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Aceofspades
3/25/2017 7:19pm
3/25/2017 7:19pm
Reading some old bike mags and came upon thos article about the original yzm400 Doug Henry supercross works bike. Man, this is still one of the best looking 4 strokes ever built; probably one of the best looking bikes of any kind. Yamaha ruined the production bike by using the dogshit ugly plastic that cane stock on the production bikes. How exciting it must have been when the 4 stroke was new and an unknown quantity! 20 years of hindsight has shown us that yes, the 4 stroke was a revolution, but it has made the sport a terrible financial hardship on privateers, and has arguably ruined racing in many ways (I absolutely think it has). Anyway, heres the article.
The Shop
now if the arcticle was about that works YZ500 from the late 80s that someone just posted the pic of ..
These were the years where I took a break because life happened (college, kids, etc). So, Im still kind of confused, as I thought KTM was first to the table with MX 4t technology in the US?
http://www.pulpmx.com/stories/tell-us-story-jacky-vimond
Here's another with a similar name... YZR500 (same year 1988)
Anyway, for some reason I thought is was a YZM400. But the stock Yamaha open bikes were still the air-cooled dinosaurs, right?
What about the KTM part?
Didnt mean to pluck your strings there Lemmy.
Show some respect.
Was the YZM400 really a 400 though? I've heard numerous tales of 450 on up to 540 and maybe even considerably higher. Regardless, there was a chance to make the world right with displacement and the AMA, OEM's and our promoters of the sport at the top level all failed us.
I just remember waiting...and waiting...and waiting for a 250F. Seemed like it would be the perfect bike for a 125 nut who was getting old and fat.
And that Cannondale website! Watched it for years. Those fuckers had so much neat shit going on but just couldn't quit fucking with it.
Pit Row
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