Then there are some of us that spent literally hours sitting on one at wide open throttle. You can grind the footpeg rubbers down to nubs in well under an hour at racing speeds. That's how you knew you were right at the limit. The pegs would ride up and down with road imperfections. The only thing that saved them is that you run out of ground clearance before you can grind them completely away. You haven't lived until you feel the footpeg mount that runs under the exhaust hit the ground hard and you still need more lean angle to make it through a corner that you're already committed to. Those are oh shit! moments you'll never forget. Everyone should ride one hard at least one time, just like everyone should have at least one slutty GF in high school. If you take advantage of it you'll be better prepared for what you run across later...
If its a vibrator, maybe. My Guzzi was fairly smooth and I once rode for 5 hours straight - - - no stopping, except for two red lights until I had to re-fuel. Sometimes one just wants to get to the destination, while sometimes one can want to wander around. BTW, I was fairly busting for a leak at that fueling station! NOT every Two-Stroke! My second and third motorcycles were European-built Two-Stroke singles (CZ125 & H-D Aeromachi M65) and my first FOUR-Speed Gearboxes if I remember correctly. Pet-Oil mix at 10%! What I do recall, upon returning to Four-Strokes, was that I could once again ride from A to B without stopping midway to swap (out) a fouled plug with a clean one. I think that I'm completely past Two-Strokes --- even my Brush Cutter hasn't had much use for a long time. Hate that sound - motors should exhaust through mufflers. Otherwise, I may as well have a H-D. I think my next (walk-behind) powermower will be electric.
Aeromachi 65, theres one I havent heard mentioned in a while. They were like 3 horspower, depending on the year the CZ may have not been much better. I always felt 4 strokes below 250cc's were an answer to a question no one was asking. As for the sound, Kawasaki triples sounded pretty sweet ripping thru the gears.
So did you get this bike or not? Don't wait too long. From the replies here there are more than a few people that would snatch this up in a minute. Maybe it's a good thing that you don't tell us where you live.
Not about an RD, but one of the other 2T bikes of that era. Late 70's I had a huge brain fart and decided to buy an H-1 to go roadracing. :huh Ported the intake and exhaust, cut off all the unnecessary street stuff. Added expansion chamber exhaust, velocity stacks plus clip-ons and I fabbed some rearsets. PZ2 tires (remember those?) completed the build. Until then I had just ridden a '77 Yamaha XS500 (parallel twin) which handled well- for those days- but was a bit down on power. The Kaw 500 triple was the opposite. Good power once it was "on the pipe" but handled like......well it didn't. Back straight at Bridgehampton was actually a series of slight lefthand kinks. AAMRR would have a second ambulance stationed at the end of those kinks and before the carousel. The H-1 would quickly weave down that section so badly that I figured that it would chuck me off and my body could slide right up to the waiting meat wagon. :eek1 THANK god current bikes have improved light years beyond those pieces of crap. I'll take a bike that can stop and handle along with accelerate. The 2 strokes can take their place in the museum, IMHO.
I love the smell of two-strokes in the morning... I had a '75 Suzuki GT550 triple 2 stroke in high school, ping, ping, ping. Handling was crappy but when you were in the powerband at about 10,000rpm it really smoked, HOLD ON! It even had a digital gear position light that looked like a Texas-Instruments calculator.
Just to counter that a bit.... 1984 - I was running a GPZ1100 in the AAMRR Open Production class (I won the championship), and after one practice at Bridgehampton, I was talking to two fast 2-stroke riders. One was the Formula 2 (TZ250) champion, and the other was the Formula 1 champion on his TZ750, and we had all been playing around together. They asked me if I knew exactly what my bike was doing on that same back straight, with how poorly it handled. They thought I was going to run off the track at the end. :eek1 I told them yes, thanks for the reminder, but that's how you rode it. When it stopped wobbling through the bumps was how you knew when to bank left toward the carousel, because your vision was so blurred. They both said no thanks - they'd stick to the real race bikes -- 2 STROKES !
No but the Kaw H-1 certainly did and it was powered by an oil burner. My Yamaha 500 twin could handle circles around that limp pasta framed 2T Guess that was the diff btwn purpose built race bikes and racing a converted street bike.
I'm jealous, my riding came after the end of the 2 stroke days. I had a yz225 i think as a kid and it would smoke the 4 strokes, I can only imagine how great a 350 would be, that would be perfect cause any thing bigger would scare the shit out of me.
I had a TX 500, I think it was pretty close to what an XS was. Okay commuter bike but I dont think I would even try to compare it to an H1. Matter of fact when the H1 hit the streets I dont recall much of anything on the street that would stay close on any straight away. While I dont doubt the XS handled better, it's frame was stressed with about 20 less horsepower than the H1 was putting out. With my TX I steered clear of RD's, the Suzuki GT380's and the S-3 Kawasaki. I wont say my TX was a good bike because it wasnt, but I wont say the 2 strokes were bad bikes, because they werent. As I said about the RD, he pulled away from the TR hard enough that he could go slower thru the corners and I was still far back. Was your H1 a race series bike?
Bone stock RD's weren't bad. Red line wasn't way up there and they were pretty tractable in power delivery. I don't recall one for the RD but for some of the others (twin jet 100, some of the DT's and maybe the YS 250 and 305's) Yamaha produced a GYT kit (git kit) that was a kit to basically turn it in to a race bike. Some of the little 100's were screamers. The folks who talk about how crappy the 2 strokes handled and braked forget that everything was about the same in braking, and the ones that handled good mostly did so because they were low in the power to weight ratio.
Bought it used. It seized doing 140 kmh. I did a rebore myself and learned a lot. Fun bike. I had rz envy though. Sold it for a small loss. Don't miss dinking around with points and synching carbs though. That was a 400 though. My friend had a rd350 (new) and then a RZ. He loved them and still misses them.
well fuck and shit , sorry to get your hopes up, but he's desided that since he's had it so long it's got sentmental value and wants more for it now. ... i'm not happy at all. but i did buy a 1935 ford flathead v8 from him and a 70'a moto guzzi frame from him for $34, .. not sure what i'll do.. but i may just have to build a bike with that.. the rd had the cafe rear and front cowl.. and it's still for sale.. so who knows.. mayhaps if he get's his thumb out his ass and figures a price i might buy the rd.. but i don't trust him now. .. what a rat fuck of a situation. mayhaps i'll build something like a henderson streamliner with the guzzi and the v8. it's only a 80hp 8ba.
My son has a pic.of him 2yrs old sitting in front of me,on a new 72 750. He finally got one,wants me to take it out. NO THANKS,been there done that.:)
My first new bike was a 1977 RD400. It was $895 out-the-door. I was in my senior year of high school and just sold my CB400...it was like night & day. The RD went like stink, would wheelie on demand and sip fuel. I actually took it on a 3,000 mile trip thru the PNW the summer after high school. Wish I still had it. Nothing like a 2-stroke twin! Except a 2-stroke triple.
Shame the OP missed out on the bike. The aircooled RDs were and are magic. I did my first production racing on RD350s - won my first road race etc - and in total had 5 of them. NZ rules required the footrest brackets to remain standard. As you can see, I used mine to corner on - when I wasn't using other bikes as berms. (This pic is actually post-classic racing, but it was an original racebike of mine that I just dragged out of the shed 20+ years after the day.) Still have an RD400. Oh, yessss.