Why ride street bikes?

3930dave · Sep 6, 2018

MossRoad said:
Going through this list of fast bikes over the years, I was happy to see my little RD400 was faster in the 1/4 mile than a lot of stock bikes two and three times its displacement. :laughing:

It was always a joy to pull up to next to someone at a stoplight on a 1000cc+ bike and leave em lookin!

List of fastest production motorcycles by acceleration - Wikipedia

I can't imaging having a sub-10 second street bike out of the box, let alone highly modified. YIKES! That's fast.

Drove my friend's RD400 once, just took it easy, not being my bike...... not a beginners bike, you know how peaky they were - impressive with the right rider on it...... yeah, I liked those 2 strokes, good power for the day.

Friends had a Kaw H1, and H2. Any lesser of a rider would not have survived the H2 - he was a bit crazy, but seriously skilled on 2 wheels..... went on to street racing the litre Kaws after that.

And, that's the thing..... pretty much the easiest thing to do on 2 wheels is ride FAST. IMO, one of the best plans for survival is to learn to ride the wheels off a small displacement bike, refining your skills there completely, before moving on to something stupid fast.

If you've never seen it live, pretty cool to see a fast 250 rider (OK, not a 450# guy) on a twisty road - can typically outpace many/most riders with much bigger bikes, w/o even trying hard....

Rgds, D.

MossRoad · Sep 6, 2018

A guy I was lifeguarding with in the early 80's had a Kow Mach III H1 500 triple. It was pretty modified, and scared the bajeezers out of me. I was sitting on the back while he as doing 135 on a local road we liked to "try stuff" on. WEEEE!!! (no brains).

He knew I wanted to get rid of the enduro and get a street bike, and helped me find the 77 RD400. I was very impressed with it in stock form..... but we knew we could modify it for cheap and make it much more impressive. :laughing:

So, I started with boring it out just a bit, putting in different pistons to raise the compression a bit, ported it just a bit, put in different reed valves, removed the oil injection pump, put on much larger carbs, Specialist II expansion chambers, removed the air box and put on some high flowing K&N air filters, different clutch plates and springs, took two teeth off the front sprocket, got some lower handlebars, rear setback foot pegs, a fairing, and some wheelie bars for the dragstrip. Some nice Dunlop road racing tires for the street. I don't remember any of the specific part numbers, etc.... as it's been 30ish years. Most of the parts came from Specialist II. (they are still in business).

Stock it was supposed to turn low 14's in the quarter mile and had a published top speed of about 106.

I got it down to a pretty consistent sub 12's. A lot of 11:92 @ 119mph runs. A lot. I was really, really consistent. I'd dial in 11:91 and never break out when bracket racing and usually won the day. (whopping $15 first place and do $2-300 in damage for the day!!! :laughing

In that configuration, I was pushing some ungodly RPMs in 6th gear when going through the trap. When it was stock, I could rarely get it to red-line in 5th, and it would slow down in 6th. Taking the 2 teeth off the front sprocket dropped about 1 second off the 1/4 mile time and raised the top end speed. The wheelie bars shaved another good bit of time off, as you didn't have to worry about launching the front end off the ground.

About the only things left that I could have done were to get an air shifter, even more aggressive porting, and getting the crankshaft lightened, and a wider swingarm to allow for wider rear tire for better traction off the line.

I've seen a few sub-10 RD400s.... WOW!

Oh, I also weighed about 135# back then, had a 28" waist and was 6' tall! :laughing:

Today..... I'd bet the bike would groan if I sat on it!

tractorshopper · Sep 7, 2018

3930dave said:
If you've never seen it live, pretty cool to see a fast 250 rider (OK, not a 450# guy) on a twisty road - can typically outpace many/most riders with much bigger bikes, w/o even trying hard....

Rgds, D.

That's been my experience. My oldest brother is a very experienced mountain road rider and better than me and better than most I know, but while riding with him on my dual-sport 250 in the mountains the one time since I got it, I can easily outpace him, where when we rode the same Honda Magna's back in the day, I could never keep up; not even close. That was the one wreck that I had that I was completely responsible for. I was trying to chase him up the mountain and came way too hot coming into a curve. He was already probably 300 yards in front of me in less than a 1/4 mile and I was trying to catch up.

But the Honda CRF 250L I have now (even with my knobbies) is so easy to push into the turns and it just goes wherever you want it to with very little effort. It's more than an equalizer. Only draw back is that my rear end struggles after 100 miles. But if I lead, I lose him without trying and if I follow, I'm often riding brakes to force myself to stay back.

Industrial Toys · Sep 7, 2018

Saw a rider yesterday, dressed in dark colors, with just some stupid white LED outline and no headlight on in daytime. Guess, this guy doesn't want to be seen.

Jstpssng · Sep 7, 2018

MossRoad said:
A guy I was lifeguarding with in the early 80's had a Kow Mach III H1 500 triple. It was pretty modified, and scared the bajeezers out of me. I was sitting on the back while he as doing 135 on a local road we liked to "try stuff" on. WEEEE!!! (no brains).

He knew I wanted to get rid of the enduro and get a street bike, and helped me find the 77 RD400. I was very impressed with it in stock form..... but we knew we could modify it for cheap and make it much more impressive. :laughing:

So, I started with boring it out just a bit, putting in different pistons to raise the compression a bit, ported it just a bit, put in different reed valves, removed the oil injection pump, put on much larger carbs, Specialist II expansion chambers, removed the air box and put on some high flowing K&N air filters, different clutch plates and springs, took two teeth off the front sprocket, got some lower handlebars, rear setback foot pegs, a fairing, and some wheelie bars for the dragstrip. Some nice Dunlop road racing tires for the street. I don't remember any of the specific part numbers, etc.... as it's been 30ish years. Most of the parts came from Specialist II. (they are still in business).

Stock it was supposed to turn low 14's in the quarter mile and had a published top speed of about 106.

I got it down to a pretty consistent sub 12's. A lot of 11:92 @ 119mph runs. A lot. I was really, really consistent. I'd dial in 11:91 and never break out when bracket racing and usually won the day. (whopping $15 first place and do $2-300 in damage for the day!!! :laughing

In that configuration, I was pushing some ungodly RPMs in 6th gear when going through the trap. When it was stock, I could rarely get it to red-line in 5th, and it would slow down in 6th. Taking the 2 teeth off the front sprocket dropped about 1 second off the 1/4 mile time and raised the top end speed. The wheelie bars shaved another good bit of time off, as you didn't have to worry about launching the front end off the ground.

About the only things left that I could have done were to get an air shifter, even more aggressive porting, and getting the crankshaft lightened, and a wider swingarm to allow for wider rear tire for better traction off the line.

I've seen a few sub-10 RD400s.... WOW!

Oh, I also weighed about 135# back then, had a 28" waist and was 6' tall! :laughing:

Today..... I'd bet the bike would groan if I sat on it!

A friend who was really into bikes went a similar route with his RD400- that thing would scream. I remember him pulling up beside me at a light the day after the races with the wheelie bar still on. When the light changed he was off like a shot.

I haven't seen him in decades, but the last I heard he was still working on bikes at the local Harley shop.
After 40+ years of wrenching on them he's the guy I would want to work on mine if I was a rider.

MossRoad · Sep 7, 2018

Jstpssng said:
A friend who was really into bikes went a similar route with his RD400- that thing would scream. I remember him pulling up beside me at a light the day after the races with the wheelie bar still on. When the light changed he was off like a shot.
I haven't seen him in decades, but the last I heard he was still working on bikes at the local Harley shop.
After 40+ years of wrenching on them he's the guy I would want to work on mine if I was a rider.

I miss riding mine. I miss working on mine. However, when we had our first child in 1992, I wanted to be around a while and that bike was my Christine.

It sits in pieces in a storage shed. I'm scared to put it back together again.

oosik · Sep 7, 2018

I guess I should clarify. My bike is classified as Adventure touring. Verbiage sells more bikes - ???. 2017 BMW R1200GSA.

View attachment 570042

Me and the bike in downtown Benge, WA. Current population - 52. The bike is being patient - I am on a hinny break.

MossRoad · Sep 7, 2018

Nice looking machine... :thumbsup:

oosik · Sep 7, 2018

Thank you - Moss. Prior to 2017 I was an avid Harley rider - for about 27 years. Finally - in 2017 I woke up one day and thought - - - there has got to be more to riding than - blaaaaaaattttt. My Harley had turn-out straight exhausts. Now I ride the BMW - quiet as a mouse urinating on cotton. I can hear the wind - I can hear the cows MOOO as I drive past - I can hear the Meadow Larks - life is good.