Cycle News - Archive Issues - 2000's

Pre-Production 2004-spec Gas Gas EC125 ll1loo-l pera-lor With Finn Petri Pohjamo at the controls, Gas Gas' EC125 has headed this year's eighth-liter class in the World Enduro Championships since round one. Cycle News took the pre-production '04 spec machine for an exclusive ride. STORY AND PHOTOS BY JONTY EDMUNDS etri Pohjamo, or Pete, as his team knows,him, is a no-nonsense kind of a guy. Stocky, lean and seemingly never flustered, the hard-charging Finn is a man of few emotions - and even fewer words. He's also the winner of this year's 125cc World Enduro Championship. His bike is a lot like he is - lean, lithe, functional and not the sort to attract unnecessary media attention. Instead, the pair set about their business in a methodical, but deadly serious, kind of way. Their goal was a simple one: the eighth-liter World Championship. A little over four months ago, six riders all lay a pretty equal claim to this year's 125cc World title. But one P rider soon edged ahead of the rest. Settled on a machine that he'd campaigned for the past two seasons, unaffected by injury, illness or change of class, Petri Pohjamo put his aggressive, hard-crashing inconsistencies of past seasons behind him and took charge of the series - a position he held until the series' close. Oh yeah, he also used to race bikes around frozen lakes in Finland you know, those bikes with the lethallooking spiked tires! Throwing an inquisitive eye over the bike, it soon becomes VII S apparent that, like all Gas Gas factory enduro bikes, there aren't that many striking differences over the production eighth-liter stead. The most obvious change to Petri's bike, however, is the apparent lack of a fuel tank. Manufactured from aluminum, tucked almost out of sight and fitted with a trials-style filler cap, which is inserted and then locked into position with a short latch and not screwed on as is the norm, the '04-shape tank allows weight to be transferred to the very front of the bike when cornering. Made from plastic on teammate Jani Laaksonen's EC300 bike, the handmade aluminum unit fitted to the 125cc machine is just one of a number of parts which will come as standard next year. Unfortunately, the tank will be plastic, though, not aluminum. The seat is also different from the '03 unit, mainly for it to fit the new tank. Together, they offer a very flat platform on which to sit. The second visible change, and you've really got to own an eighthliter Gasser to notice this one, is that it's fitted with a 38mm Mikuni carburetor and not a 38mm Keihin, as is standard. Offering a more comprehensive selection of needle jets, or so I was told, it enables Gasser's twostroke technical wizard Boni Geebelen to jet the bike perfectly irrespective of country, weather or altitude. Being easier for the customer to jet the bike with the Keihin carburetor, it, and not the Mikuni, will again be fitted to the EC125 in '04. The third externally noticeable change is the fitting of an additional cylinder-head brace. Holding the engine firm in order to reduce any unwanted vibrations, a cast-aluminum connecting part is mounted on top of the cylinder via extended cylinder-head bolts and then fastened forward to the frame. It does little to restrict access to the spark plug. Finally, behind each of the bike's radiators is a six-inch-Iong finned aluminum tube, which replaces the same length of hose and is claimed to cool the motor by as much as 5 degrees more than normal. To complete the list of "changes," a little help was needed by the man who builds the bike. Step forward Boni. Incorporating a number of '04 parts, including a power valve and Messico expansion chamber, the quick run-through of changes reveals a few interesting facts about why certain parts are used to build the bike. First, the bike purposely doesn't feature that many "special parts." As is often the case with WEC machines, it's not so much that Gas Gas wants to market "what they race as what they sell" but because it affords Boni the luxury of being able to wander down to the production line and pinch a few select items when he needs them. The alternative would be to

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