Who Else Doesn't Like Scaring Themselves on a Bike.

On the road I really don't like riding fast, too many other fools around.
However for fun I used to have a 1988/9 Honda CR500 that had been the property of Joel Robert here in Belgium, (ex moto king) he had obviously had it ported and fettled and there were loads of factory bits dripping from it, It was mentally fast, 90kg and 65hp as standard and this was considerably faster than any other CR500 I had been on, ended up hydraulic-ing it in a deep water hole so re-bored it and upped the CR (Don't ask why) it did not improve it, Made the power even more abrupt and starting even harder, even with a factory decompressor fitted.
However it was absolutely brilliant for an adrenaline fix, you had to hold on with every bone in your body, grip the tank with both legs really hard and let it go. Any gear, any, time as long as you were on the pipe it would just either spin up the rear or lift the front whey high. Fantastic!!
Stupidly swapped it and a Quad for a Rickman Mettisse. Now I want another one as I miss it a lot.

I have a nice video of Jamie Whitham riding a turbo GSXR with 350+ hp at I think Mallory park, two wheel drifts out of all of the corners and leaving double black lines for the camera constantly. Amazing show of skill these top riders are on another planet.

J
 
A mate bought a 540cc KTM ex fink desert race bike to trail ride it. I rode it a few times, on fire trails it had the tendency to shrink the width of the road and the trees would become blurry and flash by. It was just nuts as a trail bike. He moved on to a Cr 500cc Honda that was transplanted into the later alloy 250 frame. It had some accessory digital ignition that was never sorted and it got sold to another mate who replaced the ignition with stock bits. There is a huge Vintage MX event at Dargle he whats to run it at, I might try scaring myself again there. Take my 420cc 81 Husky Automatic. 2 strokes are scary.
 
My much modified Honda Elsinore 250 road trail was pretty hairy but the scrambler I also owned was nutso. Don't know why they bothered giving it a front wheel as it was only ever barely on the ground. But then, I was also young and invincible 🤣
 
I had three road trail bikes (Suzuki TS125, Yamaha DT2 250, Yamaha RT2 360) before I got the SF1. They were pretty tame - when i rode a friend's YZ250 motocross bike off-road it was a revelation. We took it in the van on a trip up north of Geraldton in WA with a Yamaha TT500 - the YZ would leave the big 4-stroke for dead in any dirt that wasn't in a straight line. Hanging the arse out exiting a bend every time you cracked the throttle in the powerband was the best fun I've ever had off-road. Dirt was an excellent way to develop riding skills.

At the moto shop in Perth I worked on a few Yamaha IT460s (? can't remember the exact designation - full flown enduro bikes registered for the street) - they were also wild and crazy beasts.
 
Years ago they used to run an annual beach race meet near Sarina (Grasstree Beach) and a mate of mine used to race a CR500 (on methanol of course) and was usually in the top 3 by end of the day. (Great fun watching the road bike category with hotted up motors sitting in not much more than bare frame and wheels. Also worth watching them try to match it with the 2 stroke rockets go around by then heavily rutted corners when all the category winners met!!)
That CR was a beast and whenever a drag meet was on (Mackay Dragway) he'd just change tyres and sprockets and generally blow the latest (ride in) super bikes away down the qtr mile. He later worked for a Yamaha dealer so changed to a yz490 (I think it was) but not quite the raw beast of the CR. Later still he moved to Kawasaki so went to a KX500 and had a nicely worked on kx250 that he used for bush bashing.
Personally I preferred my much less hectic old DR600 for a sedate trundle through the local forestries:unsure: Mind you they were all a bastard to kick over, and short legs didn't help..........
 
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