Well-built and reasonably priced, this 50cc Taiwanese scooter offers an interesting alternative for mostly urban use. What’s more, the braking system puts the competition to shame, capable of stopping the little machine on a dime and adding to rider safety.

This little scooter looks great and certainly stands out from the pack. (Photo: Matthieu Lambert/Moto123.com)

New for 2010, the Super 8 replaces the Super 7, the urban star from 2007 through 2009. The Super 8 boasts modern, slender lines accentuated by flashy colours, as well as a nicely styled and integrated rear lamp and flasher. It does stands out from the crowd, to the point that our testers gave it top marks for its looks during our 50cc scooter comparison event in June 2010.

Its instruments are simple yet efficient: the easy-to-read odometer, a fuel gauge and digital clock, and LEDs for the flashers, engine temperature and high beam indicator. The Super 8 features two easy-to-use kickstands made all the more so by their judicious positioning and the scooter’s light weight. To my delight, I discovered that you can easily stash a standard helmet under the saddle. Fold-away foot pegs and a well-designed rear saddle allow you to easily accommodate a normal size passenger.

During the scooter comparison, the boys really appreciated the riding position, but the women thought the saddle was too wide and the handlebars too far away. Like Yamaha’s BWs, the front deck is a little tight, and riders with longer hooves are forced to splay them to find a comfortable and relaxed position in the restrained space.

The Super 8 is powered by a 49.5-cc, air-cooled, two-stroke, single-cylinder engine coupled with a continuously variable transmission. While it won’t give you a severe case of whiplash on take off, the Super 8 nonetheless reaches a cruising speeds verging on 70 km/h – something that impressed our specialists. The machine does lose a little speed uphill, but our test ride had not been entirely broken in, so we can probably expect better performances after the initial 2,000 km.

Both stiff and smooth as it needs to be, the Super 8’s suspension proved to be well-suited to the task, ensuring enough nimbleness to zip through traffic and energetically tackle more exciting corners. The rear suspension features adjustable pre-load, and the Super 8 benefits from nice big 14-inch aluminum wheels, while the competition limits itself to 10 and 12 inch rims. With a little fiddling of the rear preload, the suspension combined comfort on smooth surfaces with an excellent ability to absorb all but the worst bumps we encountered during our test, a happy surprise on such a basic and inexpensive machine.

The complete dashboard does give off an impression of a bigger bike. (Photo: Matthieu Lambert/Moto123.com)