Wow, check out these little two stroke dingers. They’d be perfect for the roads here.
I don’t think the Govt. would allow two-strokes like these to be imported.
Flicky and speedy, most have an awesome powerband too.
The article is from Kneeslider.
une 11th, 2006
One of the commenters on our Ron Wood Flat Tracker post wanted to point out the Moto Carrera company, makers of two stroke street legal dirt track replicas. Like the Ron Wood designs, these are light, powerful, minimal motorcycles that will most likely put a lot of other speedy looking motorcycles to shame.
Most are based on Yamaha R5/RD350/400/RZ350s and have all of the classic dirt track style along with the necessary lighting and equipment to make them street legal. They have the old Yamaha colors, too. Nice!
Don’t scoff at the little 350cc two strokes, these guys crank out 65 rear wheel horsepower as tuned while the entire bike weighs just 270 pounds. If the Yamaha isn’t enough, they also build what they call their Triple Tracker Special, based on the Kawasaki H2 750 which has 105hp on tap at only 300 pounds wet.
The power to weight ratios of these bikes will cause serious stomach upset among the sportbike crowd not to mention the embarrassment of being shown real speed from these little flickable retro racers. You don’t have to be swoopy and plastic covered to go fast.
Moto Carrera will build one of these little bullets for you but this is a low volume operation so be prepared to wait. They also do a lot of repair and restoration work on classic two stroke street bikes. Looks like a very nice operation. Might be worth a visit.
I have seen something that looks very similar to this motorcycle at a traffic light in Nankan yesterday. The tires were much bigger, but I don’t think it was a 2-stroke. Anybody has an idea what that could have been?
they are “road legal” versions of flat track bikes… and damn cool one’s at that… this exhaust system is particularly fruity…
flat track being dirt surface racing similar to speedway/oval racing except instead of lop sided BMX, mission specific, single footpeg oddities, they are normal bikes with light mods for flat track racing… Usually dirt bikes or naked street bikes that are lightly modded with better final drive ratios, suspension, smaller wheels, bigger tyres and crucially, no front brakes… It’s a very popular and easy to get into form of racing, especially in Europe… Again since all it requires is a lightly modified bike and a dirt track, it could be another excellent racing format for Taiwan if only the local guys could get over their wildly blinkered lust for fully faired road bikes…
sorry for the sh*te quality pic, but check out the “flat tracked” Ducati monster… pretty cool…
Ooh! Mummy! I have fond, fond memories of racing RD400s. Sweet bikes. Fast as fuck.
They used to have an RD250, too. When I were a nipper that was THE bike to have. In fact, they were so fast I think that’s why they stopped making them – you could go out and get one as your very first bike in those days, stick some “L” plates on it and take off from the showroom at close to the ton, having never sat on a bike in your life. Lots of my friends were introduced to the fascinating world of femur and tibia pins courtesy of the little RD250!
^^^ They weren’t as bad as the later Suzuki X7. Remember how many kids who used to wrap those around street furniture or just get spat off the bike at 110mph after the infamous speed wobble set in? I personally knew 4 or 5 that died on those. The RD was a very safe bike by comparison.
I used to spend all my time building and tuning Yammy RDs, Suzi GTs and Kwak triples for production racing back in those days. Lots of happy memories from track days
Ooh! Mummy! I have fond, fond memories of racing RD400s. Sweet bikes. Fast as fuck.
They used to have an RD250, too. When I were a nipper that was THE bike to have. In fact, they were so fast I think that’s why they stopped making them – you could go out and get one as your very first bike in those days, stick some “L” plates on it and take off from the showroom at close to the ton, having never sat on a bike in your life. Lots of my friends were introduced to the fascinating world of femur and tibia pins courtesy of the little RD250! [/quote]
I still have my RD350 in our shed back at home. Still running like a beauty. They used to sell street leagal RD500s back home, those were just dangerous rockets on the road. Needless to say, they did not sell them for too long.
yamaha-motor.com/sport/produ … /home.aspx[/quote]
And I don’t care what anybody says – I’d still like one of these, except with some road tyres. They look like they could be a lot of fun, in a not very fast kind of way.
IIRC the full official name was GT250X7. It had a brand new aircooled reed-valve engine which made less power than the older piston-port models, but was much lighter (and more prone to grenading). The whole bike was also much lighter (and flimsier) to make up for having less power than the RD250 it was competing with. It was quicker and faster than the RD if you could keep the front wheel on the ground or the bike in a straight line. Lots of messing about with steering dampers, tire pressures, dropping the forks in the yokes, fitting longer rear dampers… bleh.
It didn’t last more than a couple of seasons before Yamaha upped the ante with the new liquid-cooled motors and Suzuki followed with the RG250 Gamma. I don’t think too many people weep over the passing of the X7, though it was popular in it’s day.
Ooh! Mummy! I have fond, fond memories of racing RD400s. Sweet bikes. Fast as fuck.
They used to have an RD250, too. When I were a nipper that was THE bike to have. In fact, they were so fast I think that’s why they stopped making them – you could go out and get one as your very first bike in those days, stick some “L” plates on it and take off from the showroom at close to the ton, having never sat on a bike in your life. Lots of my friends were introduced to the fascinating world of femur and tibia pins courtesy of the little RD250! [/quote]
I still have my RD350 in our shed back at home. Still running like a beauty. They used to sell street leagal RD500s back home, those were just dangerous rockets on the road. Needless to say, they did not sell them for too long.[/quote]
Back in university, my mate had a RZ250 that went like a bomb. Awesome little machine.
RD350s are still legendary bikes and have a huge cult following all over the world. Here are some cool examples:
A cool half-faired, modded one:
Something more retro
An absolutely awesome project bike: RD350 motor in a Cagiva Mito 125 chassis - this thing must FLY, as well as handle.
Then there was the 1980’s GP500 dream in the form of the RD/RZ500:
Lots of guys modify those extensively - a stock RZ500 is already pretty fast, but modded, I think they must seriously rip.
