a look at the throttle. My Italian race bike doesn't have a ball bearing in the throttle housing!

Nice heavy pegs that are adjustable... you don't see that often.  The brake lever is a little on the long and bulky side, but it's aluminum, appears to be very well made, has a ball bearing in the pivot, and the associated hardware is good quality. Nice attention to detail here. You'll note the kickstart lever is not aluminum, but a heavy steel casting. That seemed out of place and a little disappointing at first, but after spending a day with the bike I realized the reason. This motor barks, and if you don't get the start sequence just right, it kicks back so hard, I won't risk it with running shoes. An aluminum one probably wouldn't last a day

Founded by Yannick Coquard, a National Pro Motocrosser who rode pit bikes to cross train in the winter; and Dimitri Bera, a high level French technician who now lives in China overseeing all development. They joined forces in 2004. The YCF story started when Yannick decided to improve the quality and reliability of the pit bike he owned before starting YCF. Step by step he modified this bike and finally decided he would build his own bike.

There are three major manufacturers for competition pit bikes, YCF the French company, Thumpstar, from Australia, and Piranha, the house brand of Wholesale cycle in the US, which are re-badged YCF's. A pit bike proper has 12" rear wheels, and 14" front. There are other classes, but this is the major one. In this segment the SP2 is considered one of the top bikes, aside from the big dollar Euro bikes.

Pit bike engines are typically 4 stroke, and there are generally two types, the Honda copy and the Kawasaki (KLX110) copy. The Kawi engines are the better ones and this bike has a YX150, a copy of the Kawi, or at least a hybrid, using the Kawi cylinder head design, and oil filter. This model also has an air box, where they would normally just use a pod filter. Half of the air box is off because I was still cleaning, this thing was filthy when I got it. All the literature says it comes with a NIBBI 24mm carb, but it's actually 19mm. Because it's so small, throttle response is insane.

Big brakes, aluminum wheels and hubs with heavy spokes, and adjustable levers all show that they mean business. Hardware is mostly on par with the YZ125 I bought in 2019 which, at the time, I criticized for looking like it was straight out of China. It doesn't look out of place on this bike.

And this concludes the introduction to the YCF SP2 150

China will build something as cheaply as you pay them to.

Looks like a fun machine.

Delta learned pretty quickly that you need someone from your company in China on a regular basis to keep an eye on quality control or your castings end up being 2 parts lawn chair and one part beer can pretty quickly. Their quality was really bad for a few years but they eventually got it back up to their normal, mediocre levels.

This bike is a riot.

I know China still builds lot's of junk, you should see some of the pit bikes you can buy for under a grand. But they are getting better, and you don't have to look too far these days to find something made in China that's very high quality, like maybe what you're reading this on.

I've owned Japanese MX bikes in the past that don't meet the quality of this bike.

That is seriously cool.  

This is about the part of the year where I resolve to do a bunch of dirt tracking in my back property with the CRF70.   

"Pit bikes sold like crazy during Covid, when people were buying everything they could get their hands on, and worldwide manufacturing couldn't keep up. But the Chinese manufacturers were more than happy to comply. Fast forward a few years and it's a buyers market. Most of those aspiring pit bike riders have gone back to whatever it was they were doing pre-covid, want to clear their garages and sheds out, and get some of that money back in their pockets."

Guilty. I ordered a CT70 clone during Covid and a few days later one popped up locally so I bought it too. They both only have a couple hundred km and have been in my way for a couple of years now. I need to rectify that. Hoping your thread will inspire me. Have fun with it!