The Stallions Centaur Cafe 150 - The 150cc Retro Classic
The Stallions Centaur Cafe 150 combines a few things that are popular at the moment: classic cafe racer style, decent built quality and a reasonable price tag. The Centaur Cafe 150 is an exciting motorcycle for anyone looking for a trendy city bike with enough power to take on the odd country road.
Among all the cafe racers currently rolling our from various manufacturers, the Stallions Centaur Cafe 150 stands out as a particularly good-looking option. The motorcycle is available in Black, Army Green or Red, with the Stallions Motorcycle logo added to the tank and side-covers.
The overall impression is of understated style, form the fuel tank to the sculpted single seat. The bullet indicators, spooked wheels, straight matt-black exhaust, with chrome heat protection-cover, upside-down front forks and clip-on handlebars all add to the timeless classic look.
The clocks are equally simple and effective, featuring only the speedo, tacho and odometer. The lights for indicators, full beam, neutral and low fuel look good, but are not bright enough to stand out properly from the dash. Brighter bulbs behind them would have added to the ease of use.
The switchgear is basic but of good quality and the buttons and switches are all easy enough to operate. You just have to remember to switch off the manual choke once the engine is warm. There’s an electric start as well as kick-start, and both work well.
The air-cooled, single-cylinder, four-stroke, 150cc engine is assembled from a mixture of Chinese and Thai made parts. There’s enough grunt to get the motorcycle up to speed pretty swiftly, and cruising at 80 to 105 km/h is no problem. The engine is well capable of keeping up to speed with traffic in the city and even on the occasional country road.
The engine sound is pleasant, including the odd bang from the exhaust when you roll on and off the throttle. I enjoyed the sound so much that I went on and off the throttle far more than necessary, just to hear it popping.
Although the engine is modern, it fits the retro looks due to the air-cooling and the use of a carburetor instead of fuel injection. The exhaust also runs directly from the cylinder to the end can without catalytic converter box in the way These may be slightly outdated designs in an age where many new motorcycles enjoy liquid-cooling fuel injection and advanced systems for emissions control, but on this motorcycle they look the part.
The riding position is slightly on the sporty side of neutral with the low handlebars inviting you to lean over the fuel tank as the speed increases. This doesn’t mean that you can’t sit up quite straight in town traffic though.
As the Stallions Centaur Cafe 150 is very low, it’s easy to get both feet firmly on the ground. The seat is on the hard side, but not uncomfortable. Interestingly the standard set-up includes a single seat, but there are pillion footpegs. Stallions Motorcycles offers a different seat option I believe, which enables carrying a passenger, so the option is there should you want to swap the cool looks of the seat cowl to a pillion space.
The front and rear disc brakes work well. The front brake, with a single-disc and a two-piston caliper, is particularly good. The rear brake, with a single-piston caliper, also works without a hitch, but the brake pedal lacks a bit of feel for it to be entirely reassuring from the start.
The five-speed gearbox is smooth and accurate, with the gears slotting in place nicely whether you’re switching up or down.
Even at 100km/h, the motorcycle feels quite stable for a small machine, and it drops into corners very easily. Steering needs to be kept steady at high speeds as sudden stabs at the bars will translate into wobbles quite quickly; however for a classic-looking motorcycle, this one handles speed pretty good.
