[SamM]

Here’s my 2 cents! The KYMCO Spade is a great bike. There is no doubt about that. It has some really nice features. The 150cc, counter-balanced, 4-valve head, efi engine is at the top of the list. The bike is fast but a little more performance would be very nice to have. I love mine but a few changes needed to be done, to make it better for me. Making it lighter ups the performance and the disc brake will transform the Spade. I do not regret buying the bike one bit. With that said, if the Monkey 125 had been available at the time, I would have purchased it instead of the Spade. The main reason would be the new CBR300 bolt in engine conversion kit from Chimera Engineering. As a throwback to the original Monkey the styling is spot on. The Spade is better than the Monkey with the 125cc engine but the Monkey with the CBR engine would be awesome.

There is a 202.7cc kit from Taiwan that could possibly work in the Spade engine. I’m looking at this for my bike. We really need an importer like MNNTHBX to step up, do the work and make this kit available. I don’t want to guinea pig my bike. Only time will tell how this all works out. We’ll for sure see more available for the Spade but it is doubtful that we will ever see the level of performance that a CBR300 engine swapped Monkey would deliver. These playbikes are a lot of fun to ride and a very interesting segment of the motorcycling business. In the future, I’m sure we will see more interesting small bikes hit the market. The aftermarket is realizing what these bikes are and what the potential market for parts really is. The word that best describes it is HUGE!

Spend your money wisely. Right now, I might have even gone with the SSR Razkull 125, a Chimera bolt in kit, a Zongshen 190cc engine swap and sat back and waited a couple years to see what was next to hit the market. That might be a good move!

SamM