Mundanely rechristened as the HPS125 after it emerged that Taiwanese scooter giant Kymco had trademarked the Hipster name, it’s still casually referred to as the Hipster. “Everyone still calls it the Hipster, even if we can’t officially name it as that!” says Cesare Galli, who’s responsible for creating the born-again Mondial. First deliveries have now reached Italian dealers at a competitive price of 3,790 Euro – good value compared to the 4,489 Euros asked for the Indian-made KTM 125 Duke and the 4,940 Euro Yamaha MT-125. Future shipments will head to Germany, France, Spain, the UK, Norway, Poland, the Czech Republic and Finland. Importers have already been signed up, says sales director Gianluca Zanelotto, with more EU countries soon to follow, plus outlets further afield in South Africa, Brazil, India and various Asian markets. Mondial has made a good start in becoming the global brand that Galli declares it’s intended to be.
Cesare Galli was formerly the Technical Director at Fantic Motor, the successful Italian offroad brand whose Caballero trail bike was every Latin youngster’s dream ride back in the 1980s. Galli worked there until Fantic shut down in 1996 (it has since been restarted successfully), after winning a hat-trick of World Trials Championships with his designs, as well as successive World and Italian Enduro titles. Galli took over the importation of Kawasaki dirtbikes and ATVs for Italy. In 2002 he founded Pelpi International, European distributor for Taiwanese scooter and minibike manufacturers Aeon and Over. His 20-year friendship with Count Pierluigi Boselli, today’s owner of his family’s FB Mondial trademark, led in 2014 to the idea of reviving the brand with a range of sophisticated, sharply styled, small-capacity models built in China in order to lower costs. The Hipster is the first of these to hit the marketplace, with its follow-up 125 Supermoto sister model already unveiled in prototype form at last November’s EICMA Milan Show, alongside the production Hipster. A 125 Enduro and 250cc single-cylinder version of each model will be available next year, with other capacity platforms and models to follow. Eventually the firm plans bikes up to 600cc, using single and twin-cylinder engine platforms sourced in China but with European levels of quality and performance, says Galli.
The HPS125 has fresh, modern styling with period design cues and close attention to detail that sets it apart from other neo-retro models emanating from the People’s Republic. The distinctive looking new Mondial has a quality of design and finish that far exceeds any comparable Chinese-built small-capacity motorcycle yet available in Western markets. Its modern fuel-injected, four-valve engine package is much more sophisticated than the elderly carburetted air-cooled two-valve engine designs found in some Chinese rivals. The liquid-cooled single-cylinder 124cc motor, with chain-driven dohc, has been outsourced from the Piaggio Group and is manufactured at its factory in China, a joint venture with Zongshen. Apart from its use in various Chinese market-only Zongshen models, the engine appears in several European products like the Aprilia RS4 125 and various Derbi models, including the GPR sportbike. In the Mondial it produces 11kW/15CV at 9,750 rpm – the upper power limit of the European A1 licence category – with maximum torque of 12.3 Nm at 7,500 revs. This makes the HPS 125 Hipster’s performance more than live up to its looks, as I found for myself during a day spent dancing around the hills and valleys of northern Italy aboard a pre-production HPS125.
AB3Z5241That’s because the Hipster is a little bike that thinks big, conveying a level of comfort and performance that’s some way greater than you’d expect from a ‘mere’ 125. Honestly, if I’d never seen the Mondial before and you’d thrown me its keys and told me it was parked round the corner, I’d have assumed after riding it that it was at the very least a 200cc model, and possibly even a 250. That’s firstly because the sleek styling gives it a sense of substance worthy of a bigger bike than a 125. The stacked twin exhausts running down the right side of the Hipster and the meaty-looking front end’s 41mm inverted fork both more redolent of a larger capacity model. This pre-production version seemed well-made, with a surprising degree of presence for a 125 tiddler. The vaguely vintage-looking brown leather seat with prominent stitching looks quite upmarket and turned out to be surprisingly comfortable, though there’s precious little room for the passenger that it can nominally carry. Probably it’d be OK for short hops around city streets, but not much more.
Climb aboard, and the impression of substance is maintained. This is a proper sized motorcycle, not a minibike, and for a 1.80m/5’10” rider like myself there’s a spacious riding position allowing you to feel comfortable without being cramped. The quite wide tapered-section handlebar delivers a relaxed but fairly upright stance that doesn’t get tiring, with lots of room to tuck my knees into the recesses of the 14-litre aluminium fuel tank. The radiator is hidden away high up behind the headlight, and those exhausts don’t obtrude too much, either, thanks to a longer right footrest which gives room for your foot to operate the linked brakes. The brake pedal is if anything a little too abrupt – it’s initially easy to lock the rear wheel until you learn to respect the pressure the pedal delivers, since ABS isn’t fitted to the Hipster as yet. The 250 that’s coming next requires ABS, though, to meet European regulations. Working the single 280mm front disc delivers excellent stopping power, and after a while you learn the best way to blend the two different ways of slowing down. I had no issues with heat radiating off the exhausts on to my right leg, so the heat shield works. The footrests are well positioned, and play their part in delivering comfort consistent with ground clearance.
Mondial HPS125 HipsterHaving already sampled the Hipster’s Chinese-made CST (Cheng Shin) street enduro tyres on various CFMoto models, I was well aware that these give a more than acceptable level of grip that’s consistent with Japanese or European products. However, it was interesting to see that the tyres fitted to the HPS125 models on display on the Mondial stand at last November’s EICMA Milan Show carried Pirelli stickers, in recognition of the fact that China’s state-owned ChemChina conglomerate purchased the Italian tyre company 18 months ago.
Rolling on 18-in front and 17-in rear wheels, the Hipster tips the scales at just 130kg dry, and its handling is stable and well balanced. The front wheel with its skinny 100/90 tyre delivers light, precise steering that’s slightly slower albeit less nervous than on others equipped with a 17-inch front. For a small, light bike that’s not such a bad thing, especially as the Mondial’s wide handlebar gives you all the leverage you need to flick the Hipster round tight hairpin turns or city street corners. The 130/80-17 rear tyre delivered all the grip required by the eager-revving motor.
The engine is a gem, although you have to use its sweet-shifting six-speed gearbox pretty intensively to extract the sometimes surprising level of performance it’s capable of delivering. It’s fully on a par with a KTM 125 Duke, and arguably slightly slicker thanks to the well-matched gear ratios and well-chosen overall gearing. It’s flexible at lower revs, though pulling away requires a good dose of clutch and a hard twist of the wrist to get the engine spinning to obtain some momentum. Compared to most other 125s the Mondial needs to be revved hard. It accelerates briskly from rest and starts to pull hard once the single round instrument’s tacho hits 5,000 rpm, before coming on strong at 7,000 revs. From 8,000 rpm up to the hard-action 10,500 rpm revlimiter there’s a really invigorating sense of performance that’s good for a claimed 130kmh/80mph on the speedo. There’s absolutely no vibration at any revs thanks to the single gear-driven counterbalancer, which is a welcome luxury – the inevitable power loss entailed in driving it isn’t missed. The HPS125 engine is Euro 4 compliant, thanks to the well-disguised catalyst hidden away in the belly pan beneath and to the rear of the crankcase.
AB3Z4910The Mondial’s engine performance made it well capable of keeping up with traffic on an autostrada, so this is not just a good-looking urban commuter. It’s equally at home on faster stretches of road where that lusty little engine can sing along at speed, with the very practical bar-end mirrors delivering a good rearwards view of the traffic you’ve just passed – they’re not as intrusive in real world use as they might seem at rest. At lower speeds the Mondial is particularly convivial to zap around town on, with the light-action clutch and smooth pickup from the well-mapped Marelli EFI making traffic duty anything but onerous. The non-adjustable Chinese-made suspension irons out road shock quite adequately, even with just 90mm of front wheel travel available from that upside down fork. The nostalgic-looking twin rear shocks deliver 120mm of travel, giving adequate ride comfort for such a little bike.
The Mondial’s large round digital dash, offset to the right in front of the upper tripleclamp is well designed and informative. The tacho reading is shown around its circumference, the large-digit speedo in the centre, with a gear selected readout above it. There’s just a single trip shown beneath the speedo, with the time at the bottom, the fuel level on the left and water temp on the right.
But there’s more to come, with a 250cc version of the Hipster arriving at the end of this year as a 2018 model. Using an sohc 249cc single-cylinder motor sourced from Zongshen, it’s claimed to deliver 18.5kW/25bhp at 9,000 rpm, with torque almost doubling to 22Nm at 7,000 revs. This will be fitted with ABS as Mondial’s first step up the capacity ladder, with 250cc versions of the Supermoto and forthcoming street Enduro to follow.
“In 2017, we plan to produce at least 2,000 examples of the HPS125 Hipster, mainly for our customers in Europe, then in 2018 over 5,000 units as the Supermoto and Enduro versions become well established, and we expand our distribution globally” says Gianluca Zanelotto. “We want to create a small but interesting range of different bikes selling at an affordable cost because they’re made in China, but to European standards. We will build up our range step by step, with the 250s coming next followed by a 400cc range which will possibly be powered by a twin-cylinder engine—we are still evaluating the concept. But we see Mondial going to no larger than 600cc with a complete range of models, always using the same formula of an Italian designed bike made in China, to European standards.” With access to Piaggio/Zongshen’s ever increasing range of engine platforms, that sounds like a good strategy.
Mondial HPS125 HipsterClassy but not costly, the Mondial HPS125 Hipster is a proper-sized bike with a wide target audience, from younger riders on the search for a cool-looking alternative to their mate’s KTM Duke, to older historically minded customers who remember FB Mondial’s glory days. It’s a good start down that comeback trail.
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