‘The speedo needle crept towards 140 km/h, the engine screamed, the scenery rushed by… and it was very easy to understand the phenomenal sales success of Yamaha’s air-cooled, two-stroke parallel twins’
SIMPLY CATCHING SIGHT OF the very clean white-and-red RD250E had brought back a few memories, and starting the engine really transported me back in time. The Yamaha fired up first kick with that raucous, clattery, off-beat rakkatack-tack of an exhaust note from its twin pipes, along with a small cloud of two-stroke exhaust smoke that provided the perfect, atmosphere-enhancing (and polluting) accompaniment.
I’d been looking forward to riding the RD250E all morning, and now I was really hooked. It’s a long time now since the late 1970s, when there were so many of them on the roads. But even now there’s something about Yamaha’s coffin-tanked twin that seems to sum up all that was best and craziest about the days when, for teenage speed freaks on a provisional licence, a hot Japanese 250-cc two-stroke like this was the height of motorcycling performance.
Ten minutes later, its engine warmed and the road ahead clear, the Yamaha revved hard through the gears while I held its throttle wide open, slid back on the seat and crouched down to help make the high-handle-barred RD as aerodynamically efficient as possible. The speedo needle crept towards 140 km/h, the engine screamed, the scenery rushed by… and it was very easy to understand the phenomenal sales success of Yamaha’s air-cooled, two-stroke parallel twins.
This RD250E was registered in 1980, the year that the RD250LC and its 350-cc sibling were unveiled, beginning a new era for Yamaha’s two-stroke roadsters. That was also the year King Kenny Roberts won his third straight 500-cc world championship, reinforcing the image of a two-stroke Yam with speed-block paint scheme as just about the fastest, snarliest thing on two wheels. (Ironically, Kork Ballington and Kawasaki had by this time taken over the 250-cc class.)
Denne historien er fra June 2017-utgaven av Bike India.
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Denne historien er fra June 2017-utgaven av Bike India.
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BMW F 450 GS Concept
EICMA 2024 IS GENERALLY NIRVANA FOR MOTORCYCLE ENTHUSIASTS as they're treated to plenty of new machines from a number of manufacturers. BMW Motorrad are one of them.
Toprak is the 2024 World Champion
Toprak Razgatlioglu took home his second World Superbike Championship (WSBK) title after a good battle with the Italian rookie, Nicolo Bulega of Ducati.
A Toprak Sandwich
The battle for the title heated up as Toprak Razgatlioglu won Race One and Race Two while Nicolo Bulega won the Superpole Race in Estoril, the penultimate round of the 2024 World Superbike Championship (WSBK) season.
Navaneeth Wins Double
Navaneeth Kumar S, Rohan R, and Yogesh P were the winners in the second round of the J K Tyre Royal Enfield Continental GT Cup INDIAN RACING
Ross Branch and Team Hero MotoSports are the new FIM World Rally-raid Champions
TEAM HERO MOTOSPORTS was founded in 2016 and Ross Branch joined in 2022. Since then, he has been a Hero MotoSports rider and their years of toil have borne a particularly sweet fruit: Ross Branch and Hero MotoSports are now the FIM World Rally-raid Champions.
The Rise of a New 'Rad'
Reise Moto invited us to the COASTT High Performance Centre in Coimbatore to experience their all-new radial road tyres, the traceRads.
Feels Like Graduation
The third and final round of the TVS Young Media Racer Programme (YMRP) saw us take P2 in the race and P3 in the overall championship. Here is how it went off
In the Shadow of the Colossus
TVS have given the base Jupiter a complete overhaul, including a new engine. We had checked it out on a closed course back in August. This time we let it loose on the urban jungle and observed if it could survive there
Pay Win
THE ATHER RIZTA WAS LAUNCHED TO much fanfare in April this year and then we got to sample it for a short burst in May.
Agile and Aggressive
The Kawasaki KLX 230 is a superbly built dual-sport that has the ability to take on some big hitters in our market. We hopped on it for a while and kicked up some dirt at the Prodirt Adventure Park.
