Upgrade to enjoy this feature!
Vital MX fantasy is free to play, but Premium users receive great benefits. Premium benefits include:
- View and download rider stats
- Pick trends
- Create a private league
- And more!
Only $10 for all 2026 SX, MX, and SMX series.
Lol. Super easy to find any thread
NOT Mine! Good friend of mines. 2024 CR500AF
They became difficult to ride and not that fun honestly. Sales decline followed as riders moved to 250s.
The manufacturers will build what sells. 500s stopped selling.
do you know what your buddy thinks of that motorsports products clamp/chalk? i was just looking at buying one today ironically lol wondering if they work very well, i see he has straps as well.
The Shop
Luxon 4-Post Bar Mounts
$189.95 - $239.95
DeCal Works Huge Plastic Inventory of UFO and Polisport kits.
The clamps work really well. Used them in my van for years.
I loved the old open class bikes.
thank you, i appreciate the response!
I rode a CR500 for the first time in 2007, when I was 17 years old and racing 450's.
I couldn't hang on, just couldn't ride it. I was so damn slow on it. Us Millenials are too soft for 500's.
Not saying they were the best bike for an average racer or that you couldn't get yourself into trouble, but they weren't that hard to ride and were a lot of fun if you rode them right. I think the issue for many people was trying to ride it like a 250. You had to go up a gear or two to let a 500 pull. If you didn't they really worked you that's for sure.
Very simple the numbers were not there because the Public did not buy them. 125 and 250 classes had A B and C amateur classes where the lack of number the Open class only had A and B not enough racers for their to be a C class.
The numbers were not there enough for all 4 of the Japanese manufactures to continue making a 500. Suzuki and Yamaha pulled the plug before Honda and Kawasaki.
And I was a 500 racer!!!
In 1985 I raced a 125 and 500 the same day. Talk about two different riding styles in one day. The next year I got a 250. I liked them all but maybe for me anyway the 250 was the sweet spot.
I got you beat. In 1973 my first year racing MX I raced a 1958 BSA Goldstar 500 with right side shifting and then a 73 Suzuki TM250 on the same day. Was as different as you could get.
ATK had a version out years ago called the Bike Shoe. I have a couple and you can clamp the front wheel down on a trailer and bomb down a dirt road - the back end might bounce everywhere if it's not secured but never had the clamp come loose. It's like nailing the wheel to the floor.
This.
Succesful 500 riders (like Wardy) rode them like KR rides a 450 - they keep the RPM low and torque them around the track. It keeps them hooked up, lets the suspension work, keeps the vibration level low, minimizes gyroscopic forces that want to fight you and helps prevent violent responses from inadvertent throttle input.
In short - short shift and roll the throttle on.
Would be hard to argue against that!
Being in New England we got to see one guy who could man handle a 500 2T all day - JoJo Keller. Guy would be a top 5 at a national race one day then come race NESC another day.
But Suzuki did R&D a water cooled RM500 that was raced a few times in MXGP. Just never made it to production. This was around the same time as the infamous YZM500.
They were too fast for most to ride. Different mindset back then than today. Riders weren't as skilled back then either, so they weren't able to handle the power the 500s made. They were almost or more fast on a 250, and that's what the industry went with.
Few if any updates to the CR/KX were made past around 1990 (apart from suspension). Yamaha had Damon on a WR500 one year, with rear disc but it was obviously not competitive with the liquid cooled competition.
Kawasaki kept making the KX500 (and giving minor updates) because of Destry Abbott and the desert racing team
Pit Row
Too much bike for 90% of the population, people learned quickly after trying one.
Granted the bikes weren't as refined as present day machines - that's simply an unavoidable function of time and the benefit of compiling more info as it passes - but I don't know if I'd tell some of those guys that they weren't as skilled and couldn't handle the power 500s made. Ever meet Lackey, Carla, etc.? They were flat out animals, not to mention the later 500 riders like Bailey, Johnson, Glover, Ward, LaRocco, Liles, Thorpe, Hansson, etc, etc, who didn't lack for strength or fitness.
Nope, I'll let you tell 'em that. I ain't that brave. 😄
I much prefer 500 power. I’ve always said you got to ride a 250 like a 125 to really make it work, but it will also put you down twice as fast and twice as hard. The 500 you keep low rpm and lug that thing around. They’re so much fun. The 1989 kx 500 was the best cornering bike I’ve ever ridden. You could track around the inside of a corner with no rut or berm and the front end would stay glued to the ground. Modern tracks with modern track prep not so much, but big, fast and really rough old school circuits are where 500’s really shine. Especially when the motos were 40+2
The 88 was pretty nice in the corners too.. huge couch with a nuclear rocket attached. The soft suspension was nice on rough gp style tracks. It was a handful though, once I sold mine I never looked back.
Holy thread resurrection....
500's killed? Who says?
Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?????
"Was it over when the Germans bombed Pearl Harbor?????"
So cool.... 😎 Once again, Mumbles is the vintage content wizard!
Sales of Hondas dived after the 1987 Black Monday stock market crash, CR500 sales kept going down.
Are you telling us you've never seen the movie without telling us you've never seen the movie?
I had an '89 and several of them after they went to the USD forks after '89 (and I have a couple of '89 front ends I've kept to bolt on because I like those forks so much better than the USDs that came after them) and still have a very low-hour '97. And I agree - the front end has a very planted feel; the bike is rock-steady at eye-watering speeds. Haven't ridden it in years, especially since we don't have many areas where you can let it get out and stretch its legs... and brother it will flat vacuum up some real estate in a straight line. 😆
LMAO ....I love setting that trap..... it's hilarious when people fall for it hook line and sinker....🤣 I figured gargler would have me blocked by now. 🤣
Saved for posterity.
Shit !
There's no getting that hook out. It's in my small intestine.
Post a reply to: What killed the 500?