New Rieju RS3 tested

If this bike had been about when I was 16 I would happily have sold my parents for it.

The new Rieju RS3 50cc, with a design clearly inspired by the 2009 Yamaha R1, has everything to make budding motorcyclists happy.

Compared to its predecessor the RS2, the RS3 is more modern, slimmer and better equipped.

The bike retains the RS2’s two-stroke, single-cylinder, liquid-cooled Minarelli engine and impressive brakes made up of a 280mm front disc with twin piston calliper and 220mm rear disc.

But there’s an updated, perimeter-type frame made up of twin, triangular-section steel tubing, new Showa inverted 35mm front forks, a single-shock rear suspension and a bigger tank which now has a capacity of 12 litres (two litres more than on the RS2).

Read the full test of the new Rieju in next week’s MCN, out on August 18.