Spotted in the East Village. The scrapes on the front fender and legshield indicate that this scoot has gone for an unexpected slide at some point.

This week: the Yamaha Vino 125

MSRP: $ 2899
Color options for 2010 models: Raspberry Metallic, Silver

Ahhh. The Yamaha Vino. It’s what you get when you wrap Italian styling around the reliability of a Japanese engine. While the copious use of chrome is a little chintzy for our taste, the Vino is a very capable scoot and offers an affordable alternative to that well known scooter starting with a “V.”

Available in 125cc and 50cc models the Vino is a twist-n-go automatic built on a single-cylinder two valve, four-stroke engine. Similar to other two-wheelers in its class, the bike is set up with a disc brake front, drum brake rear.

While the Vino is not known for it’s torque in the pull-away which might concern some New York city riders looking to drive out of trouble, its top speed of around 60 miles an hour, 50-55 mph cruising means that the 125cc can handily compete with other scoots in the same class and telescopic forks on the front, and a single shock on the rear means that the suspension has what it takes to handle the city’s poorly maintained streets. The bike also comes with a two-up seat as standard.

The clever under seat storage on the Vino makes it one of the few scooters in this class that can store a full-faced helmet. (Sorry Piaggio.) This is due to the sculpting of the storage area that is designed to accept the helmet upside-down allowing you to use whatever space you have left inside the helmet to put your lock and chain and so forth. Just make sure you wrap it in a plastic bag to keep the interesting and unique smells of NYC out of your helmet.

There are a number of Yamaha motorcycle dealerships in the five boroughs of which most also stock the manufacturer’s scooters, but make sure you call ahead on the Vino which is not always available in its 125cc form. Visit Yamaha.com’s official Vino page for more information. The Vino is also available in a small number of special editions.

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