Honda Wave125 Alpha

The Honda Wave 125 Alpha sources its roots from the basic Wave 125, which has a very basic and utilitarian design with the prime aim of function over form. However, with the Wave 125 Alpha, Honda has tried to make it look slightly more appealing. Though, it still doesn’t cut the edge in terms of visual appeal very much.

At the front, the Honda Wave 125 Alpha looks a bit small with a petite front apron, which comes with large, curvy and slightly odd-looking clear lens turn indicators. The headlamp is mounted on the handlebar cowl, and is fairly sizeable. The front fender has a beaky appeal, with its thin design, which complements well with the tall front tyre.

The slimness of the Honda Wave 125 Alpha continues towards the side as well. The floorboard, like in all the underbone cub class bikes, is partitioned, while the simply styled side body panels rise upwards to end up in the tail lamp assembly. The small single piece pillion grab rail, seat, exhaust pipe, and rear fender do not add much to enhance the visual appeal of the Wave 125 Alpha with their basic design.

The instrument console is not a fully digital unit and is an old school analog unit, but it tries to please you with its unique layout. There is a circular housing with a Y-shaped housing below it, each of which packs in some data for display and comes with silver garnish around them. While the circular housing displays speedometer, odometer and fuel gauge, the Y-shaped housing shows various telltale lamps and warning lights.

The Honda Wave 125 lacks in terms of features as well, as apart from alloy wheels and electric starter, there is nothing much to attract towards it.

The underbone bikes have a simple yet sturdy under the skin mechanicals, and the Honda Wave 125 Alpha follows the suit having an underbone frame along with telescopic hydraulic forks at the front and swing arm with single-sided coil spring at the rear.

While the setup sounds simple and basic, it provides enough sturdiness to the bike and offers a simple and comfortable setup to offer a not so bumpy ride in an urban setup. The Honda Wave 125 Alpha comes with a disc brake at the front and a normal drum brake at the rear, for halting duties.

The Honda Wave 125 Alpha sources its power from a four-stroke, single-cylinder, air-cooled, 124.8cc engine, which power a couple of other Honda models as well. The engine is coupled to a basic 4-speed manual gearbox, and pumps out a maximum power output of 8.8 PS and a peak torque output of 10 Nm.

Having a low kerb weight allows the Honda Wave 125 Alpha to have a praiseworthy power to weight ratio, which makes it decently powerful. What else is praiseworthy about this engine is its fuel economy, which allows the Honda Wave 125 Alpha to deliver an efficiency figure of almost 70 kmpl in urban conditions.

The Honda Wave 125 Alpha is not so rich in terms of features when it comes to safety, and the bike doesn’t come with many safety features except front disc brake.

The Honda Wave 125 Alpha with its lack of comfort, convenience, and safety features might look an old school and dated product in today’s world. However, with its strong engineering when it comes to powertrain and suspension setups, the Honda Wave 125 Alpha feels sorted in performance and handling – the core aspects of a two-wheeled machine. This makes it a no-nonsense machine for daily duties.