Features

Wheel building I have always farmed out wheel re-spoking to a specialist, and since discovering the talents of Paul Jackson (01422 378100) many years ago, have always been more than happy to keep turning up at his workshop, drop my hubs and rims in a pile on the floor (with a note of offsets, of…

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Desmodromics gave Ducati a lead… Valve bounce happens at high revs when the valve springs are unable to respond quickly enough to close the valve back on their seats. The desmodromic idea was to replace troublesome springs with a mechanical closing system much like that used to open them. Eliminate the springs and you eliminate…

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Honda CB750 frame and ancillaries come back from powder coaters The first job is clean up all the engine parts for some cosmetic refinishing… View the step-by-step instructions in the image gallery. Image captions Picture one: The most unpleasant part of any restoration is the hours of cleaning, scrubbing and degreasing to remove years of…

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Yamaha RD350B With light weight and decent torque allied to a race developed (hence RD) chassis the bike was pretty much an instant success. In the post learner/middleweight market the RD350 was every inch a street sleeper just waiting for a bike more than twice its capacity to pounce on and figuratively shred to pieces.…

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1972 and 1975 Kawasaki H2 and H2C triples Many things have been written about Kawasaki H2s over the years. The majority of articles tell stories of vicious power deliveries, unintentional wheelies and handling that can leave even the most stoic of riders with something to mutter about. And to a certain degree, they’re all true.…

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Lemon? No one who wanted a Super Dream was ever lining up an RD, GT, KH etc in their sights and given the other four-stroke offerings on hand (Yamaha’s XS250 or Kawasaki’s Z250) perhaps there was a modicum of logic in their choice. The sad thing was that the 250N was just as tedious as…

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Yamaha YR2C Yamaha's YR2 with it’s new five-port engine was another step in the development of fast, reliable two-stroke lightweight roadsters and its stablemate – the YR2C – joined the Stateside fashion for street scrambler models. In reality, the differences between the 'road' YR2 and the 'street scrambler' YR2C (also known as the Grand Prix…

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Kawasaki Z1300 With the launch of its massive six-cylinder Z1300 in 1979, Kawasaki triumphed in showing how Japanese design ingenuity alone could never succeed in overcoming the dynamic necessities of a motorcycle. The late, great Vic Willoughby, technical editor of Motor Cycle, said it best in his description of the factory’s biggest bike of the…

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Yamaha RD350 YPVS Yes you did read that right: one hundred and fifty six thousand. Owner Peter Spicer takes us through the ups and downs of the long-term ownership of an icon. “In the time I’ve owned the bike it’s had a fresh set of barrels at 60,000; these motors will run past this figure…

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The original 300 series Honda 750/4 UJM; it’s become a term of derision aimed at inline-four-cylinder Japanese motorcycles that supposedly are all the same. Which is, of course, piffle. Go back to 1967 or 1bCB (before CB750) as we like to call it and you’ll remember that a sporting motorcycle was lucky to have two…

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