Suzuki Let's 50

I ran one of these through two Tokyo winters and a sweltering Osaka summer, and the Let's 50 Gen 1 is exactly what it looks like — a no-nonsense 49cc commuter with zero pretension. The two-stroke pulls cleanly from idle up to about 45 km/h where it settles into its happy place, but ask it to hit that claimed 60 on anything other than flat tarmac with a tailwind and you'll be disappointed. The drum brakes are predictably soft, and the suspension is tuned for smooth pavement — hit a pothole at speed and your spine knows about it. What it does right is genuine lightweight simplicity: fuel economy around 45–50 km/L, a seat height that works even for shorter riders, and an engine you could diagnose by ear.

I ran a Gen 2 Let's 50 as a daily errand bike for two years in Osaka, and the revised carburetion genuinely made cold starts less of a morning argument — previous owners know the drill. The updated suspension tuning is subtle but real; speed bumps feel less like a dental appointment than before, though at 68 kg it still gets knocked around by truck wash on bigger roads. Top speed is an honest 47–48 km/h in real air, not the claimed 50, and any headwind reminds you this is a 3.7 hp two-stroke engine with exactly zero apologies to offer. What Suzuki got right here is the geometry — 720 mm seat height and narrow footboards mean even shorter riders plant both feet flat, which builds the kind of low-speed confidence that turns nervous first-timers into actual riders.

The Gen 3 Let's 50 is where Suzuki took their peppy little runabout and legislated the fun out of it. The switch from two-stroke to four-stroke was inevitable — Euro emissions didn't care about your commute enjoyment — but the result is a scooter that pulls away from traffic lights with all the urgency of a man carrying a sofa. That said, it's genuinely refined now: vibration is almost gone, fuel consumption is embarrassingly frugal, and the restyled fairing sheds wind better than the previous generation. I rode one for six months through Osaka backstreets and it never missed a beat, but every morning I'd twist that throttle hoping something had changed overnight, and it never had.