closest to anything approaching racing glory ... The 1984 Honda XR200RE was a great little bike , with some interesting design features for the early eighties ( twin cam head and two carbs ). It was touted as a great leap forward compared to the previous model and was breathlessly anticipated by us faithful . Despite this , Honda seemed to have been in a bit of a hurry when it came to testing it ( or maybe they built them on a Friday afternoon ). WHEN it was running , it was really quite cool . It had more power and better suspension than the previous model and if I had a smidgeon more talent , I would have been able to pull proper wheelies on it , rather than abrupt power stands with wobbly landings . I do recall that it
had an amazing front brake - despite being a smallish drum brake , it would do stoppies at traffic lights that amazed and confounded car drivers . It also had more faults than a bad game of tennis . Firstly , the air box leaked air on the wrong side of the filter ( the airbox was replaced under warranty , but you got to wondering how much crap had gone through the intake by that point . Secondly , the valve seats were at the wrong angle ... which meant a replacement cylinder RFVC ( radial four valve control ) head . Then there was the jetting ... it was hopeless , and caused much head scratching before the rumour went around that the cure was to swap the main jets from one side to the other side
66 KIWI RIDER