Some of our regular readers will know I’ ve been around dirt bikes a long time. I’ ve raced everything from 175cc two-strokes through to 650cc four-strokes … and everything in between. As a big bloke I tend to find I favour the bigger capacity machines, but I do also have a soft spot for some smaller bikes, particularly Honda’ s late 80s CR250Rs, bikes which were miles ahead of their time. I’ ll tell you about a few of the bikes which have made an impression on me, to give you an insight into why I owned a KTM 500 EXC-F Six Days.
HONDA CR250R The first CR250R I rode was Peter Gibbes’ 1987 model. It had fantastically responsive low rpm grunt compared to the Husky CR250 I was racing at that time. The Husky, by contrast, had a dreadful 125-like power delivery with absolutely zero bottom-end and mid-range torque. It was all top end … and a modest top end at that. Anyway, I simply could not believe how much bottom end the Honda had. It was so grunty. We were practising on the old Taikorea
Supercross track which had a huge quad kinda jump that everyone did as two doubles. I had to clutch the hell out of the Husky just to make the doubles, but on the Honda I was almost afraid to gas it because it was so responsive in comparison.
AIR HAMMER Along the way there have been a few other engines that have really stood out for me. One that stood out in particular was the Yamaha YZ490. The‘ air hammer’ was a beast, a fourspeed two-stroke that was totally comfortable pulling clutched starts in top gear in a wet paddock. Just select top gear, give it full throttle and dump the clutch. The YZ would just bugger off and trench as long as you held the throttle open. A funny story from that time, but a bit sad for the man concerned though, was at a Bushriders’ MCC TT. The start line was along the road fence, facing away from it obviously, down the paddock. The 500 class was lined up and across the road a pie cart had set up. Well, the gate dropped, it was a sunny midwinter’ s day
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