The All New Big Boy Nexus 125cc Scooter.

By Black Rock Studio.

It’s been a while since I’ve been on a scooter. The Big Boy Nexus seems to be right in the same class as my old Gomoto 125 that I used to commute to school and back on, so when Glenn phoned and asked if I wanted to take a spin, I was excited to see how far the Big Boy scooters have progressed since my old one.

The new design sure looks a lot more attractive than the old generic scooter designs we’re all used to. The Nexus’ neo-retro look, futuristic clean and minimal design, bring it into the modern motorcycle world. Being minimalist, there aren’t a lot of details, however, the few that there are were well thought out to keep the design clean and modern throughout.

Things like the LCD screen blended perfectly into the handlebar area, looking like something straight out of Star Wars and perfectly in place on the scooter. The integrated turn signals and tail light along with the headlight finish off the spaceship-like appearance of the little scoot. If nothing else, it sure looks cool.

A big reason for getting a scooter is that they are extremely light on fuel, and they only take a couple of bucks to fill up. Now in the old days when I had my Gomoto, filling it up with fuel was easy. You had an extra keyhole underneath the seat, you pop your key in, turn it, the seat pops up and viola! Bob’s your uncle, you can fill it up. Nowadays with the new technology they made it even simpler, a fantastic feature to make it as easy as can be. It only took us thirty minutes of sweating and swearing at a garage, with people hooting at us from the long queue behind us, to figure out there’s no secret button, no extra keyhole. Nothing like that. You just leave the key in the ignition, and turn it in the opposite direction and the seat pops open. So remember that when you find yourself on a new scooter.

One of my favourite parts of my old scooter was the luggage space underneath the seat. Sadly, today’s scooter manufacturers seem to cater only to open-face helmets, as a full-face helmet no longer fits beneath the seat as it did in the old days. But I can at least fit my little backpack in the box, or possibly some shoes, which is nice. However, it does come with a little popout hook underneath the handlebars for any extra bags you might need to carry, as well as a little luggage rack on the back for strapping down the bigger bags.

On top of the seat is very comfortable to be on, the Nexus feels very small so if you sit upright you almost can’t see the dash and handlebars through a full-face helmet, basically cruising along on a comfortable chair. You could definitely run around town all day on this seat, and it even has USB ports for both type A and type C cables so you can stay charged up while you run your errands.

The power of the Big Boy Nexus carries you from 0-60 km/h reasonably quickly, and at 60 km/h is where it is at its most comfortable. It is quick enough to jump ahead of most drivers at the robot. We saw around 73-75 km/h but didn’t want to push it further than that as it still had less than 50km on the clock and needed to be run in properly. At 60 you can cruise all day and safely at that. This is a great commuter for around town.

The brakes are extra sharp and the handling is extremely nimble. Small wheels make it turn it on a dime. Stefan made parking lot donuts in about a 1-metre radius, handlebars fully locked, so if you get boxed in anywhere on this scooter, it’s your own fault. I quite miss having a little scooter like this to run around on, I might give Big Boy a call one day as the Nexus looked very much at home in my garage.

Good looking, nippy, fuel efficient – What more could you ask for?

And all this for a mere R19,999.00.