WORDSSTUARTPHOTOSRALPHBENELLI
TnT 125
Roar of the (little) Lion
BIKETEST
G
O SMALL OR GO
home! The pocket bike
phenomenon continues
with the introduction of the Benelli
TnT 125. It’s a fun little tacker that
offers quite a bit of room and funky
styling which really does turn heads.
Priced at $3850 ride away including
24 months/unlimited kilometre
warranty and 24 months Roadside
Assist nationwide, I’m sure you’ll be
seeing plenty of these little groovers
on the road.
We’ve now tested all three of the
mainstream pocket bikes available –
the Honda Grom, Kawasaki Z125
Pro and now the TnT 125 and have
enjoyed whipping around the suburbs
snapping necks as the civilians see
‘the elephant on a bike’ zipping past
them. They are fun bikes for the city
and a very practical machine to own
if you’re limited on where you can
park a bike.
The Benelli TnT 125’s big feature
is size. Of the three main players,
the TnT feels the most like a
normal sized bike to ride. Even for
those with giraffe legs, the high set
handlebar gives no interference. As
well, on pocket bikes like the TnT
the seat height is higher than you’d
imagine. The TnT is set at 780mm
which is comparable to, say, the new
GSX250R at 790mm.
Add in edgy Italian styling with the
twin side exit exhausts, trellis frame
and LED lighting all round and the
TnT 125 makes a neck snapping
statement as you ride around.For a bike of this price bracket,
combined braking is an unusual thing
to see and while it might work okay
on much larger bikes, on a bike with
a “fun” tag having combined brakes
spoils the fun for me. I am told (by
a third party) that ‘uncombining’ the
brakes is a relatively easy job if you
wished to do it.
The other thing that was a pain is
the gear change. Changing up, the
lever had its own mind about when it
would come back down so you could
shift to the next gear. If you backed
off the throttle it would come
down; or, as I ended up doing,
you can double shift the lever to
reach the next gear.
Benelli claims that the TnT 125
offers class leading power and torque