The old bikes are more race oriented, on the track they will eat a modern 250/300. On the street, things might be a lot closer. A new Ninja 400 probably beats them all.
My old 350LC in its flexyflyer frame is much faster than my R3, and the ninja 400 while faster than the r3....isnt 2 stroke 250/350 fast. The RGV250 and TZRs and NSRs are rocket ships. On the street you have to rev the piss out of them, and they arnt much fun. But an older RZ350 YPVS is a better street bike all around than the modern 300-400cc learners.
There is a reason the RZ350s and 250 2t bikes are forced to race with the 650 twins vs the 300s.
I disagree with anyone that says revving the piss out of a bike on the street isn't fun. It's way fun but draws much more attention to yourself than puttering around. That's just my opinion anyway.
A 1980 TZ350G had 70hp in a 240# bike.
No modern can touch that.
The later 250s made the same power.
I have a 1972 TR3 (350cc) that was clocked at 154mph coming off the bank at Daytona. Try that with a modern. Emby won the 1972 Daytona on a TR3, beating the factory HDs, BSAs and Triumphs with more than twice the displacement. In 1973 95% of the field was Yamaha TZs... as was the field for almost every race till the mid 90s.
At the end of GP 2 stroke era the 500s were making 200+ HP in a 225# bike.
The TZ750 was so fast it was banned in a lot of classes. (The bike that Kenny Roberts said he wasn't paid enough to ride, on national TV. It IS stupid SCARY fast).
2 strokes CAN be reliable... IF you know what you're doing. 4 stroke tuning is VERY forgiving, 2 strokes not so much. I bet you Les Campy hasn't changed anything but the plugs and tires in his TZ250 in the 30 years I have known him
... but you know what? When you get to the cutting edge of tuning, a 4 stroke blows up just as easy, and for the same reasons, as a 2 stroke.
Skidoo is using 2 strokes again... that means they now have a 2 stroke that passes California emission standards. (I use bean oil in my 2ts. They smell nice!)
Sorry there kids, we do not have any other small motor that can touch the volumetric efficiency of a 2 stroke.
Pre 2006 you could register almost anything in Ontario. There is a tz700 with Ontario plates down near Ancaster.
" Quote Originally Posted by LWTRacer View Post
On the street you have to rev the piss out of them, and they arnt much fun."
You have never ridden a FZR250 have you?
You have to ring the snot out of them too.
Any little bike I have ever rode, and that is more than a few, basically gets held at redline the whole time I am on it. Two stroke or four.
Does that mean you can't register existing 2-strokes anymore? I still dig the idea of an RD400 for a daily. Have the EV cultists finally killed the dream?
Does that mean you can't register existing 2-strokes anymore? I still dig the idea of an RD400 for a daily. Have the EV cultists finally killed the dream?
Does that mean you can't register existing 2-strokes anymore? I still dig the idea of an RD400 for a daily. Have the EV cultists finally killed the dream?
No ... 2007-ish is when they changed the legislation to remove the possibility of making a vehicle street-legal if it wasn't originally built by its manufacturer as a street-legal vehicle. No more putting lights on a dirt bike and calling it legal.
A vehicle built as a street legal vehicle for another country, but at least 15 years old, is OK as far as the Ministry of Transport is concerned because imported vehicles more than 15 years old aren't called upon to meet all Transport Canada requirements (lighting, emission controls). (It does have to pass the requirements of an ordinary safety inspection - tires good, brakes work, lights work etc., the Transport Canada stuff goes WAY beyond that.) If that happens to be a two-stroke carbureted motorcycle with no catalytic converter and headlights that you have to deliberately switch on (as opposed to automatically coming on), fine. Obtaining insurance is a separate issue.
If you have a "blue plated" dirt bike (i.e. one that was changed over to a street registration before they put a stop to it) you can renew the blue plate, you can even sell the bike to someone else and they can put a blue plate (street registration) on it, BUT if they ever fail to register it as blue-plate THEN they are screwed.
" Quote Originally Posted by LWTRacer View Post
On the street you have to rev the piss out of them, and they arnt much fun."
You have never ridden a FZR250 have you?
You have to ring the snot out of them too.
Any little bike I have ever rode, and that is more than a few, basically gets held at redline the whole time I am on it. Two stroke or four.
Just keep the revs over 10k on the street then. Everyone will hate you and your clutch might not last that long in traffic but otherwise it sounds fun. Lol
The TZr 250rsp was a joy to ride , better then the 250 suzuki, but the powerband is so narrow you have to carry so much more corner speed to ride it. They really are track only bikes and useless on the street
The powerband is a joke. I also had a properly tuned gamma 500 which had a 3000 rpm powerband.
Yes it has light weight and you think it into corners ( 250) but a current liter bike with TC . cornering abs and power modes is 30 years ahead of these bikes.
If you want light, buy a BMW Hp4 carbon 377 wet race weight. A modern 2 stroke with full suite of electronics would be something entirely different.
A 1980 TZ350G had 70hp in a 240# bike.
No modern can touch that.
The later 250s made the same power.
I have a 1972 TR3 (350cc) that was clocked at 154mph coming off the bank at Daytona. Try that with a modern. Emby won the 1972 Daytona on a TR3, beating the factory HDs, BSAs and Triumphs with more than twice the displacement. In 1973 95% of the field was Yamaha TZs... as was the field for almost every race till the mid 90s.
At the end of GP 2 stroke era the 500s were making 200+ HP in a 225# bike.
The TZ750 was so fast it was banned in a lot of classes. (The bike that Kenny Roberts said he wasn't paid enough to ride, on national TV. It IS stupid SCARY fast).
2 strokes CAN be reliable... IF you know what you're doing.
Only if you're running them in farm equipment. If you grew up riding street stock RDs and H1/2s (I did) you were inside the motor every 5000 miiles. A 70's 750cc would go 50,000 miles on sparkplugs, points and gas, no 2 stroke came close.
4 stroke tuning is VERY forgiving, 2 strokes not so much. I bet you Les Campy hasn't changed anything but the plugs and tires in his TZ250 in the 30 years I have known him
... but you know what? When you get to the cutting edge of tuning, a 4 stroke blows up just as easy, and for the same reasons, as a 2 stroke.
Skidoo is using 2 strokes again... that means they now have a 2 stroke that passes California emission standards. (I use bean oil in my 2ts. They smell nice!)
Sorry there kids, we do not have any other small motor that can touch the volumetric efficiency of a 2 stroke.
Pre 2006 you could register almost anything in Ontario. There is a tz700 with Ontario plates down near Ancaster.
Big 2 strokes have been left behind, they may see a resurgence thanks to watercraft and snowmobiles where they don't need wide power bands. I don't think you're going to see them return to streetbikes -- they just can't compete with modern 4 strokes.
I never rode RGV250 so I would not know ... but I did have FZR250 and ZXR400 until very recently. Both bikes were really very well behaving bikes on the road. Pretty effortless to ride with more than enough power for me to have fun.
I never rode the current Kawi 400, but I seriously doubt it was nowhere near good where the ZXR400 was. And I am not even talking about the timeless look which I always find very striking that even 30 years later the bikes still look good ... not like today angular transformer looks of all kinds of sorts.
Few people commented on insurance, and import to Canada .... FZR was bought imported already, but ZXR was done all by myself ... buying it in Europe, shipping by sea and customs and final registration. Yep, it was a lot of paperwork, but not really too bad, assuming you are a person who can pay attention to details which is important, as well as exercising patience. Insurance was easy once I found companies who accept short VIN registration #'s ... there's currently two, I know of. In both bikes instance I have paid anywhere from 400-600$/year .... older rider in pretty badly rated area in GTA ... LOL
Big 2 strokes have been left behind, they may see a resurgence thanks to watercraft and snowmobiles where they don't need wide power bands. I don't think you're going to see them return to streetbikes -- they just can't compete with modern 4 strokes.
You realize that 250-300 2T are currently the most popular machines for dirt/trail riding? Coming back to street riding machines? Probably not, since they have their cons obviously for road usage. But definitely NOT left behind in general ....
I still say blacklisting ought to be illegal. They're the ones that lobbied for the government to force insurance by rule of law, they should be forced to offer coverage for anything the government deems legal to operate.
I still say blacklisting ought to be illegal. They're the ones that lobbied for the government to force insurance by rule of law, they should be forced to offer coverage for anything the government deems legal to operate.
They are offering insurance. The problem with statistics as the outliers have very little information to base rates on. The insurance company sure as hell isn't going to take a loss so any vehicle with insufficient data gets lumped into the most expensive pool. A lot of this is due to the way vehicles are subdivided. To me, it seems to make much more sense to rate by horsepower and then all of these weird bikes would be easy to price. Hell, if you have a super weird bike, submit a dyno printout to the insurance company. Paying $100 for a pull to save $1000 on insurance seems like a good deal.
Intact (formerly Jevco) and Northbridge. Jevco got silly expensive about 3 or years ago, at least for me.
Northbridge I find great, they always work with you ... whether short VIN, or 2T enduro bike with blue plates and from OEM they don't have in their list ... LOL
You realize that 250-300 2T are currently the most popular machines for dirt/trail riding? Coming back to street riding machines? Probably not, since they have their cons obviously for road usage. But definitely NOT left behind in general ....
They are offering insurance. The problem with statistics as the outliers have very little information to base rates on. The insurance company sure as hell isn't going to take a loss so any vehicle with insufficient data gets lumped into the most expensive pool. A lot of this is due to the way vehicles are subdivided. To me, it seems to make much more sense to rate by horsepower and then all of these weird bikes would be easy to price. Hell, if you have a super weird bike, submit a dyno printout to the insurance company. Paying $100 for a pull to save $1000 on insurance seems like a good deal.
Well, when they came up with the idea, they maybe should have considered that there would be stuff that is completely legal to operate, that they might not want anything to do with. It's still a problem of their own creation. They wanted it all, now they've got it, and should have to take the good with the bad.
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
