IMPORTANT Dakar have hit me with a copyright strike so ive had to delist some of the videos just in case i guess they got pissed that mine were better because of the MOTOGP one before xmas that means im really vulnerable now and the channel could be removed at any time I have set up this backup channel so please go and follow it NOW, this could all be removed at any moment now so it is critical to stay in touch via the backup channel here ua-cam.com/channels/CSl6i-tZJNC5DQ38vgCtvw.html sorry for this if i get another strike it wipes out all my work all my old videos will be removed I wont be posting anything much on the new channel unless this goes down but this is a just in case because it really could go down at any point the videos are still visible if you have a link so if you have problems message me for links so you can still watch them, if you follow the channel and this one gets taken down you will be able to find me there sorry if thats a bit garbled ive just woken to this but i guess i could have had the channel taken down already so i should be thankful ride free everyone
In 1965 I bought a brand new Honda Dream SS 250 I was 19 and just returned from 19 months serving with the RN in Singapore and the far east. I was caught speeding on the A1 by a police Austin Westminster at doing 98 to 103 for over 1.5 miles I made the main news as the first person to be caught doing over 100mph after the silly 70mph limit was introduced supposedly to save fuel.
I couldn't agree more about todays 250s and 400s being made to look like donkey's when compared to the 1980s and 90s bikes like the KR1-S, RGV, NSR, RS and TZR 250s and the CBR, RVF, VFR, FZR, ZXR and GSX-R 400s. My first 250 was the Yamaha RD250E, then the TZR250, RGV250, my last 250 being the Aprilia RS (the Biaggi replica), to this day I've never had a bike that handled better than the wee Aprilia and that includes GSX-R, CBR, Yamaha R series 600s and 1000s, in fact the only bike I've owned that matches it is my 2023 Triumph Street Triple RS (29 years later), I'm in my mid sixties but I still miss the smell, sound and thrill of a 250 stroker hitting the power band, I just have to catch a whiff of burning two stroke oil and it takes me back to my youth.
Nicest 250 I ever rode was the stopgap RG250 from Suzuki. I forget if it was one year only model while RGV was being put in production? It would go around corners like nothing I had ever ridden before (and being service manager at Suzuki/Yamaha dealers I got to ride everything at least once) The limitations of 1980's suspension just didn't apply It only did about 115mph but unless you came to a hairpin didn't need to slow down to less than 110 on 'ordinary' British 'B' roads. Possibly the most dangerous bike I ever rode as things were too easy, on 1000/1200 you knew you had a lot of weight to throw around but this thing, being small and light just kept going
Used to really enjoy eating up Harley sportster‘s on my RD 400 which was highly modified. It was one guy with a Kawasaki H1 500 that Mike Wells they had mechanic for Kawasaki in Daytona Beach had prepared with Danko chambers and three Yamaha 360 read valve kits on each cylinder, And it was a dead match in speed for my RD 400. The H one was also highly modified with the port job and etc. I had Too many modifications to my RD to list in this forum. Bench flow port job,DG chambers and heads which were milled to keep compression ratio correct with the port job 34 mm electron carbs, and later went to water cool heads. It ran like a scalded dog. The smell of two-stroke Oil coming from a nice sounding chamber is a beautiful experience and is eloquent to the senses.
When I turned 17, back in 1981, the first thing I did was to get myself an RD250. Crazy bike, sometimes I am amazed that I reached my 18th birthday. I only rode it in London but it was perfect for city riding as it got up to 60 really quickly! You never forget your first real bike.
that ones true 🙂 I remember taking the cash for a trick KH 250 when i had just passed my test and they had just got a 350LC in, it was a hard choice but the LC won 🙂
@@barebonesmc Bet you wish you still had your 350 LC, that bike is a classic. You need deep pockets to buy one of those now. After I passed my test I went for the GS1000, 4 stoke direction instead. Been riding ever since, keeps you young at heart 🙂
@@noiwanttobeanonymous3797 pretty much the same machine, the T20 and T250 had mainly cosmetic differences, the earlier T20 was quicker as well. The same basic engine was carried through from the T20 to the X7
My pissed up Geordie neighbour woke me at 2.30am arguing with his wife but I stumbled across this and what a treat. Thank you. Don’t hate on the neighbour, he used to ride at the TT! Respect…
What a great presentation of these old greats. I remember being 15/16 yrs old drooling at the 250’s as they were released and the so envious of the slightly older generation. When my turn came I got the Yamaha RD250LC and would street race anything. A great trip down memory lane - thanks for putting this vid together I can see a lot of love and effort went into it.
As a teenager, I remember a nighttime race along the North Wales coast between a BSA Starfire B25 and a Ducati Desmo 250 single - We all waited at the cafe some 15 miles away to see who might arrive first - it was the Ducati a good couple of minutes ahead - astonishingly the front downpipe was glowing dull red - they were both gorgeous looking bikes
Thank you for your wonderful film and comment! As a 2-stroke fan, I bought a Kawasaki Avenger 350 cc in 1968 and after several 4-stroke Hondas I bought a Kawasaki KR1-S in 1990. The KR1-S was the best two-stroke bike I've owned, it did indeed turn like a razor and nothing could have been mis-tuned. The suspension had to be precisely adjusted for my light weight and if the tires had 2 lbs too much pressure I couldn't ride it and if it was too low it steered too hard. It braked fantastically and I usually braked with 2 fingers. At 8000 rpm the KIPS system started working and the extra resonance chambers closed. Then the engine pulled excellently and really ran like a screeching turbine. When I drove away after a winter break, I came back after 3 minutes and spent 2 hours cleaning the carburetors, because there was deposits in the fuel jets, of course also adjusting the vacuum exactly and, above all, the throttle cables, otherwise the engine will vibrate. If you do not feel the contamination of the jets while driving, the engine is guaranteed to be damaged by a mixture that is too lean. Those are the disadvantages, but if you like technology, it is nice to have everything checked and adjusted very carefully. Now I ride a 250 cc Honda (CBR250R) of 26.4 HP, also an excellent motorcycle, but touring is of course more fun when you are 74 years old, haha!
Thank you for doing this vid, brings back good memories of me & my best mate riding out to southport on a saturday on our 250's, i had a yam TDR250 and he had a G plate RGV250, we used to ride to west coast bikes, they always had exotic import stuff from japan, TZR 250 reverse cylinders, the NSR 250 with credit card ignition, GSXR 250's, NSR400's etc i very nearly bought a katana 250 from west coast but ended up buying a fully restored RD350LC, think i made the wise choice 😁 we were lucky to ride in a time when you could ride a bike that gave you such excitement and we did'nt have the green mafia wanting to hang you from the nearest lampost for riding something other than a pushbike. You get more excitement taking a big dump than what you get on a modern 250, 😂 and we used to think the superdream 250 was boring. I feel sorry for the young uns, there are some good nutters out there who would be great on a 250 stinkwheel but the good old stuff is well out of their price range now.
GREAT VIDEO BONES ,IM 85 NOW ,I RODE MANY OF THESE BIKES WHEN I WAS YOUNGER .STILL RIDE EVERYDAY ,ON A HUSKY 2T ..LOVE THOSE 2 STROKES...GREETINGS FROM THE PHILIPPINES
I don’t watch a lot of 40+ minute videos but I didn’t think about not continuing with this one. My first M/C was a 305cc Honda CB77, Yamaha 250, Bultaco 250 and a couple of Aermacchis a 250cc and a 350cc. I also had a Honda CL72 “Scrambler”. This was the last half of the’60’s & some of the’70’s. Just to top it off; a Triumph 650cc and BSA Gold Star 500(in a box. Never got it running). Thank you for the video/info.
i dont do 40 min videos in general mate but this one just didnt seem right split up :-) glad you enjoyed it even if it was a marathon :-) Cheers for watching , have a great week
Great video! Here's a little context that might be of interest to younger or non-UK viewers: In the UK in the early 1980s, 16 year olds could ride 50cc bikes (mopeds), and 17+ year olds could ride up to 250cc bikes with a provisional licence, never needing to pass a test for the rest of their lives. They'd have to display "L" plates and could only carry passengers who had themselves passed a motorcycle test. This changed, mainly due to the belief that 250cc bikes were getting faster and faster, so learners were restricted to 125cc bikes at age 17. At that time I rode a Honda CD175, and knowing the law was about to change, I had to either sell it or pass my test. I did pass the test, and although I haven't ridden bikes for many years, could in theory buy any bike tomorrow and ride it straight from the showroom without any further training! (p.s. My wife won't let me.)
the 250s being central to the racing scene played a big part too, and as i said the Japanese do still love their 250s. it does look like the 400cc sector is hotting up bit now but only time will tell, and its being driven by sales in Asia not the UK, USA or Europe too so we may not get many of them over here, Cheers for watching mate, hope you have a great day
My 250s in my earlier life were all Kawasaki, S1B, S1C and KH250B1. All good fun. After that came a Z900A4 (I still have it) then a ZZR1100D2 (I still have that too). But, I was missing a Kawasaki triple in my life. So I bought a Kawasaki H1F in 2015. The 500 is so much more tractable and torquey compared to the 250s. Passion fulfilled.
I actually owned a stock 1964 T20 Suzuki 250, the first of the 250 Hustler Six Speeds in NZ which could exceed 100 mph and accelerated quicker if the Posilube Oil injection was set at half the factory setting and quality Two Stroke Oil used. I also had the use of an A1 Kawasaki belonging to a mates brother and discovered once that if you set the rotary valve on one side two notches back from standard , the bike had to be push started but could pull 135 mph once it was up and running. It wasn’t quite as quick as the Hustler and the biggest quirk was the pegs were round on round shafts so at a high lean on a race track you couldn’t leave your boots on the rubber as it spun, so you’d lift your foot up over the Carb box … both sides … that was a challenge … the Ram Air GT 250 from Suzuki accelerated quicker but topped out before my T20. That T20 was bought by a scout collecting early bikes for the Japanese collector market, I really regret selling that bike …
I had a 1970 Bridgestone 200 GTR and then a 1970 H1, Cherry Bomb. Still alive at 68. Still ride, Tiger 800XC, among others in the garage today. I sure miss the 2strokes.
thanks a lot mate, it was hard work im not gonna lie, i started thinking it would be an easy one lol, after listening to my own voice for 42 minutes over and over again it wasnt lol, .Cheers for watching mate, Ride Free
This was cool! I owned an '89 KR1 Kwaka from new. (Also had a LC250 Yam) I was the spares manager for a dealership at the time. Tricked it out to the max and didn't spare the tuning or the maintenance. Kawasaki Aus had really good ties with Kawa Japan thanks to Gregg Hansford and TKAs exploits. Our service manager was his team mate, Murray Sayle. I scored ti pipes, cr box, trick carbs brakes and clutch. I dailied it rain hail or shine and track day'd it for 5 years. The bike was written off thanks to f/wit kids setting fire to garages. Still miss it to this day, even though I wouldn't fit on it now. ✌ 🇦🇺
cheers mate, a much appreciated comment, it was a bit of an epic to do, and you still get know it alls moaning lol. glad you enjoyed it and thanks again for the comment, .Cheers for watching, Ride Free
As a 64 yr old consumer from "across the pond" we were fed a constant diet of "bigger is always better". Having ridden a RZ350, ad a RD 350 & 400 Daytona myself - I constantly longed for the '97 yzf 1000 (thunderace in EU) and still have mine! But I enjoyed this video so much, even though smaller displacement road bikes were never pushed here..
There is one point I'd like to make; the Aprilia RS250 used the same engine as the Suzukis of the time, and really had no relationship at all to the race bikes. The road bikes were eqipped with reed valves, while the race bikes had disc valves. It is a tribute to all those Aprilia factory riders that they managed to make those bikes go so fast, because the disc valved engines were notoriously difficult to ride because of their hair trigger throttles. I had a KR1-S at the time, and it was a truly astonishing machine to ride. It was light as a feather and flickable beyond your wildest dreams. The brakes were astonishing, even on standard road tyres and I never found anything in its character was anything less than "knife-edge" sharp. It even looked achingly beautiful and I even took it down to the South of France on the train, just to enjoy my favourite roads on a truly astonishing bike. Unfortunately, even the very best have tendons that are easily cut, and the KR's weakness was absolutely TERRIBLE reliability. The pistons would seize at the drop of a hat, possibly more easily than even that, and they were not cheap to rebore or re-sleeve. On a £ per mile basis, I can't think of any bike I've had that was more expensive in repairs than the KR1-S, but I can also confidently say that I doubt that I'll ever get more smiles per £. As for your question; small bikes are no longer seen as an end in themselves, and the only reason these bikes were so rewarding is because they were 2 strokes. Even the very best of the 4 strokes of the period were just dreadful. I had various 4 stroke 250s in the 70s, and even managed to blag a ride on the Benelli on one occasion. They were all dull as dishwater. So what is the point of trying to develop a 250, or even 400 that, just because of the need to be a 4 stroke, simply isn't going to be that much cop? Better to build something that will be "interesting enough" to entice riders on to better things. And to be fair, the Europeans really do know how to make these small capacity bikes quite interesting. I know that the Uk hardly sells any of these smaller capacity modern bikes, so the perception is that biking is dying on the vine. But I do think that a lot of that is a UK perception, the UK economy is totally shagged, and the UK's youth simply doesn't have the money to live, let alone pay for a bike. I live in Spain, and work as a teacher. And I see that very large numbers of these smaller capacity bikes are bought, about 50% of my students of this age are actively saving towards precisely this capacity of bike.
Cheers for adding this. there are various conversations re the Aprilia/Suzuki engine in the comments but you have added valid points, as i have often said, if we could amass the combined knowledge of all the subscribers we would have the most comprehensive motorcycle encyclopedia ever 🙂 also, apparently waiting list for test in Holland is at an all time high, and when we were away in Germany and Switzerland there seemed to be many more younger riders so it does seem we are hit in the UK more than most places
@@barebonesmc Yeah, I'm afraid that the UK media does you no service, either. They really are hiding the appalling damage that Brexit (and the Tories) did, not only to the whole economy, but especially to the young. I come from a well-to-do family (my mother would NEVER deign to shop in Tesco, and the idea of even going into a LIDL or ALDI would appall her), but even going into her local Sainsbury's was enough to convince me of how bad the country is. The word that springs to mind is "Dowdy". Half the lights either not on or not replaced because they were broken, huuuge spaces on most shelves, fresh produce looking incredibly unfresh... and this was Sainsbury's, just one step down from Waitrose! (No Waitrose in the vicinity). I was actually really shocked at how bad it was. I wanted to buy large quantities of Ginger Beer (can't get it in Spain) while I was visiting in a van, but even dedicating a couple of days to searching, I could only find about 16 large bottles. Comparing that to my shopping experiences in Spain this morning provides a stark contrast. Even in LIDL, there was no shortage of ANY fresh produce, and all looking properly fresh. My point is that even wealth no longer ensures decent quality food in the UK, and considering that even the upper middle class is now resorting to food banks (my mother does), what the hell chance do poor and young people have of getting into biking? Contrast that with here, Spain. Increasing wages, youth unemployment coming down, decent support from the EU for youth projects (my wife's company has just completed a Youth "workplace insertion" program - providing quality training for the youths and income for us), low inflation and cheap power as well as fuel at less tha €1,40 lt.Plentiful, well paid summer jobs for students and ridiculously cheap train fares. No wonder the Spanish economy is one of the strongest in Europe. But until your media actually tells you what is possible, rather than the lies and half-truths that they habitually peddle, nobody thinks anything of whyat the UK has become. Oh, and we also don't have sped cameras every 5 miles, average speed cameras on every major road, or a health service that can't cope with expected demand, let alone a major incident or epidemic.
I had the priviledge to borrow an Aprilia RS 250 for a weekend and for two days I enjoyed the thrill of almost riding a race bike. It was so precise in the steering and obviously had more than enough power. I later borrowed a RS 125 and it’s about one of the most enjoyable bikes I’ve ever ridden. Leightweight and enough power to have an enormous amount of power without actually getting yourself in problems.
We most certainly got the Suzuki Across here in Australia. It was my first ever bike and what I learnt to ride on. It was very fast for its size and after some tuning I clocked it at 180kph. The helmet compartment was also one of the best features for a commuter bike and would hold a decent amount of shopping if the situation called. I sincerely regret selling my Across and can definitely see myself getting another one again one day. Fantastic video by the way, well done.
The helmet where the tank normally is was such a great design, perfect for a learner. I never understood why those bikes seemed to suddenly vanish from the roads. I guess they just got too old. Shame!
When selling motorcycles in Japan, from around 1980 there were many traffic accidents, and under pressure from the government, four manufacturers began to voluntarily regulate horsepower according to engine displacement. Specifically, 50cc was set to have 7.2 horsepower, 125cc to 22 horsepower, 250cc to 45 horsepower, 400cc to 59 horsepower, 750cc to 77 horsepower, and over 1000cc to 100 horsepower. These numbers were lowered in 1992 to 40 horsepower for the 250cc and 53 horsepower for the 400cc. This voluntary regulation was abolished in 2007, but exhaust gas regulations had already stopped the production of two-stroke engines.The Aprilia RS-250 might not have taken the top spot if it hadn't been for self-imposed restrictions that only annoyed its users.
Cheers for adding this mate. As i have often said, if we could amass the combined knowledge of all the subscribers we would have the most comprehensive motorcycle encyclopedia ever 🙂
Great video, brought back some great memories of my early biking days. Had a KH250(B2) back in ‘78 , bought on the back of a ‘Motorcycle Weekly ‘ road test where it was tested at 93.4 mph (one way ) , making it the fastest 250 of the day . Truth be told, there was little to choose between the KH , RD or the GT but it didn’t stop my mates and me arguing, constantly. Happy days.
lol, oh those arguments lol, we had an "agreed" location to use late at night, the coppers even came to race some nights lol, wild times, Cheers for watching and the comment mate, Ride Free
I had a new blue October 77 B2, from Kawasaki lowfield heath Gatwick . An Excellent bike that I kept long after my test and It still lives in my memories to this day.
The RD250LC's power output was a major factor in reducing the capacity that those on learner licenses were allowed from 250cc to 125cc in the UK., though slightly before my time,. When I turned 17 (1986) our options were limited to 125cc and 12bhp on a provisional license though it wasn't difficult to derestrict a Rd125lc to 16 plus hp. I went down the sensible route of taking my Cbt test on my 17th birthday and acquiring my part two, within two weeks. I then bought a brand new RD350LC YPVS N2.😂 I ended up working in a motorcycle dealership in the late 80's and very early 90's and got to ride the RG's, RGV's, TZR's, KR1's. They were awesome.👍
I modified a 250cc four stroke motorcycle and went 123 mph at the Ohio mile in 2012. Dyno horse power was 61 hp and almost 30 ftlb of torque. Great video.
@@barebonesmc I am Darkhorse Racing. I started with a stock 2008 250 ninja and just tried to see how fast it would go in an official land speed event. 84 mph at Maxton North Carolina with the East Coast Timing Association. Long story short over the next fifteen years I have been racing with a top speed of 123mph in 2012 at the Ohio mile. It’s a 4 stroke parallel twin. I have run it from stock to turbo nitrous methanol. It’s been fun.
@@darkhorsegarage9623 good going 🙂 Im a corners and dirt man more than straaight line speed but our differences make the world more exciting 🙂 enjoy it mate
@@barebonesmc This just started to see how many things I could do with 249cc. I rode to work every day., then went to the drag strip. The bike ran a 14.2 second 1/4 mile. Then I did a couple riding clinics and some track days. I planned to do an Iron Butt rally across the US in 50 hr, but once I tried land speed racing the people are amazing. I never looks back.
I had an RDLC 250 for a few years... 84-87 I think... what a great little bike, I also acquired a beat up 350 version. One of the baffles fell out one day when a friend was wringing it out, and the piston seized. They were good to work on as well...
I'm currently rebuilding a 67 cb77, not a 72 sadly, but it really is a nice platform. Sleek, simple, and reliable. Can't wait to get this old thing back on the road.
I had a cb72 It was my first bike and I didnt realise how good it was at the time,and it could do about 95 mph ,and more reliable than anything british
there is always a choice, at 42 minutes the video was already too long, i cant always include everything the T20 was actually closer than the GT or Hustler but the T20 should probably have got a mention
Thank you for a trip down memory lane. Back in the day I owned the RD, X7 and a KRIS before moving on to bigger four strokes. My older brother had a Suzuki Hustler and later GT, overlooked in your review (that’s not a criticism). I appreciate the time taken by you to research all this 👍 most enjoyable.
@@barebonesmc It was all RD250 and Kawasaki KH 250's here, nobody had an X7. Well, somebody must have done but you know what I mean. Oddly, one person did have an X5.
The first Hondas brought into the UK were the 250 Dream with the full mudguards and 125. Then the 125 Benly arrived, what a sharp looking 125 that was. A shame the 250 sports version wasn't styled the same.
Remember many of the 70s bikes mentioned -my father had a 1973 RD350,my brother had RD400 and I remember the X7,RD250LC have an original 80s Honda pamphlet for the MVX250,a surprising failure as a rider in the town I lived had one,rode it hard and didn't have any issues thanks for the doc much appreciated Auckland New Zealand 2023
A mighty video , some forgotten gems in the list. It was the change in the licence laws that killed the 250 ,,, once l plates went to 125 no one cared about 250s any more , manufacturers just turned out a 250 token gesture and went onto 600s , as that was the logical jump after 125.
2 stroke engines are very sensitive to humidity as well as ambient temperature, I remember how much better they pulled on a cool and humid autumn or spring day, and how a hot and dry day used to affect them... Maybe that explains some of the speed variation in different tests..
You're absolutely right, I rode with a mate over 100 miles from home to Nottingham with a mate who had RD250 DX and it was about 80 degrees that day. When we came back a couple of days later the weather had really turned and it was about 55 degrees. Both bikes were a hell of a lot quicker on the journey back.
@@sambrooks7862 Unfortunately on the cooler and damper days the road surface was often damp as well, which limited the extra fun you could have - especially with tyres in 1960's and 70's.
glad you enjoyed it mate 🙂 Theres plenty more on the channel, hope you will look around and find something your interested in. there is more on the website too. and there will be more to come. Cheers for watching. Ride Free 🙂
glad you enjoyed it mate 🙂 Theres plenty more on the channel, hope you will look around and find something your interested in. there is more on the website too. and there will be more to come. Cheers for watching.Hope you will climb aboard. Ride Free 🙂
The x7 was just a yamaha with its reed valves. They even sounded the same. They were just too small, low and skinny. What this video fail to show is the appalling fuel consumption of all the 2 strokes. Never thought about it at the time but most were around 20mpg. I have a 380 and that's doing 18mpg when pushed. That and engine life span finished them off.
Sad thing about the KR-1 is the fact that it's crank-halfs were made in one unit which meant that you couldn't do a con rod replacement as like on any other regular two stroke. A friend of mine still takes one of these to the circuit and I'm the one to rebuild his cranks... 🙂
@@phillarsson8253 thanks mate, i do my best, even an old dog like me can learn new tricks lol, if you look back, all i did until this year really was use UA-cam as a store for old video footage, no editing really at all, then i began to edit the footage from the European tour last year and it sort of progressed from there, would never have believed it could take off like this, Cheers for the support, Ride Free 🙂
@@barebonesmc you're doing great, don't worry! As an old dog myself as being a motorcycle mechanic since I was around 13, I've ridden and worked on so many mopeds and motorcycles and even lawnmowers... from a simple Vespa Ciao over lots of Japs and crossing total overhauls of bevel-head Ducati's on to early Kawasaki ZZR 1100's cranks repairs. The list is long but ever so fascinating.
...I really enjoyed this incredible dissection on motorcycle size I never really considered as sporty... but now I do, at least the vintage models and thank you for sharing!!!
What a lovely video! Thank you! I currently ride a 1992 Kawasaki ZZR 250 (4 stroke): not near as wild as the bikes in this video but a lovely machine! Made 34 hp and cruised at 160km/h (about 100mph). The carburetor needs some fine tuning but it still goes 140-150 without much effort.
I had a zzr250 as well. Glad someone else mentioned it. Wasn't much faster than my NS125R but was smoother. I think it was basically the GPX 250 with a redesign.
Back in the early 90’s I was the proud owner of a ZZR1100, my young cousin had a KR1S. I can well remember riding at over 130 mph with him sat directly behind me on the little 250.. I was genuinely shocked at how quick his bike was..🤓
the equivalent for me was being passed around cadwell by a 1970s 125 racing honda that looked like it was made with mechano lol, Cheers for watching mate, have a great week
On a 5km stretch of motorway heading north my 250cc Hyosung Comet V twin held 160km and 148km on the return south .60kg rider.Not bad for a Korean 4 stroke.
All Hail the great Walter Kaadan 🙂glad you enjoyed it mate 🙂 Theres plenty more on the channel, hope you will look around and find something your interested in. there is more on the website too. and there will be more to come. Cheers for watching. Ride Free 🙂
I've saved this vid to my, Bike Playlist, because I will definitely want to watch it again and again... I've always loved, fast, small capacity bikes... Great work Sir !
glad you enjoyed it mate 🙂 Theres plenty more on the channel, hope you will look around and find something your interested in. there is more on the website too. and there will be more to come. Cheers for watching.Hope you will climb aboard. Ride Free 🙂
Greeves Silverstone is another racer capable of 100mph+ on right gearing. Started off with RAS model with 36a villiers engine, but all following models were Greeves own engine.
Great video, I loved the trip down memory lane, I think you are dead right about modern 250s not hitting the mark, I feel very lucky that I passed my bike test in 1986 . My first bike after passing the test was a mark 2 rg250, I see nothing that would make me excited about a 250 now. What a shame.
The RD250F was an extremely exciting bike to own after my FS1E moped, it was crazy to be allowed to go from 45 mph to 95 mph without any instruction though.
@@randombanditdad3754 Wow, that really is a sweeping generalisation. I have a few mates who had bad accidents on their 250s at that time. I had done some off road riding as a schoolboy so was ok, it was more to do with experience than brains in my opinion.
Great Video Thanks. I had a few of those bikes if only I still had them, miss those two stroke days. Also not in the video was a Stan Stevens tuned Yamaha TDR-250 which was bloody brilliant fun 🙂
I had one for a while, I let Stan do his stuff when the previous owner seized it due to running it out of oil and left it with an air bubble in the pump.
cheers mate, im from Terry Beckitt country so the Stan Stevens name is a bit of a moot point :-) but he was a great tuner, just not as good as Terry :-) Cheers for watching mate, ride free
After the summer of 1982, I'd have imagined sales of 250s would have plummeted. I remember the Yamaha RD250LC, though. It blew away all rivals with ease.
I owned 3 of the list, the RGV ,NSR and KR1 , my favorite being the Suzuki😊 ,god I wish I still owned it or any one of them , great video ,took me back to some great times ,thanks😊
When I was 16 I bought a 250cc Bultaco Metralla to ride to work on. It was 28 HP and light weight with good braking. I loved that bike, wish i had it now.
glad you enjoyed it mate 🙂 Theres plenty more on the channel, hope you will look around and find something your interested in. there is more on the website too. and there will be more to come. Cheers for watching.Hope you will climb aboard. Ride Free 🙂
Small correction: it's pronounced Aermacki. As you predicted, here's a correction regarding the Honda MVX250F being Honda's first two-stroke street bike. It wasn't. If we discount the fact that Honda's very first production model, the A-Type, was equipped with a small two-stroke motor, the title goes to the MB5 launched in 1979. If we include all street-legal models as opposed to street-only, then we must include the MT125 and MT250 dual sport (or dual purpose as we used to say and not to be confused with the MT250 road racer) both launched in 1974. And now the biggie: no one has to thank MZ for rotary disc-valves on two-strokes. They did use them on their GP bikes, but they did not invent them. What Walter Kaaden, MZ's race engineer, did do was to develop formulae for calculating exhaust resonance in two-strokes in order to improve gas flow and in particular he improved on the work previously done at DKW (MZ's pre-WW2 predecessor before the partition of Germany) on expansion chambers. These formulae are the secret that pilot/engineer Ernst Degner took with him when he defected out of communist East Germany and it is the reason why every performance two-stroke is fitted with expansion chambers. And now an anecdote: when I was a motorcycle-mad teenager in Montréal, I would often walk or cycle over to Plaza Cycles which was one of Yvon DuHamel's early sponsors. Besides all the shiny new two-strokes and magnificent Z1, they would sometimes expose one of Yvon's bikes. Even then, it was surprising to me how small these race bikes were. And, of course, always with number 17.
i hadnt thought about the MB5 which is a bit bad because my mate had one :-), i stand corrected. and yes my pronunciation isnt perfect, old habits die hard as they say :-) and MZ/DKW might not have invented the dic valve but they did do a lot of pioneering development with it. and the way i saw it, it was the combined use of the better disc valve alongside the expansion chambers that was what improved the overal performance. but im happy to be corrected, ill do some more reading. my understanding was that without the improvement in performance of the disc valve the power pulse was less focused which made designing the helmholz resonator much more difficult. as the power pulse was focussed the frequency band of the resonator became narrower which meant it was easier to create the expansion chamber that would work over a wider rev range. so that is why i always mention the disc valve as well. Cheers for watching mate, hope you have a great weekend
Great video (as always), I hankered after the KR1-S when I passed my test, but my Dad who signed for the finance said no, GPX250R lol. Re the ZX-25R, I LOVE the fact that Kawasaki bucked the recent trend of singles and twins and remade a mighty screaming 250-4! SHAME though it wasn't released in the UK(Worldwide) 😒. But yeah, I regularly saw 120 on the clock with my GPX (ok giving 5 MPH with speedo accuracy etc 115), but, LOVED it! 14,000 rpm red line, the looks (STILL wished I had the KR though hahaha). My biking life had many a 'Strange'/unusual bikes with a few Imports, black and red GPZ400R (I even once saw a GPZ500R in a dealers window), GSX400F/R, Bros400 and a coupla others... Ride safe, ride free my friend(s)! 😎🇬🇧
You mightn't be here today if your dad had allowed you to buy the KR1S. A friend of mine purchased one new. I was lucky enough to take it out a few times. It was blisteringly fast with the most brutal powerband that I've ever experienced. The thing would barely run until you were doing 5 or 6 thousand RPM but when you got to the 7 thousand mark, it was like someone had attached a rocket to the bike and lit it. You couldn't change gears fast enough to keep up with it, just about. I actually find it hard to believe that they were 60 horse power. To this day, it's got to be amongst the fastest "real world" bikes that I've ridden. My friend sold that bike at about 30,000km. It had had about 5 sets of rings through it and he'd given up replacing plastics at that point. Everything was broken or scratched. The bike was a shadow of its former self. Somehow, my friend survived. The KR was not a bike for the road. The GPX was a much better choice. Your father is a wise man.
@@davidbrayshaw3529 Hahaha yeah, you're right, after I had the GPX for a while and kept reading about this and that about the KR1/1S I thought "Yeah, can't be arsed with the constant piston ring replacements ,(even though it was easy enough to do it on strokers), but, I seriously didn't want to end up side if the road with a broken ring hahaha. I did end up getting an RD350 YPVS FII (with some Stan Stevens tuning) after I had some time on the GPX so, did at least get to enjoy some 2stroke madness again, loved that too! 😈😈 Mwuhaha 😉 😎🇬🇧
cheers mate, i guess the ZXR400 is the closest we have got, but with a 9.6k price tag it may take some selling against the bigger bikes, :-) Cheers for watching mate, enjoy the ride
Thanks for this. When I was growing up in the late 70s/early 80s, the 250cc sector was very significant because at the time, that was the maximum sized bike you could ride without passing a test. It was a very competitive market with manufacturers struggling to get the more power out of a 250cc engine, just like they did later with the 125cc when the limit was reduced, before other ways were found to limit their power. I remember the Honda CB250N Superdream being very popular, also the Kawasaki KH250 and Suzuki X7, but it was probably the new Yamaha RD250LC which took it to another level and made the authorities wake up to what was going on.
RDN 189P was my beloved yamaha RD 2.50 'Reed valve' torque induction in red. Faster than my old Honda 2.50 and faster than my mate's kawasaki kh triple.
Had a Mito Evo and my friend had an RS both were derestricted and barely a hair between them on the road, until they hit their top gears and the Mito just pulled. At some point if I can ever afford to get another (mine a gun metal one was stolen) and drop a 500 into it, the frames on them are huge and as the 748 front forks and R1 rear slot straight on would make a hell of a quick bike. That being said I'd be happy just having my old one back, it is still the most fun bike I ever had on the road
I had one of the first RD250's at 17 years old, people always forget the predecessor YDS7 which was just as good even though it didn't have reed valves also the Suzuki Hustler which was good. Enjoyed the video very much.
@@andypandy9931 Thanks I paid a fortune for it but I just had to have it the exact same colour in gold and black as the one I had as a youngster, certainly will not be riding like when I was sixteen thou 🤣👍
@@stevenedwards2162 no Steven take it easy we are both a lot older now. I used to really hammer my RD 250 then got a new Kawasaki H1 I think £715 and then a H2 which was £939 on the road.
I owned a Suzuki Across for a few years so I'm very glad to see it get an honourable mention here. They were a great little bike, surprisingly reliable and quite popular here in Australia through the 90's. One feature of the bike was the storage area where the fuel tank would be in a more traditional design, large enough for a full face helmet. The actual tank was under the seat, but only held approximately 12l of fuel.
ouch 12 ltrs even on a 250 is limiting, but good to hear a bit more about them, i knew about the storage, i guess thats where honda got the idea for the NC700 🙂) Cheers for watching mate, ride free 🙂
Interesting, I didn't know about the storage, I recently sold my Honda NC750X and thought that was a groundbreaking idea, little did I know it had been done before.
I am not a biker but your video brought back memories of the late 70s and early eighties when a few friends of mine were bikers, technology as progressed but not always for the better, safety, emissions, production costs etc has played a part here. Probably people skip the 250 in search of a better deal on a bigger bike ?. I am not a biker but I did enjoy your video.
glad you enjoyed it mate, i do think cost comes into it in a few ways, from bike production cost to profit margins and insurance costs to name just 3 have a great weekend mate
I was hoping you'd give a heads'up to the 1st bike I bought when I was just out of school: and you did! The Ducati Mach 1 Daytona. Bought from Kings in M/cr - it was glorious. It was the blue painted version and its tank was completely chrome plated. It cost retail £250 or 1£ per cc. Quickly modified with the optional factory racing kit: a big bell mouth DellOrto carb', a higher compression piston and a reverse cone megaphone, sans baffles exhaust pipe. It sounded like a 500cc Manx Norton when heel and toeing through the cogs. I modified it further by replacing the carburetter with a Wal Phillips fuel injector, which was essentially a floatless drain pipe and super temperamental for it seemed to be dependant on whether it was sunny or cloudy. It was, though, the quickest bike in the motley collection of bigger CCs BSAs,Triumphs, AJSs and Nortons hereabouts in its time. Nice machine but it quickly became apparent am a poor rider of motorbikes for I bent it up in The Dales in a collision with a van. Then I went bumming about the world and when I'd returned home, my dad - thinking he'd seen the last of me - had flogged it. Incidentally, at the time I was envious at the time of the beautiful dimpled fuel tank which adorned Ducati's 200cc Elite. The Daytona's tank was okay, but workaday.plain. The Italians have a fine relationship with style, ratio and proportion. If style is important it helps if the rider is small in stature - all the best racers are.
I'm surprised that you didn't mention the Suzuki X-6 Hustler. In 1967 it produced 29 hp and although I never saw figures that put it over 100mph, my 1967 X-6 Scrambler will easily go over 90mph. This was a great video! I loved all the info and saw many bikes that I never heard of. Thank you!
Cheers for watching mate and glad you enjoyed it, there would always be missed bikes, i was sick of listening to my own voice by the end of this one lol , have a great weekend 🙂
In 1981 I had a 1971 T250 hustler and my God it was quick. I usually rode with 5 or 6 other lads, most rode either RD250s or X7s although one lad had a GT 250, none of them could get anywhere near my old hustler, it wasn't just "a bit quicker", it embarrassed all of them. The only lad I rode with who could get anywhere near me had a honda 400/4 and even then he wasn't faster unless it was head wind and he was about 3 stone lighter than me!
Having had two RD250’s in the early 1980’s then two RD350LC’s that still look amazing today. I would have loved an RG250 gamma. But looking at the 250 Katana and the other 250 fours, they sounded absolutely amazing!!!
i still remember borrowing a mates FZR 250 back when I was running a 350 LC, I loved it, a very different ride but great fun, and yes, an addictive exhaust note :-) Cheers for watching mate, hope you have a great weekend
I wonder how much difference a fairing made to the top speeds. All of the earlier stuff up to about 1980 were naked bikes but after that not only were you getting a jump in engine output with water cooling but the bikes were all faired. Together they must have been worth a good few mph.
What a fanrastic video, thank you! The most exhilarating and exciting class of bikes there ever was, in my humble opinion. I own a 1991 KR1-S, which I bought new. It wears the black & green racing livery like the example shown in your video, and aside from a couple of minor but unsightly fairing scratches which were professionally filled & painted in the early 2000's, and a 5mm hole repair & repaint on the exhaust, it is all factory and mint. A low mileage example it's whole life, sadly it just doesn't get the miles these days which it once did. I keep it run and maintained though, and the soundtrack alone isn ike a time machine, transporting me back 30 years to the twisty country roads of Sussex & Hampshire, and rhe pure adrenaline rush. Happy days indeed ❤ Thanks again for this great video.Would love to see the full KR250 deep dive please!
the KR250 video is going to take some time :-) ive got to contact some owners and translation can be a bugger sometimes lol, but it is on my list :-) Cheers for watching and glad you enjoyed it , hope you have a great weekend
glad you enjoyed it mate 🙂 Theres plenty more on the channel, hope you will look around and find something your interested in. there is more on the website too. and there will be more to come. Cheers for watching.Hope you will climb aboard. Ride Free 🙂
The Suzuki Across was very popular here in Australia. It was comfortable and powerful enough to tour on and the storage compartment (fuel tank) being able to carry a helmet was a bonus! PS Australia also got the KR250. Cheers.
Great video, I really enjoyed it, but where are the Spanish 250's of the late 60's and early 70's? The Bultaco Metralla and Montesa Impala were both 100mph bikes on a good day with a tailwind. They were widely used in production racing and can still be seen in action at Spanish events.
Lot of research in this video, and well presented. My favourite 250 was the honda cb250rs which I owned for a couple of years. My only transport for work. Most certainly not a contender for this list. I agree about the lack of progress in this capacity, rather disappointing.
Great video! Thanks. Lots of nostalgia there. Reasons why modern 250's are boring: > Emissions regulations >The demise of the 250 learner class in many countries. (What's the point of making a screaming 250 when its costs the same to make a 500 that has more manners?). Here in NZ and Aussie we can ride 650s as learners. >The demise of the 250 racing class > The demise of the 2 stroke. > The addition of ABS, starter motors and bigger batteries to drive starter motors.
i think the move in focus with racing probably the biggest global impact, the learner regs had issues in different places but that changes all the time, :-) Cheers for watching mate, enjoy the ride
I had a 87 tzr production race bike to Aus as a grey market import. Bought it after it had race a season. Was 110kg on the truck scales at work dry. I was pretty young and never sorted the suspenion properly as we had no one to guide us and no internet. One mate had an RZ500, one a KR250 and the other a KR1. RZ was damn quick in a straight line. TZR was quickest to about 120km/h. KR1 was a dream. Info on the Suzuki Across, they were rubbish, but you could put the helmet in the the storage area under the fake fuel tank.
Couple of things of note. Although in awe of Yamaha's TZR-1, I was lusting after an RGV250K back in 1988 when they first released. I already then currently owned a 1985 RG500 Gamma which I had bought new in early 1986. Still do. Pretty sure the Kawasaki KR-1 released a few months ahead of the RGV250K here in Australia. A younger friend still on his 250 licence limitation bought the Kawasaki KR-1 (new) shortly after its initial release, and I the opportunity to ride it hard. My recall is that it was a very appealing bike with no immediately apparent vices, and a drop dead gorgeous looker. I particularly loved its radial rims which had only just started becoming de rigeur in mainstream road motorcycling which Suzuki had deliberately avoided on their RG500G hampering it with bias ply rims and undersized front rotors in order to promote their marketing shift to 4 stroke with their new flagship the GSXR-750. Such a shame. A bit over a decade later I bought one of the last new Suzuki RGV250Ts available from the RGV's final year export production run. That model was still black box unrestricted, but had had by then a rev limiter imposed at 11500rpm. By the end of the suffix T model produciton, all but one of the mechanical issues and undesirable idiosyncracies of the original and subsequent stock models had been eliminated, that being namely it's neutral stability and heavy front end tendency to head shake horrendiously requiring skilled corrective input if its straightline stability was upset by some external road condition/object. This could be all but eliminated by fitting a steering damper for which the frame was set up with a damper lug ex-factory, but of course at the cost of front end feedback & finessed feel. I never fitted one to mine, although I've experienced some 'you really need to be experienced and capable' scale tank slappers over the years attributable to this. The Aprilia RS250, owned by friends, which I've ridden shared that same characteristic. Stock, I put my RGV through the test radar at 212kph true flat nil wind. My overall assessment without detailed elaboration. It's a much more difficult and challenging bike to ride very fast capably than the RG500, and very VERY easy to get yourself pear shaped fast without experience and exceptional skill level. Definitely a bike for experienced skilled riders. Much as the wife persists in nagging me to sell them, I still own my RGV250T too.
@@marcellogenesi6390 Even fully faired on the track at its claimed 116kg dry with just 200ml of fuel in the tank and a 45kg rider aboard for 27HP, I find that an event I'd have to personally witness to believe without scepticism. Already read the memory lane specs, so please don't bother quoting them. Perspective. My 1974 Ducati 450 Desmo (14kg heavier) producing the same spec HP would be pressed to do that as I recall, and not for long given rubbish Ducati metallurgy of the day. 70s' Ducatis in particular. Spit! Ugh! Just Ugh! Although I owned three and rode considerably more during that period, -sucker for punishment or slow learner (?), they were all a regrettable mistake given 20:20 hindsight. Moto Morini made a momentary distribution presence splash for all of a figurative 5 seconds here in AU with one of their 350s mid 1970s during the height of Italian bike fashion craze, but the brand didn't sell. Pretty and stylish bike though. Fairly sure local pricing stupidity had something to do with it being a non-event at the time. Laverda, MV Augusta, Benelli, Moto Guzzi all suffered from the same overpricing affliction. Ducati was the only Italian brand near price competitive with understandable Japanese dominance, with Guzzi and Laverda providing a niche anternative to the cashed up BMW R90S buyer who wasn't one. The 750 S3 and 850 Le Mans (Mk I) Guzzis sure were stylish though. I had a mate with 'Italian brand fever' who bought a new Laverda 500 of some now forgotten flavour in early 1979 I used to ride with frequently. Spectacularly unimpressive in all respects except price. In late 1979 or early '80 after I'd blown up the Desmo and GTS and in need of reliable set of two wheels for not too much money I bought a new Kawasaki Z500 which outperformed that Laverda -and just to to add insult to injury, for around a third of its price!
@@theblytonian3906 Whether you belied or not I did reach 8000 rpm, that is 108mph in fifth gear, maybe the road was slightly down hill I cannot remember. My first bike was a Triumph 200cc tiger cub. then a Gilera175cc super compressed, then a Ducati 250 Daytona, finally the Ducati 250 mach1; sadly followed do to anforseen circumstances to a an Austin Minivan.
In the 90s my friend built an RG250 project with his dad. They sent the motor to Kevin Cameron to have it built. It put out 52WHP on a stingy local dyno. In hindsight it was one of the most special bikes I've ridden.
@@stephenhurst9257 Indeed, very peaky power delivery. About 2000rpm of useable power at the top of the rev range. If memory serves, it had re-worked FZR 600 forks and swingarm as well as wheels. If I knew then what I know now, I'd have a collection of historically significant motorcycles from the 80s and 90s. LOL
that was/is part of the joy, that tuning. We had a guy called Terry Beckitt back in my day who was a wizard. and i thought i had done fairly well getting a TZR I had to around 65HP but the guy who bought it (the right new owner) took it to Mick Abbey and in the end (lots of changes including a banshee block) got it up to almost 90HP at the wheel which was unbelievable to me. but i saw the dyno readout. Mick is obviously the modern day Terry Beckitt i think :-) Cheers for watching mate, have a great weekend
Yes the Yamaha SRX 250 single/4stroke was so much fun Cafe Racer style bikini faring, rode it to university all week at Max throttle and put only $2 petrol in the tank. It was beautifully made with Yamaha great fit and finish.
Thank you so much for this video - being in my early 60s and brought up in rural (semi isolated ) Staffordshire with a single parent and no car, motorcycles brought me freedom and the joys of adventure and travel and a form of transport to earn cash for my beer and petrol working on farms. Firstly with a second hand well used Batavus Mk4S that I got on my 16 birthday for passing all my O levels ( I desperately wanted a fizzie but we just didn’t have the money) and then a few weeks after my 17th birthday passing my bike test on my mate’s Suzuki X7 and riding back from Stafford where I baptised my licence with the much talked about in those days “ton across the rezzer “ - meaning a 100 mph across Blythefield Reservoir that many years later I did close to double that speed on a 1999 British spec unrestricted Hayabusa. I am sure the down hill at both ends helped get up to speed. They were happy days for me - the spring of adulthood, freedom, chasing birds, and start of my continuing love affair with bikes. I am a lucky one - poverty swapped for a degree of affluence in later life that allows me to spend months on end traveling the world on my various adventure bikes. With more behind me than ahead I am glad I lived when I did in this 70-90s golden era and will be on my last wheels when we are forced to ride electrics - although I hope common sense will prevail and clean nuclear power with generate cheap and plentiful electric to split the water molecule and produce abundant hydrogen to power a new generation of internal combustion engines that will give future generations of kids the joy of a “ton across the rezzer” with the buzz and noise it deserves Braaaap !
It seems that the Suzuki T20 of 1965 is missing in your otherwise very complete listing. As far as I remember, it was the go-to 250 cc bike when it appeared, with its 6 speeds gearbox, at keast in France where Kawasakis were not imported at that time. It was also easy to tune for racing/
there will always be ones that get missed, they werent as popular here. it wasnt until the ram air GT250 that Suzuki started to gain more of a market share but it maybe should have been mentioned
I think the lack of exciting 250cc bikes has to do with the nanny states we all seem to live in. Having said that, my son has a Ninja 300. It is a fun, quick bike. I've had it to 3/4 ton without giving it the whip. My son won't tell me how fast he's riding it. I'm sure he is a ton up boy.
It did just get too long in the end, there are plenty coming out of the woodwork though so who knows in future :-) Cheers for watching mate, have a great weekend
Yeah! The Suzuki X6 set records. It's production top speed was 104 mph. It came out before the Kawasaki samurai, and it was faster. I won a lot of gold with an X6 in the day.
So many of these bikes I have zero idea of existing. I was into dirt in my early years. Some power and speed numbers astound me. Kinda makes me rethink how quick my ZX6R is. I’m all about lite quick easy to toss around motorcycles. Kinda what kept from every getting a full liter bike. Fantastic stuff BB.
Great Video, my first b 2 stroke was a Yamaha 100 LT2 Dirt Bike with a new head & rings. Second 2 stroke was another Yamaha a RZ250R then I went to 4 strokes. A XS750 Then a Honda VFR 750 Then a R3 , now currently a MT03 & A 2016 XT250.
Great trip down memory lane. Interesting to see what the Lambretta and Vespa guys can get out of their Two stroke scoots, 30 to 50bhp quite easy , then up to 70+ bhp! Eric Cope got 127mph on a Lambretta RB250 @ Elvington!
Ive seen them racing at Cadwell and one guy took one out in the fast group at a trackday i was at, no one realised he had a 350LC engine strapped in it 🤣🤣 bonkers things. Cheers for watching mate, Ride Free 🙂
IMPORTANT
Dakar have hit me with a copyright strike so ive had to delist some of the videos just in case
i guess they got pissed that mine were better
because of the MOTOGP one before xmas that means im really vulnerable now and the channel could be removed at any time
I have set up this backup channel so please go and follow it NOW,
this could all be removed at any moment now so it is critical to stay in touch via the backup channel here
ua-cam.com/channels/CSl6i-tZJNC5DQ38vgCtvw.html
sorry for this if i get another strike it wipes out all my work
all my old videos will be removed
I wont be posting anything much on the new channel unless this goes down
but this is a just in case because it really could go down at any point
the videos are still visible if you have a link so if you have problems message me for links
so you can still watch them,
if you follow the channel and this one gets taken down you will be able to find me there
sorry if thats a bit garbled
ive just woken to this but i guess i could have had the channel taken down already
so i should be thankful
ride free everyone
In 1965 I bought a brand new Honda Dream SS 250 I was 19 and just returned from 19 months serving with the RN in Singapore and the far east. I was caught speeding on the A1 by a police Austin Westminster at doing 98 to 103 for over 1.5 miles I made the main news as the first person to be caught doing over 100mph after the silly 70mph limit was introduced supposedly to save fuel.
Things have gone backwards.
it does seem like it in many ways. Cheers for watching mate, have a great week
How about that silly 55 limit that we had to live with for years in the USA i got in trouble several times over that
Where are the triumphs and bsa s.
I couldn't agree more about todays 250s and 400s being made to look like donkey's when compared to the 1980s and 90s bikes like the KR1-S, RGV, NSR, RS and TZR 250s and the CBR, RVF, VFR, FZR, ZXR and GSX-R 400s. My first 250 was the Yamaha RD250E, then the TZR250, RGV250, my last 250 being the Aprilia RS (the Biaggi replica), to this day I've never had a bike that handled better than the wee Aprilia and that includes GSX-R, CBR, Yamaha R series 600s and 1000s, in fact the only bike I've owned that matches it is my 2023 Triumph Street Triple RS (29 years later), I'm in my mid sixties but I still miss the smell, sound and thrill of a 250 stroker hitting the power band, I just have to catch a whiff of burning two stroke oil and it takes me back to my youth.
Castrol R runs through my veins lol Cheers for watching mate, ride free
Well said....as stuff "improves " things go into reverse...a modern 250 with less power then a 1980s 125...
glad you enjoyed it mate 🙂Cheers for watching. Ride Free 🙂
I know that feeling brother, I have been there and done that. It was a beautiful ride during those years. And I wish I could find another today.
Nicest 250 I ever rode was the stopgap RG250 from Suzuki.
I forget if it was one year only model while RGV was being put in production?
It would go around corners like nothing I had ever ridden before (and being service manager at Suzuki/Yamaha dealers I got to ride everything at least once)
The limitations of 1980's suspension just didn't apply
It only did about 115mph but unless you came to a hairpin didn't need to slow down to less than 110 on 'ordinary' British 'B' roads.
Possibly the most dangerous bike I ever rode as things were too easy, on 1000/1200 you knew you had a lot of weight to throw around but this thing, being small and light just kept going
What a great show. I drove three RD 350 in the 80s , young, wild and fast as the Honda 750, with 74 Hp.
wild days, and even wilder nights 🙂Cheers for watching mate. Ride Free 🙂
yep had the rd lc 350 back then before that thought my rd400 was fast lol had nothing on the rd lc350
Used to really enjoy eating up Harley sportster‘s on my RD 400 which was highly modified. It was one guy with a Kawasaki H1 500 that Mike Wells they had mechanic for Kawasaki in Daytona Beach had prepared with Danko chambers and three Yamaha 360 read valve kits on each cylinder, And it was a dead match in speed for my RD 400. The H one was also highly modified with the port job and etc. I had Too many modifications to my RD to list in this forum. Bench flow port job,DG chambers and heads which were milled to keep compression ratio correct with the port job 34 mm electron carbs, and later went to water cool heads. It ran like a scalded dog. The smell of two-stroke Oil coming from a nice sounding chamber is a beautiful experience and is eloquent to the senses.
@@michaeldurham9140 yep nothing like the smell of 2 stroke in the morning
Yea I had a Suzi GSe 68 bhp at the rear wheel , never missed a beat
When I turned 17, back in 1981, the first thing I did was to get myself an RD250. Crazy bike, sometimes I am amazed that I reached my 18th birthday. I only rode it in London but it was perfect for city riding as it got up to 60 really quickly! You never forget your first real bike.
that ones true 🙂 I remember taking the cash for a trick KH 250 when i had just passed my test and they had just got a 350LC in, it was a hard choice but the LC won 🙂
I had the RD200 , electric start was rare then .
@@joecamel6835 they were another bonkers little bike 🙂Cheers for watching mate, have a great weekend 🙂
@@barebonesmc Bet you wish you still had your 350 LC, that bike is a classic. You need deep pockets to buy one of those now. After I passed my test I went for the GS1000, 4 stoke direction instead. Been riding ever since, keeps you young at heart 🙂
@@rufus1346 indeed mate, but if i had who knows what bikes i might have missed 🙂 enjoy the ride mate
The Suzuki Super Six deserves at least an honourable mention
You are probably right, Cheers for watching, ride free
Oh yeah. It left every other 250 at the time standing.
@@barebonesmc And the t250 j
How about the Suzuki Hustler.
@@noiwanttobeanonymous3797 pretty much the same machine, the T20 and T250 had mainly cosmetic differences, the earlier T20 was quicker as well. The same basic engine was carried through from the T20 to the X7
My pissed up Geordie neighbour woke me at 2.30am arguing with his wife but I stumbled across this and what a treat. Thank you. Don’t hate on the neighbour, he used to ride at the TT! Respect…
pmsl :-) Cheers for watching mate, enjoy the ride sorry it took so long to reply, you raised a smile :-)
What a great presentation of these old greats. I remember being 15/16 yrs old drooling at the 250’s as they were released and the so envious of the slightly older generation. When my turn came I got the Yamaha RD250LC and would street race anything. A great trip down memory lane - thanks for putting this vid together I can see a lot of love and effort went into it.
glad it jogged some good memories mate 🙂Cheers for watching. Ride Free 🙂
As a teenager, I remember a nighttime race along the North Wales coast between a BSA Starfire B25 and a Ducati Desmo 250 single - We all waited at the cafe some 15 miles away to see who might arrive first - it was the Ducati a good couple of minutes ahead - astonishingly the front downpipe was glowing dull red - they were both gorgeous looking bikes
wild times 🙂Cheers for watching mate. Ride Free 🙂
Great video. It brought back many memories of the late 70’s and early 80’s! 👏👏👏
glad you enjoyed it mate, .Cheers for watching, Ride Free
Thank you for your wonderful film and comment!
As a 2-stroke fan, I bought a Kawasaki Avenger 350 cc in 1968 and after several 4-stroke Hondas I bought a Kawasaki KR1-S in 1990.
The KR1-S was the best two-stroke bike I've owned, it did indeed turn like a razor and nothing could have been mis-tuned.
The suspension had to be precisely adjusted for my light weight and if the tires had 2 lbs too much pressure I couldn't ride it and if it was too low it steered too hard.
It braked fantastically and I usually braked with 2 fingers.
At 8000 rpm the KIPS system started working and the extra resonance chambers closed.
Then the engine pulled excellently and really ran like a screeching turbine.
When I drove away after a winter break, I came back after 3 minutes and spent 2 hours cleaning the carburetors, because there was deposits in the fuel jets, of course also adjusting the vacuum exactly and, above all, the throttle cables, otherwise the engine will vibrate.
If you do not feel the contamination of the jets while driving, the engine is guaranteed to be damaged by a mixture that is too lean.
Those are the disadvantages, but if you like technology, it is nice to have everything checked and adjusted very carefully.
Now I ride a 250 cc Honda (CBR250R) of 26.4 HP, also an excellent motorcycle, but touring is of course more fun when you are 74 years old, haha!
Great story 🙂Cheers for adding your bit mate. Ride Free 🙂
Thank you for doing this vid, brings back good memories of me & my best mate riding out to southport on a saturday on our 250's, i had a yam TDR250 and he had a G plate RGV250, we used to ride to west coast bikes, they always had exotic import stuff from japan, TZR 250 reverse cylinders, the NSR 250 with credit card ignition, GSXR 250's, NSR400's etc i very nearly bought a katana 250 from west coast but ended up buying a fully restored RD350LC, think i made the wise choice 😁 we were lucky to ride in a time when you could ride a bike that gave you such excitement and we did'nt have the green mafia wanting to hang you from the nearest lampost for riding something other than a pushbike. You get more excitement taking a big dump than what you get on a modern 250, 😂 and we used to think the superdream 250 was boring. I feel sorry for the young uns, there are some good nutters out there who would be great on a 250 stinkwheel but the good old stuff is well out of their price range now.
lol, cheers for the comment mate, and yep, todays crop are a bit sad, Cheers for watching mate, ride free 🙂
I had years ago kh250 greentripple. Then rd 200 and 250.my next one was amazing tzr 250.
GREAT VIDEO BONES ,IM 85 NOW ,I RODE MANY OF THESE BIKES WHEN I WAS YOUNGER .STILL RIDE EVERYDAY ,ON A HUSKY 2T ..LOVE THOSE 2 STROKES...GREETINGS FROM THE PHILIPPINES
welcome aboard mate, you have to love the strokers :-) 🙂 cheers for watching mate, have a great day
I don’t watch a lot of 40+ minute videos but I didn’t think about not continuing with this one. My first M/C was a 305cc Honda CB77, Yamaha 250, Bultaco 250 and a couple of Aermacchis a 250cc and a 350cc. I also had a Honda CL72 “Scrambler”. This was the last half of the’60’s & some of the’70’s. Just to top it off; a Triumph 650cc and BSA Gold Star 500(in a box. Never got it running). Thank you for the video/info.
i dont do 40 min videos in general mate but this one just didnt seem right split up :-) glad you enjoyed it even if it was a marathon :-) Cheers for watching , have a great week
Great video! Here's a little context that might be of interest to younger or non-UK viewers: In the UK in the early 1980s, 16 year olds could ride 50cc bikes (mopeds), and 17+ year olds could ride up to 250cc bikes with a provisional licence, never needing to pass a test for the rest of their lives. They'd have to display "L" plates and could only carry passengers who had themselves passed a motorcycle test. This changed, mainly due to the belief that 250cc bikes were getting faster and faster, so learners were restricted to 125cc bikes at age 17. At that time I rode a Honda CD175, and knowing the law was about to change, I had to either sell it or pass my test. I did pass the test, and although I haven't ridden bikes for many years, could in theory buy any bike tomorrow and ride it straight from the showroom without any further training! (p.s. My wife won't let me.)
the 250s being central to the racing scene played a big part too, and as i said the Japanese do still love their 250s. it does look like the 400cc sector is hotting up bit now but only time will tell, and its being driven by sales in Asia not the UK, USA or Europe too so we may not get many of them over here, Cheers for watching mate, hope you have a great day
@@barebonesmc Thanks! I shared this video with some of my colleagues who have bikes.
@@ParaBellum2024 cheers mate, i appreciate the support 🙂 enjoy the ride
get shut of the wife.lol
Amazing work. Thank you. 42 minutes of edition and thorough information. Really appreciated
Glad you enjoyed it! :-) Cheers for watching mate, enjoy the ride
My 250s in my earlier life were all Kawasaki, S1B, S1C and KH250B1. All good fun. After that came a Z900A4 (I still have it) then a ZZR1100D2 (I still have that too). But, I was missing a Kawasaki triple in my life. So I bought a Kawasaki H1F in 2015. The 500 is so much more tractable and torquey compared to the 250s. Passion fulfilled.
I actually owned a stock 1964 T20 Suzuki 250, the first of the 250 Hustler Six Speeds in NZ which could exceed 100 mph and accelerated quicker if the Posilube Oil injection was set at half the factory setting and quality Two Stroke Oil used. I also had the use of an A1 Kawasaki belonging to a mates brother and discovered once that if you set the rotary valve on one side two notches back from standard , the bike had to be push started but could pull 135 mph once it was up and running. It wasn’t quite as quick as the Hustler and the biggest quirk was the pegs were round on round shafts so at a high lean on a race track you couldn’t leave your boots on the rubber as it spun, so you’d lift your foot up over the Carb box … both sides … that was a challenge … the Ram Air GT 250 from Suzuki accelerated quicker but topped out before my T20. That T20 was bought by a scout collecting early bikes for the Japanese collector market, I really regret selling that bike …
enjoy them mate, Cheers for watching mate, Ride Free 🙂
I also had a 250 hustler . I hit the ton on that.thats the cop told me anyway.also from New Zealand
@@rickydee5863 whenever did the cops get anything right tho lol, i cant comment much on the Hustler as we never got it
I had a 1970 Bridgestone 200 GTR and then a 1970 H1, Cherry Bomb. Still alive at 68. Still ride, Tiger 800XC, among others in the garage today.
I sure miss the 2strokes.
Great video ! One of the most comprehensive look into 250s ive ever seen! Very well put together and full of suspense. 100/100
thanks a lot mate, it was hard work im not gonna lie, i started thinking it would be an easy one lol, after listening to my own voice for 42 minutes over and over again it wasnt lol, .Cheers for watching mate, Ride Free
This was cool! I owned an '89 KR1 Kwaka from new. (Also had a LC250 Yam) I was the spares manager for a dealership at the time. Tricked it out to the max and didn't spare the tuning or the maintenance. Kawasaki Aus had really good ties with Kawa Japan thanks to Gregg Hansford and TKAs exploits. Our service manager was his team mate, Murray Sayle. I scored ti pipes, cr box, trick carbs brakes and clutch. I dailied it rain hail or shine and track day'd it for 5 years. The bike was written off thanks to f/wit kids setting fire to garages. Still miss it to this day, even though I wouldn't fit on it now. ✌ 🇦🇺
Great story. That’s why I sold my last tzr. I wouldn’t fold up enough anymore 🤣🤣🤣
WOW!!!! That was a mind-blowing video by you and I enjoyed every second of it. Thanks
cheers mate, a much appreciated comment, it was a bit of an epic to do, and you still get know it alls moaning lol. glad you enjoyed it and thanks again for the comment, .Cheers for watching, Ride Free
As a 64 yr old consumer from "across the pond" we were fed a constant diet of "bigger is always better". Having ridden a RZ350, ad a RD 350 & 400 Daytona myself - I constantly longed for the '97 yzf 1000 (thunderace in EU) and still have mine! But I enjoyed this video so much, even though smaller displacement road bikes were never pushed here..
glad you enjoyed it mate i have 2 EXUPs so i know what you mean with the YZF, great bikes🙂Cheers for watching. Ride Free 🙂
There is one point I'd like to make; the Aprilia RS250 used the same engine as the Suzukis of the time, and really had no relationship at all to the race bikes. The road bikes were eqipped with reed valves, while the race bikes had disc valves. It is a tribute to all those Aprilia factory riders that they managed to make those bikes go so fast, because the disc valved engines were notoriously difficult to ride because of their hair trigger throttles.
I had a KR1-S at the time, and it was a truly astonishing machine to ride. It was light as a feather and flickable beyond your wildest dreams. The brakes were astonishing, even on standard road tyres and I never found anything in its character was anything less than "knife-edge" sharp. It even looked achingly beautiful and I even took it down to the South of France on the train, just to enjoy my favourite roads on a truly astonishing bike. Unfortunately, even the very best have tendons that are easily cut, and the KR's weakness was absolutely TERRIBLE reliability. The pistons would seize at the drop of a hat, possibly more easily than even that, and they were not cheap to rebore or re-sleeve. On a £ per mile basis, I can't think of any bike I've had that was more expensive in repairs than the KR1-S, but I can also confidently say that I doubt that I'll ever get more smiles per £.
As for your question; small bikes are no longer seen as an end in themselves, and the only reason these bikes were so rewarding is because they were 2 strokes. Even the very best of the 4 strokes of the period were just dreadful. I had various 4 stroke 250s in the 70s, and even managed to blag a ride on the Benelli on one occasion. They were all dull as dishwater.
So what is the point of trying to develop a 250, or even 400 that, just because of the need to be a 4 stroke, simply isn't going to be that much cop? Better to build something that will be "interesting enough" to entice riders on to better things. And to be fair, the Europeans really do know how to make these small capacity bikes quite interesting. I know that the Uk hardly sells any of these smaller capacity modern bikes, so the perception is that biking is dying on the vine. But I do think that a lot of that is a UK perception, the UK economy is totally shagged, and the UK's youth simply doesn't have the money to live, let alone pay for a bike.
I live in Spain, and work as a teacher. And I see that very large numbers of these smaller capacity bikes are bought, about 50% of my students of this age are actively saving towards precisely this capacity of bike.
Cheers for adding this. there are various conversations re the Aprilia/Suzuki engine in the comments but you have added valid points, as i have often said, if we could amass the combined knowledge of all the subscribers we would have the most comprehensive motorcycle encyclopedia ever 🙂 also, apparently waiting list for test in Holland is at an all time high, and when we were away in Germany and Switzerland there seemed to be many more younger riders so it does seem we are hit in the UK more than most places
@@barebonesmc Yeah, I'm afraid that the UK media does you no service, either. They really are hiding the appalling damage that Brexit (and the Tories) did, not only to the whole economy, but especially to the young.
I come from a well-to-do family (my mother would NEVER deign to shop in Tesco, and the idea of even going into a LIDL or ALDI would appall her), but even going into her local Sainsbury's was enough to convince me of how bad the country is. The word that springs to mind is "Dowdy". Half the lights either not on or not replaced because they were broken, huuuge spaces on most shelves, fresh produce looking incredibly unfresh... and this was Sainsbury's, just one step down from Waitrose! (No Waitrose in the vicinity). I was actually really shocked at how bad it was. I wanted to buy large quantities of Ginger Beer (can't get it in Spain) while I was visiting in a van, but even dedicating a couple of days to searching, I could only find about 16 large bottles.
Comparing that to my shopping experiences in Spain this morning provides a stark contrast. Even in LIDL, there was no shortage of ANY fresh produce, and all looking properly fresh.
My point is that even wealth no longer ensures decent quality food in the UK, and considering that even the upper middle class is now resorting to food banks (my mother does), what the hell chance do poor and young people have of getting into biking?
Contrast that with here, Spain. Increasing wages, youth unemployment coming down, decent support from the EU for youth projects (my wife's company has just completed a Youth "workplace insertion" program - providing quality training for the youths and income for us), low inflation and cheap power as well as fuel at less tha €1,40 lt.Plentiful, well paid summer jobs for students and ridiculously cheap train fares. No wonder the Spanish economy is one of the strongest in Europe.
But until your media actually tells you what is possible, rather than the lies and half-truths that they habitually peddle, nobody thinks anything of whyat the UK has become.
Oh, and we also don't have sped cameras every 5 miles, average speed cameras on every major road, or a health service that can't cope with expected demand, let alone a major incident or epidemic.
I had the priviledge to borrow an Aprilia RS 250 for a weekend and for two days I enjoyed the thrill of almost riding a race bike. It was so precise in the steering and obviously had more than enough power. I later borrowed a RS 125 and it’s about one of the most enjoyable bikes I’ve ever ridden. Leightweight and enough power to have an enormous amount of power without actually getting yourself in problems.
We most certainly got the Suzuki Across here in Australia. It was my first ever bike and what I learnt to ride on. It was very fast for its size and after some tuning I clocked it at 180kph. The helmet compartment was also one of the best features for a commuter bike and would hold a decent amount of shopping if the situation called.
I sincerely regret selling my Across and can definitely see myself getting another one again one day.
Fantastic video by the way, well done.
The helmet where the tank normally is was such a great design, perfect for a learner. I never understood why those bikes seemed to suddenly vanish from the roads. I guess they just got too old. Shame!
When selling motorcycles in Japan, from around 1980 there were many traffic accidents, and under pressure from the government, four manufacturers began to voluntarily regulate horsepower according to engine displacement. Specifically, 50cc was set to have 7.2 horsepower, 125cc to 22 horsepower, 250cc to 45 horsepower, 400cc to 59 horsepower, 750cc to 77 horsepower, and over 1000cc to 100 horsepower. These numbers were lowered in 1992 to 40 horsepower for the 250cc and 53 horsepower for the 400cc. This voluntary regulation was abolished in 2007, but exhaust gas regulations had already stopped the production of two-stroke engines.The Aprilia RS-250 might not have taken the top spot if it hadn't been for self-imposed restrictions that only annoyed its users.
Cheers for adding this mate. As i have often said, if we could amass the combined knowledge of all the subscribers we would have the most comprehensive motorcycle encyclopedia ever 🙂
Great video, brought back some great memories of my early biking days. Had a KH250(B2) back in ‘78 , bought on the back of a ‘Motorcycle Weekly ‘ road test where it was tested at 93.4 mph (one way ) , making it the fastest 250 of the day . Truth be told, there was little to choose between the KH , RD or the GT but it didn’t stop my mates and me arguing, constantly. Happy days.
lol, oh those arguments lol, we had an "agreed" location to use late at night, the coppers even came to race some nights lol, wild times, Cheers for watching and the comment mate, Ride Free
I had a new blue October 77 B2, from Kawasaki lowfield heath Gatwick . An Excellent bike that I kept long after my test and It still lives in my memories to this day.
The RD250LC's power output was a major factor in reducing the capacity that those on learner licenses were allowed from 250cc to 125cc in the UK., though slightly before my time,. When I turned 17 (1986) our options were limited to 125cc and 12bhp on a provisional license though it wasn't difficult to derestrict a Rd125lc to 16 plus hp. I went down the sensible route of taking my Cbt test on my 17th birthday and acquiring my part two, within two weeks. I then bought a brand new RD350LC YPVS N2.😂 I ended up working in a motorcycle dealership in the late 80's and very early 90's and got to ride the RG's, RGV's, TZR's, KR1's. They were awesome.👍
Great story 🙂Cheers for adding your bit mate. Ride Free 🙂
I modified a 250cc four stroke motorcycle and went 123 mph at the Ohio mile in 2012. Dyno horse power was 61 hp and almost 30 ftlb of torque.
Great video.
tell us more :-) sounds a beast
@@barebonesmc I am Darkhorse Racing. I started with a stock 2008 250 ninja and just tried to see how fast it would go in an official land speed event. 84 mph at Maxton North Carolina with the East Coast Timing Association. Long story short over the next fifteen years I have been racing with a top speed of 123mph in 2012 at the Ohio mile. It’s a 4 stroke parallel twin. I have run it from stock to turbo nitrous methanol. It’s been fun.
@@darkhorsegarage9623 good going 🙂 Im a corners and dirt man more than straaight line speed but our differences make the world more exciting 🙂 enjoy it mate
@@barebonesmc This just started to see how many things I could do with 249cc. I rode to work every day., then went to the drag strip. The bike ran a 14.2 second 1/4 mile. Then I did a couple riding clinics and some track days. I planned to do an Iron Butt rally across the US in 50 hr, but once I tried land speed racing the people are amazing. I never looks back.
@@darkhorsegarage9623 good on you mate
I had an RDLC 250 for a few years... 84-87 I think... what a great little bike, I also acquired a beat up 350 version. One of the baffles fell out one day when a friend was wringing it out, and the piston seized. They were good to work on as well...
sounds like an entertaining story lol .Cheers for watching mate, Ride Free
I'm currently rebuilding a 67 cb77, not a 72 sadly, but it really is a nice platform. Sleek, simple, and reliable. Can't wait to get this old thing back on the road.
I had a cb72 It was my first bike and I didnt realise how good it was at the time,and it could do about 95 mph ,and more reliable than anything british
A Very Pretty Bike , one of Honda’s Best.
I traded one in the 90's for a kawasaki ER5, not criticising the kawa, but man was that a mistake.
Your films are superb! Packed with encyclopaedic info and great footage! Bravo 👏
He is not accurate at all . Suzuki was missed out via the T250 Hustler and the GT 250
@@Interdiction ah ok
there is always a choice, at 42 minutes the video was already too long, i cant always include everything the T20 was actually closer than the GT or Hustler but the T20 should probably have got a mention
cheers mate, i do my best :-) Cheers for watching
Thank you for a trip down memory lane. Back in the day I owned the RD, X7 and a KRIS before moving on to bigger four strokes. My older brother had a Suzuki Hustler and later GT, overlooked in your review (that’s not a criticism). I appreciate the time taken by you to research all this 👍 most enjoyable.
X7 was a rare bird.
the list of bikes i missed keeps growing lol, but at 42 minutes it was getting to be a nightmare already lol, Cheers for watching mate, Ride Free 🙂
@@mikebreen2890 The X7 was common as muck here lol, not so common now though lol, a lot were trashed badly 🙂
@@barebonesmc It was all RD250 and Kawasaki KH 250's here, nobody had an X7. Well, somebody must have done but you know what I mean. Oddly, one person did have an X5.
@captainblacktooth371 lol, glad to oblige mate 🙂 .Cheers for watching mate, Ride Free
The first Hondas brought into the UK were the 250 Dream with the full mudguards and 125. Then the 125 Benly arrived, what a sharp looking 125 that was. A shame the 250 sports version wasn't styled the same.
i do like the old Benly 🙂 cheers for watching mate, have a great day
Remember many of the 70s bikes mentioned -my father had a 1973 RD350,my brother had RD400 and I remember the X7,RD250LC have an original 80s Honda pamphlet for the MVX250,a surprising failure as a rider in the town I lived had one,rode it hard and didn't have any issues thanks for the doc much appreciated Auckland New Zealand 2023
welcome aboard mate, Cheers for watching, have a great week
A mighty video , some forgotten gems in the list. It was the change in the licence laws that killed the 250 ,,, once l plates went to 125 no one cared about 250s any more , manufacturers just turned out a 250 token gesture and went onto 600s , as that was the logical jump after 125.
it was an epic to make lol, video that long takes so much processing time for each edit lol, Cheers for watching mate, ride free 🙂
spot on.
I had the KR 250 back in 1984, absolutely loved it. But then i have always been a 2 stroke fan.
cant fault you mate, Castrol R runs through my veins lol, .Cheers for watching mate, Ride Free
2 stroke engines are very sensitive to humidity as well as ambient temperature, I remember how much better they pulled on a cool and humid autumn or spring day, and how a hot and dry day used to affect them... Maybe that explains some of the speed variation in different tests..
You're absolutely right, I rode with a mate over 100 miles from home to Nottingham with a mate who had RD250 DX and it was about 80 degrees that day. When we came back a couple of days later the weather had really turned and it was about 55 degrees. Both bikes were a hell of a lot quicker on the journey back.
@@sambrooks7862 Unfortunately on the cooler and damper days the road surface was often damp as well, which limited the extra fun you could have - especially with tyres in 1960's and 70's.
@@chrissmith2114 yep, still, binning it is all part of lifes rich tapestry lol!
So many Beautiful bikes, great video.
.Cheers for watching mate, Ride Free
The CBR250RR sounds like nothing else revving up to the moon! The bike made you ring its neck and it taught me so much about riding!
You learn a lot more riding a small bike.
Expensive hand grenade, good chasis though
Had the FZRRRRRR, loved it but I was always wanting a 400 or 600. Now I know better I wish I still had it😔
The lessons we all learn eh :-) cheers all, happy riding
Excellent .. I had the RGV and 250/350LC …. Loved them.
great bikes 🙂Cheers for watching mate. Ride Free 🙂
Wow! What a fantastic video. Thanks for making it 👏👏👏
glad you enjoyed it mate 🙂 Theres plenty more on the channel, hope you will look around and find something your interested in. there is more on the website too. and there will be more to come. Cheers for watching. Ride Free 🙂
Beautiful bikes, thank you for your effort.
🙂Cheers for watching mate. Ride Free 🙂
Great video!
I have a 1963 CB72, which I'm getting ready for the road at the moment.
good on you mate 🙂 cheers for watching mate, have a great day
Good video. Id like to see the same thing for the 125 two strokes. There was some really cool ones in the 80s and 90s
who knows in time mate but itll take e a while to recover from this one lol, .Cheers for watching mate, Ride Free
Awesome video like usual of course! It was a pleasure to to watch it with my coffee! And now i want a 250 2stroke 😂
lol, you are going to need a big garage in the end mate .Cheers for watching, Ride Free
What a great rip down memory lane that was. Thank you barebonesmc, that was abrilliant video.
Glad you enjoyed it 🙂 cheers for watching mate, have a great day
Absolute bliss. 250cc Inline 4 crazyness. I loves it
glad you enjoyed it mate 🙂 Theres plenty more on the channel, hope you will look around and find something your interested in. there is more on the website too. and there will be more to come. Cheers for watching.Hope you will climb aboard. Ride Free 🙂
What a fantastic video !! Brought back soooo many memories , superb 👊
im glad mate and Cheers for watching , hope you have a great weekend
The Suzuki X7 was an afterthought to the T20 Super Six that blew away any other 250 at the time. It's a shame it wasn't mentioned.
I do my best mate 🙂 at 42 minutes long it was just getting to be a nightmare so some were always going to be missed, Cheers for watching , Ride Free 🙂
There were quite a few GT250's in between.
It was at 12:40 , watch again !!
The x7 was just a yamaha with its reed valves. They even sounded the same. They were just too small, low and skinny. What this video fail to show is the appalling fuel consumption of all the 2 strokes. Never thought about it at the time but most were around 20mpg. I have a 380 and that's doing 18mpg when pushed. That and engine life span finished them off.
@@maxflight777the Suzuki T20 did not get a mention.
Great video and presentation, loved it.
🙂Cheers for watching mate. Ride Free 🙂
Rode a newly purchased MVX250 in the 80's it was very cool . Never seen one since. Cheers from New Zealand.
a very rare bike here too, Cheers for watching mate, Ride Free 🙂
Just absolutely brilliant, thank you!
Cheers for watching mate, ride free
Sad thing about the KR-1 is the fact that it's crank-halfs were made in one unit which meant that you couldn't do a con rod replacement as like on any other regular two stroke. A friend of mine still takes one of these to the circuit and I'm the one to rebuild his cranks... 🙂
the voice of experience :-) .Cheers for watching mate, Ride Free
@@barebonesmc cheers to you for making these great videos! That's a thing i'm totally NOT experienced in. 🙂
@@phillarsson8253 thanks mate, i do my best, even an old dog like me can learn new tricks lol, if you look back, all i did until this year really was use UA-cam as a store for old video footage, no editing really at all, then i began to edit the footage from the European tour last year and it sort of progressed from there, would never have believed it could take off like this, Cheers for the support, Ride Free 🙂
@@barebonesmc you're doing great, don't worry! As an old dog myself as being a motorcycle mechanic since I was around 13, I've ridden and worked on so many mopeds and motorcycles and even lawnmowers... from a simple Vespa Ciao over lots of Japs and crossing total overhauls of bevel-head Ducati's on to early Kawasaki ZZR 1100's cranks repairs. The list is long but ever so fascinating.
...I really enjoyed this incredible dissection on motorcycle size I never really considered as sporty... but now I do, at least the vintage models and thank you for sharing!!!
Glad you enjoyed it mate. Cheers for watching, have a great weekend
What a lovely video! Thank you! I currently ride a 1992 Kawasaki ZZR 250 (4 stroke): not near as wild as the bikes in this video but a lovely machine! Made 34 hp and cruised at 160km/h (about 100mph). The carburetor needs some fine tuning but it still goes 140-150 without much effort.
better than todays offerings for sure :-) Cheers for watching mate, have a great weekend
I had a zzr250 as well. Glad someone else mentioned it. Wasn't much faster than my NS125R but was smoother.
I think it was basically the GPX 250 with a redesign.
What an absolutely excellent video. Really enjoyed watching this and I owned both a 250LC and TZR250 as a young man. Made me smile!
glad it jogged some good memories mate 🙂Cheers for watching. Ride Free 🙂
Back in the early 90’s I was the proud owner of a ZZR1100, my young cousin had a KR1S. I can well remember riding at over 130 mph with him sat directly behind me on the little 250.. I was genuinely shocked at how quick his bike was..🤓
the equivalent for me was being passed around cadwell by a 1970s 125 racing honda that looked like it was made with mechano lol, Cheers for watching mate, have a great week
Your story at 130 sound like a lot of BULLSHIT M
ORE LIKE 130 KLM.S TO ME.TRY THAT NN
NIWNOW YOU
130 130TO ME TRY THAT
Try that today yiu would still be useing a bus pass
1970 i became 16 and bought a honda cb 250, it was gold and white and at full bore sounded great, great memories.
glad it jogged some good memories mate 🙂Cheers for watching. Ride Free 🙂
On a 5km stretch of motorway heading north my 250cc Hyosung Comet V twin held 160km and 148km on the return south .60kg rider.Not bad for a Korean 4 stroke.
Well it is a Suzuki designed engine after all. The engine in the 650cc version is just a direct copy of the SV650s engine.
Around 6:00 your text reveals not only do you know a lot about motorcycles but you know when something speaks for itself..! 👏
All Hail the great Walter Kaadan 🙂glad you enjoyed it mate 🙂 Theres plenty more on the channel, hope you will look around and find something your interested in. there is more on the website too. and there will be more to come. Cheers for watching. Ride Free 🙂
I've saved this vid to my, Bike Playlist, because I will definitely want to watch it again and again... I've always loved, fast, small capacity bikes... Great work Sir !
glad you enjoyed it mate 🙂 Theres plenty more on the channel, hope you will look around and find something your interested in. there is more on the website too. and there will be more to come. Cheers for watching.Hope you will climb aboard. Ride Free 🙂
Greeves Silverstone is another racer capable of 100mph+ on right gearing. Started off with RAS model with 36a villiers engine, but all following models were Greeves own engine.
i will have a look🙂Cheers for watching mate. Ride Free 🙂
Great video, I loved the trip down memory lane, I think you are dead right about modern 250s not hitting the mark, I feel very lucky that I passed my bike test in 1986 .
My first bike after passing the test was a mark 2 rg250, I see nothing that would make me excited about a 250 now. What a shame.
it is mate, 🙂 cheers for watching, have a great day
The RD250F was an extremely exciting bike to own after my FS1E moped, it was crazy to be allowed to go from 45 mph to 95 mph without any instruction though.
wild days lol have a great day mate
Thats because back then people had brains ,didn't need instruction
@@randombanditdad3754 Wow, that really is a sweeping generalisation. I have a few mates who had bad accidents on their 250s at that time. I had done some off road riding as a schoolboy so was ok, it was more to do with experience than brains in my opinion.
@@randombanditdad3754 i dunno, i reckon i knew as many dumb asses then as i do now lol , enjoy the ride 🙂
@@bobupen6476 thats why on batteries it says do not drink contents 🤣🤣
Great Video Thanks. I had a few of those bikes if only I still had them, miss those two stroke days. Also not in the video was a Stan Stevens tuned Yamaha TDR-250 which was bloody brilliant fun 🙂
I had one for a while, I let Stan do his stuff when the previous owner seized it due to running it out of oil and left it with an air bubble in the pump.
cheers mate, im from Terry Beckitt country so the Stan Stevens name is a bit of a moot point :-) but he was a great tuner, just not as good as Terry :-) Cheers for watching mate, ride free
Excellent video 👍👍
Glad you enjoyed it mate 😊 loads more on the channel and the 400s are coming next 😊
After the summer of 1982, I'd have imagined sales of 250s would have plummeted. I remember the Yamaha RD250LC, though. It blew away all rivals with ease.
learner laws played a part, but the change in focus in racing did too, Cheers for watching and the comment mate, Ride Free
I owned 3 of the list, the RGV ,NSR and KR1 , my favorite being the Suzuki😊 ,god I wish I still owned it or any one of them , great video ,took me back to some great times ,thanks😊
Cheers for watching mate, have a great weekend
When I was 16 I bought a 250cc Bultaco Metralla to ride to work on. It was 28 HP and light weight with good braking. I loved that bike, wish i had it now.
Great bikes. I feature the metrella in the 2 stroke terrors video 😊
Thanks for referring the video I enjoyed watching it❤
glad you enjoyed it mate 🙂 Theres plenty more on the channel, hope you will look around and find something your interested in. there is more on the website too. and there will be more to come. Cheers for watching.Hope you will climb aboard. Ride Free 🙂
Small correction: it's pronounced Aermacki. As you predicted, here's a correction regarding the Honda MVX250F being Honda's first two-stroke street bike. It wasn't. If we discount the fact that Honda's very first production model, the A-Type, was equipped with a small two-stroke motor, the title goes to the MB5 launched in 1979. If we include all street-legal models as opposed to street-only, then we must include the MT125 and MT250 dual sport (or dual purpose as we used to say and not to be confused with the MT250 road racer) both launched in 1974. And now the biggie: no one has to thank MZ for rotary disc-valves on two-strokes. They did use them on their GP bikes, but they did not invent them. What Walter Kaaden, MZ's race engineer, did do was to develop formulae for calculating exhaust resonance in two-strokes in order to improve gas flow and in particular he improved on the work previously done at DKW (MZ's pre-WW2 predecessor before the partition of Germany) on expansion chambers. These formulae are the secret that pilot/engineer Ernst Degner took with him when he defected out of communist East Germany and it is the reason why every performance two-stroke is fitted with expansion chambers. And now an anecdote: when I was a motorcycle-mad teenager in Montréal, I would often walk or cycle over to Plaza Cycles which was one of Yvon DuHamel's early sponsors. Besides all the shiny new two-strokes and magnificent Z1, they would sometimes expose one of Yvon's bikes. Even then, it was surprising to me how small these race bikes were. And, of course, always with number 17.
i hadnt thought about the MB5 which is a bit bad because my mate had one :-), i stand corrected. and yes my pronunciation isnt perfect, old habits die hard as they say :-) and MZ/DKW might not have invented the dic valve but they did do a lot of pioneering development with it. and the way i saw it, it was the combined use of the better disc valve alongside the expansion chambers that was what improved the overal performance. but im happy to be corrected, ill do some more reading. my understanding was that without the improvement in performance of the disc valve the power pulse was less focused which made designing the helmholz resonator much more difficult. as the power pulse was focussed the frequency band of the resonator became narrower which meant it was easier to create the expansion chamber that would work over a wider rev range. so that is why i always mention the disc valve as well. Cheers for watching mate, hope you have a great weekend
Great video (as always), I hankered after the KR1-S when I passed my test, but my Dad who signed for the finance said no, GPX250R lol. Re the ZX-25R, I LOVE the fact that Kawasaki bucked the recent trend of singles and twins and remade a mighty screaming 250-4! SHAME though it wasn't released in the UK(Worldwide) 😒. But yeah, I regularly saw 120 on the clock with my GPX (ok giving 5 MPH with speedo accuracy etc 115), but, LOVED it! 14,000 rpm red line, the looks (STILL wished I had the KR though hahaha). My biking life had many a 'Strange'/unusual bikes with a few Imports, black and red GPZ400R (I even once saw a GPZ500R in a dealers window), GSX400F/R, Bros400 and a coupla others...
Ride safe, ride free my friend(s)!
😎🇬🇧
You mightn't be here today if your dad had allowed you to buy the KR1S. A friend of mine purchased one new. I was lucky enough to take it out a few times. It was blisteringly fast with the most brutal powerband that I've ever experienced. The thing would barely run until you were doing 5 or 6 thousand RPM but when you got to the 7 thousand mark, it was like someone had attached a rocket to the bike and lit it. You couldn't change gears fast enough to keep up with it, just about.
I actually find it hard to believe that they were 60 horse power. To this day, it's got to be amongst the fastest "real world" bikes that I've ridden.
My friend sold that bike at about 30,000km. It had had about 5 sets of rings through it and he'd given up replacing plastics at that point. Everything was broken or scratched. The bike was a shadow of its former self. Somehow, my friend survived. The KR was not a bike for the road. The GPX was a much better choice. Your father is a wise man.
@@davidbrayshaw3529 Hahaha yeah, you're right, after I had the GPX for a while and kept reading about this and that about the KR1/1S I thought "Yeah, can't be arsed with the constant piston ring replacements ,(even though it was easy enough to do it on strokers), but, I seriously didn't want to end up side if the road with a broken ring hahaha. I did end up getting an RD350 YPVS FII (with some Stan Stevens tuning) after I had some time on the GPX so, did at least get to enjoy some 2stroke madness again, loved that too! 😈😈 Mwuhaha 😉
😎🇬🇧
cheers mate, i guess the ZXR400 is the closest we have got, but with a 9.6k price tag it may take some selling against the bigger bikes, :-) Cheers for watching mate, enjoy the ride
I was 17 when I bought my 1985 KR250. Straight from an XS250 this thing was FAST. It would do awesome wheelies too.
im sure it did .Cheers for watching mate, Ride Free
Thanks for this. When I was growing up in the late 70s/early 80s, the 250cc sector was very significant because at the time, that was the maximum sized bike you could ride without passing a test. It was a very competitive market with manufacturers struggling to get the more power out of a 250cc engine, just like they did later with the 125cc when the limit was reduced, before other ways were found to limit their power. I remember the Honda CB250N Superdream being very popular, also the Kawasaki KH250 and Suzuki X7, but it was probably the new Yamaha RD250LC which took it to another level and made the authorities wake up to what was going on.
wild days mate :-) Cheers for watching and the comment , Ride Free
RDN 189P was my beloved yamaha RD 2.50 'Reed valve' torque induction in red. Faster than my old Honda 2.50 and faster than my mate's kawasaki kh triple.
Had a Mito Evo and my friend had an RS both were derestricted and barely a hair between them on the road, until they hit their top gears and the Mito just pulled. At some point if I can ever afford to get another (mine a gun metal one was stolen) and drop a 500 into it, the frames on them are huge and as the 748 front forks and R1 rear slot straight on would make a hell of a quick bike. That being said I'd be happy just having my old one back, it is still the most fun bike I ever had on the road
The Cagiva race department should get many more pats on the back than they do, Cheers for watching mate, Ride Free 🙂
I had one of the first RD250's at 17 years old, people always forget the predecessor YDS7 which was just as good even though it didn't have reed valves also the Suzuki Hustler which was good. Enjoyed the video very much.
Just purchased a YDS7 in mint condition had one as a 16 year old.1971
cheers for the comments, .and thanks for watching , Ride Free
@@stevenedwards2162 I wish I had a 250 now it would be ideal, enjoy it.
@@andypandy9931 Thanks I paid a fortune for it but I just had to have it the exact same colour in gold and black as the one I had as a youngster, certainly will not be riding like when I was sixteen thou 🤣👍
@@stevenedwards2162 no Steven take it easy we are both a lot older now. I used to really hammer my RD 250 then got a new Kawasaki H1 I think £715 and then a H2 which was £939 on the road.
I owned a Suzuki Across for a few years so I'm very glad to see it get an honourable mention here. They were a great little bike, surprisingly reliable and quite popular here in Australia through the 90's.
One feature of the bike was the storage area where the fuel tank would be in a more traditional design, large enough for a full face helmet. The actual tank was under the seat, but only held approximately 12l of fuel.
ouch 12 ltrs even on a 250 is limiting, but good to hear a bit more about them, i knew about the storage, i guess thats where honda got the idea for the NC700 🙂) Cheers for watching mate, ride free 🙂
My first road bike was a bandit 250 which had the same engine as the across. Fun little screamer it was and dead reliable. I miss it!
Interesting, I didn't know about the storage, I recently sold my Honda NC750X and thought that was a groundbreaking idea, little did I know it had been done before.
@@tonyjourneyman1944 me neither mate, we live and learn as they say 🙂
@@barebonesmc Yeah, the 12 litre tank was a pain so I got into the habit of carrying a 5l fuel can in the trunk.
Amazing how much things changed from the 70’s - 90’s.
I had a 1993 Aprilia RS 125 and as standard the made 33hp and did a shade over 100mph.
iS and the Mito were very special though, hard to compare against anything except each other. Cheers for watching mate, have a great week
I am not a biker but your video brought back memories of the late 70s and early eighties when a few friends of mine were bikers, technology as progressed but not always for the better, safety, emissions, production costs etc has played a part here. Probably people skip the 250 in search of a better deal on a bigger bike ?. I am not a biker but I did enjoy your video.
glad you enjoyed it mate, i do think cost comes into it in a few ways, from bike production cost to profit margins and insurance costs to name just 3 have a great weekend mate
I was hoping you'd give a heads'up to the 1st bike I bought when I was just out of school: and you did! The Ducati Mach 1 Daytona. Bought from Kings in M/cr - it was glorious. It was the blue painted version and its tank was completely chrome plated. It cost retail £250 or 1£ per cc. Quickly modified with the optional factory racing kit: a big bell mouth DellOrto carb', a higher compression piston and a reverse cone megaphone, sans baffles exhaust pipe. It sounded like a 500cc Manx Norton when heel and toeing through the cogs. I modified it further by replacing the carburetter with a Wal Phillips fuel injector, which was essentially a floatless drain pipe and super temperamental for it seemed to be dependant on whether it was sunny or cloudy. It was, though, the quickest bike in the motley collection of bigger CCs BSAs,Triumphs, AJSs and Nortons hereabouts in its time. Nice machine but it quickly became apparent am a poor rider of motorbikes for I bent it up in The Dales in a collision with a van. Then I went bumming about the world and when I'd returned home, my dad - thinking he'd seen the last of me - had flogged it.
Incidentally, at the time I was envious at the time of the beautiful dimpled fuel tank which adorned Ducati's 200cc Elite. The Daytona's tank was okay, but workaday.plain. The Italians have a fine relationship with style, ratio and proportion. If style is important it helps if the rider is small in stature - all the best racers are.
great comment mate 🙂 Cheers for watching. Ride Free 🙂
I'm surprised that you didn't mention the Suzuki X-6 Hustler. In 1967 it produced 29 hp and although I never saw figures that put it over 100mph, my 1967 X-6 Scrambler will easily go over 90mph.
This was a great video! I loved all the info and saw many bikes that I never heard of. Thank you!
Cheers for watching mate and glad you enjoyed it, there would always be missed bikes, i was sick of listening to my own voice by the end of this one lol , have a great weekend 🙂
In 1981 I had a 1971 T250 hustler and my God it was quick. I usually rode with 5 or 6 other lads, most rode either RD250s or X7s although one lad had a GT 250, none of them could get anywhere near my old hustler, it wasn't just "a bit quicker", it embarrassed all of them. The only lad I rode with who could get anywhere near me had a honda 400/4 and even then he wasn't faster unless it was head wind and he was about 3 stone lighter than me!
@@sambrooks7862 lol, weight is the enemy 🙂
@@barebonesmc tell me about it 😂
@@sambrooks7862 lol
Having had two RD250’s in the early 1980’s then two RD350LC’s that still look amazing today. I would have loved an RG250 gamma. But looking at the 250 Katana and the other 250 fours, they sounded absolutely amazing!!!
i still remember borrowing a mates FZR 250 back when I was running a 350 LC, I loved it, a very different ride but great fun, and yes, an addictive exhaust note :-) Cheers for watching mate, hope you have a great weekend
@@barebonesmc Thanks, you too. It is good to see Cadwell Park, used to be my local track when I was living in Lincolnshire.
@@hughphillips1427 glorious track, and my 2nd home at times lol
I wonder how much difference a fairing made to the top speeds. All of the earlier stuff up to about 1980 were naked bikes but after that not only were you getting a jump in engine output with water cooling but the bikes were all faired. Together they must have been worth a good few mph.
good point :-) Cheers for watching mate, ride free
What a fanrastic video, thank you! The most exhilarating and exciting class of bikes there ever was, in my humble opinion.
I own a 1991 KR1-S, which I bought new. It wears the black & green racing livery like the example shown in your video, and aside from a couple of minor but unsightly fairing scratches which were professionally filled & painted in the early 2000's, and a 5mm hole repair & repaint on the exhaust, it is all factory and mint. A low mileage example it's whole life, sadly it just doesn't get the miles these days which it once did. I keep it run and maintained though, and the soundtrack alone isn ike a time machine, transporting me back 30 years to the twisty country roads of Sussex & Hampshire, and rhe pure adrenaline rush.
Happy days indeed ❤
Thanks again for this great video.Would love to see the full KR250 deep dive please!
the KR250 video is going to take some time :-) ive got to contact some owners and translation can be a bugger sometimes lol, but it is on my list :-) Cheers for watching and glad you enjoyed it , hope you have a great weekend
Im 66 and still building sharply tuned bikes. The 250 video was wonderful. Here's my daily ride. 3 valves per cylinder and 2 spark plugs each.
My daily ride.
@@bigtime474 i take it you tried to post a pic? not sure you can on youtube . you can contact me here
barebonesmc.com/contact-us/
and ill email you
Fascinating, well researched and narrated video. I watched it from beginning to end, and that's a RARE thing for me! Many thanks!! 👍
glad you enjoyed it mate 🙂 Theres plenty more on the channel, hope you will look around and find something your interested in. there is more on the website too. and there will be more to come. Cheers for watching.Hope you will climb aboard. Ride Free 🙂
The Suzuki Across was very popular here in Australia. It was comfortable and powerful enough to tour on and the storage compartment (fuel tank) being able to carry a helmet was a bonus! PS Australia also got the KR250. Cheers.
.Cheers for watching mate, Ride Free
The fastest shopping trolley on two wheels.😀
@@MrTerrymiff lol
Also the chassis was designed to take up to a 500cc engine.
@@awestruck9075 that would have been a blinding bike
Great video, I really enjoyed it, but where are the Spanish 250's of the late 60's and early 70's? The Bultaco Metralla and Montesa Impala were both 100mph bikes on a good day with a tailwind. They were widely used in production racing and can still be seen in action at Spanish events.
The Bultacos also launched the career of one Mr. B Sheene
the Metralla has been mentioned, ill check the other one out, some inevitably get missed :-) .Cheers for watching , Ride Free
Lot of research in this video, and well presented. My favourite 250 was the honda cb250rs which I owned for a couple of years. My only transport for work. Most certainly not a contender for this list. I agree about the lack of progress in this capacity, rather disappointing.
Cheers for the support mate, have a great weekend
Great video! Thanks. Lots of nostalgia there. Reasons why modern 250's are boring:
> Emissions regulations
>The demise of the 250 learner class in many countries. (What's the point of making a screaming 250 when its costs the same to make a 500 that has more manners?). Here in NZ and Aussie we can ride 650s as learners.
>The demise of the 250 racing class
> The demise of the 2 stroke.
> The addition of ABS, starter motors and bigger batteries to drive starter motors.
i think the move in focus with racing probably the biggest global impact, the learner regs had issues in different places but that changes all the time, :-) Cheers for watching mate, enjoy the ride
I had a 87 tzr production race bike to Aus as a grey market import. Bought it after it had race a season. Was 110kg on the truck scales at work dry. I was pretty young and never sorted the suspenion properly as we had no one to guide us and no internet. One mate had an RZ500, one a KR250 and the other a KR1. RZ was damn quick in a straight line. TZR was quickest to about 120km/h. KR1 was a dream. Info on the Suzuki Across, they were rubbish, but you could put the helmet in the the storage area under the fake fuel tank.
All truly great bikes. Still miss my tzr
Couple of things of note. Although in awe of Yamaha's TZR-1, I was lusting after an RGV250K back in 1988 when they first released. I already then currently owned a 1985 RG500 Gamma which I had bought new in early 1986. Still do. Pretty sure the Kawasaki KR-1 released a few months ahead of the RGV250K here in Australia. A younger friend still on his 250 licence limitation bought the Kawasaki KR-1 (new) shortly after its initial release, and I the opportunity to ride it hard. My recall is that it was a very appealing bike with no immediately apparent vices, and a drop dead gorgeous looker. I particularly loved its radial rims which had only just started becoming de rigeur in mainstream road motorcycling which Suzuki had deliberately avoided on their RG500G hampering it with bias ply rims and undersized front rotors in order to promote their marketing shift to 4 stroke with their new flagship the GSXR-750. Such a shame.
A bit over a decade later I bought one of the last new Suzuki RGV250Ts available from the RGV's final year export production run. That model was still black box unrestricted, but had had by then a rev limiter imposed at 11500rpm. By the end of the suffix T model produciton, all but one of the mechanical issues and undesirable idiosyncracies of the original and subsequent stock models had been eliminated, that being namely it's neutral stability and heavy front end tendency to head shake horrendiously requiring skilled corrective input if its straightline stability was upset by some external road condition/object. This could be all but eliminated by fitting a steering damper for which the frame was set up with a damper lug ex-factory, but of course at the cost of front end feedback & finessed feel. I never fitted one to mine, although I've experienced some 'you really need to be experienced and capable' scale tank slappers over the years attributable to this. The Aprilia RS250, owned by friends, which I've ridden shared that same characteristic. Stock, I put my RGV through the test radar at 212kph true flat nil wind. My overall assessment without detailed elaboration. It's a much more difficult and challenging bike to ride very fast capably than the RG500, and very VERY easy to get yourself pear shaped fast without experience and exceptional skill level. Definitely a bike for experienced skilled riders. Much as the wife persists in nagging me to sell them, I still own my RGV250T too.
great story :-) Cheers for watching and the comment mate, Ride Free
No mention of moto Morini. I did own a Ducati mach1 in 1965 and reached 8000rpm equivalent to 108mph; with full fairing and a slight wind behind me
@@marcellogenesi6390 Even fully faired on the track at its claimed 116kg dry with just 200ml of fuel in the tank and a 45kg rider aboard for 27HP, I find that an event I'd have to personally witness to believe without scepticism. Already read the memory lane specs, so please don't bother quoting them.
Perspective. My 1974 Ducati 450 Desmo (14kg heavier) producing the same spec HP would be pressed to do that as I recall, and not for long given rubbish Ducati metallurgy of the day. 70s' Ducatis in particular. Spit! Ugh! Just Ugh! Although I owned three and rode considerably more during that period, -sucker for punishment or slow learner (?), they were all a regrettable mistake given 20:20 hindsight.
Moto Morini made a momentary distribution presence splash for all of a figurative 5 seconds here in AU with one of their 350s mid 1970s during the height of Italian bike fashion craze, but the brand didn't sell. Pretty and stylish bike though. Fairly sure local pricing stupidity had something to do with it being a non-event at the time. Laverda, MV Augusta, Benelli, Moto Guzzi all suffered from the same overpricing affliction. Ducati was the only Italian brand near price competitive with understandable Japanese dominance, with Guzzi and Laverda providing a niche anternative to the cashed up BMW R90S buyer who wasn't one. The 750 S3 and 850 Le Mans (Mk I) Guzzis sure were stylish though.
I had a mate with 'Italian brand fever' who bought a new Laverda 500 of some now forgotten flavour in early 1979 I used to ride with frequently. Spectacularly unimpressive in all respects except price. In late 1979 or early '80 after I'd blown up the Desmo and GTS and in need of reliable set of two wheels for not too much money I bought a new Kawasaki Z500 which outperformed that Laverda -and just to to add insult to injury, for around a third of its price!
@@theblytonian3906 Whether you belied or not I did reach 8000 rpm, that is 108mph in fifth gear, maybe the road was slightly down hill I cannot remember. My first bike was a Triumph 200cc tiger cub. then a Gilera175cc super compressed, then a Ducati 250 Daytona, finally the Ducati 250 mach1; sadly followed do to anforseen circumstances to a an Austin Minivan.
@@marcellogenesi6390 That's a great distant memory to have regardless. =]
In the 90s my friend built an RG250 project with his dad. They sent the motor to Kevin Cameron to have it built. It put out 52WHP on a stingy local dyno. In hindsight it was one of the most special bikes I've ridden.
Top work yes that motor must av been well tuned also to produce that decent power it must have been fantastic on the go 😂
@@stephenhurst9257 Indeed, very peaky power delivery. About 2000rpm of useable power at the top of the rev range. If memory serves, it had re-worked FZR 600 forks and swingarm as well as wheels. If I knew then what I know now, I'd have a collection of historically significant motorcycles from the 80s and 90s. LOL
that was/is part of the joy, that tuning. We had a guy called Terry Beckitt back in my day who was a wizard. and i thought i had done fairly well getting a TZR I had to around 65HP but the guy who bought it (the right new owner) took it to Mick Abbey and in the end (lots of changes including a banshee block) got it up to almost 90HP at the wheel which was unbelievable to me. but i saw the dyno readout. Mick is obviously the modern day Terry Beckitt i think :-) Cheers for watching mate, have a great weekend
Extra honourable mention to Yamaha SRX250 of 1984. 32hp and 123kg dry. Oh how I miss her.
Yes the Yamaha SRX 250 single/4stroke was so much fun Cafe Racer style bikini faring, rode it to university all week at Max throttle and put only $2 petrol in the tank. It was beautifully made with Yamaha great fit and finish.
not a bike i know much about to be honest :-) Cheers for watching mate, enjoy the ride
Thank you so much for this video - being in my early 60s and brought up in rural (semi isolated ) Staffordshire with a single parent and no car, motorcycles brought me freedom and the joys of adventure and travel and a form of transport to earn cash for my beer and petrol working on farms.
Firstly with a second hand well used Batavus Mk4S that I got on my 16 birthday for passing all my O levels ( I desperately wanted a fizzie but we just didn’t have the money) and then a few weeks after my 17th birthday passing my bike test on my mate’s Suzuki X7 and riding back from Stafford where I baptised my licence with the much talked about in those days “ton across the rezzer “ - meaning a 100 mph across Blythefield Reservoir that many years later I did close to double that speed on a 1999 British spec unrestricted Hayabusa. I am sure the down hill at both ends helped get up to speed.
They were happy days for me - the spring of adulthood, freedom, chasing birds, and start of my continuing love affair with bikes.
I am a lucky one - poverty swapped for a degree of affluence in later life that allows me to spend months on end traveling the world on my various adventure bikes.
With more behind me than ahead I am glad I lived when I did in this 70-90s golden era and will be on my last wheels when we are forced to ride electrics - although I hope common sense will prevail and clean nuclear power with generate cheap and plentiful electric to split the water molecule and produce abundant hydrogen to power a new generation of internal combustion engines that will give future generations of kids the joy of a “ton across the rezzer” with the buzz and noise it deserves
Braaaap !
Great story 🙂Cheers for adding your bit mate. and glad you enjoyed the video . Ride Free 🙂
It seems that the Suzuki T20 of 1965 is missing in your otherwise very complete listing. As far as I remember, it was the go-to 250 cc bike when it appeared, with its 6 speeds gearbox, at keast in France where Kawasakis were not imported at that time. It was also easy to tune for racing/
I owned one in NZ and it was a genuine ton up bike there when the oil pump was set right …
there will always be ones that get missed, they werent as popular here. it wasnt until the ram air GT250 that Suzuki started to gain more of a market share but it maybe should have been mentioned
I think the lack of exciting 250cc bikes has to do with the nanny states we all seem to live in. Having said that, my son has a Ninja 300. It is a fun, quick bike. I've had it to 3/4 ton without giving it the whip. My son won't tell me how fast he's riding it. I'm sure he is a ton up boy.
No dad, I know him and we never go over 30mph.
Great video! As a Suzuki fan, I would have liked to seen the X6 mentioned in there, but I know you can't always get everything! Great job!
It did just get too long in the end, there are plenty coming out of the woodwork though so who knows in future :-) Cheers for watching mate, have a great weekend
Yeah! The Suzuki X6 set records. It's production top speed was 104 mph. It came out before the Kawasaki samurai, and it was faster. I won a lot of gold with an X6 in the day.
@@shaggybreeks ill agree it probably should have got a mention 🙂 🙂 Cheers for watching mate, ride free
So many of these bikes I have zero idea of existing. I was into dirt in my early years. Some power and speed numbers astound me. Kinda makes me rethink how quick my ZX6R is. I’m all about lite quick easy to toss around motorcycles. Kinda what kept from every getting a full liter bike. Fantastic stuff BB.
Great Video, my first b 2 stroke was a Yamaha 100 LT2 Dirt Bike with a new head & rings.
Second 2 stroke was another Yamaha a RZ250R then I went to 4 strokes. A XS750
Then a Honda VFR 750
Then a R3 , now currently a MT03 & A 2016 XT250.
bigger isnt always better :-) .Cheers for watching mate, Ride Free
Great trip down memory lane.
Interesting to see what the Lambretta and Vespa guys can get out of their Two stroke scoots, 30 to 50bhp quite easy , then up to 70+ bhp!
Eric Cope got 127mph on a Lambretta RB250 @ Elvington!
Ive seen them racing at Cadwell and one guy took one out in the fast group at a trackday i was at, no one realised he had a 350LC engine strapped in it 🤣🤣 bonkers things. Cheers for watching mate, Ride Free 🙂
@@barebonesmc thanks for replying and sharing, I really appreciate it.
Hope you have a great weekend.
Jim 🏴 ☺