Trail Bike Adventure Magazine

Bit of a ramble. February 5

Monday, 08 February 2010 08:19

Honda asked for an explanation of some comments from last week's blog and it set me to thinking about the rise and fall of the bike marques over the years.

The earliest recollection I have of bikes making a big impact on my day-to-day thinking was in the very early 1970s. At that time minibikes were popular, and I spent my classroom time dreaming of brands like Deckson, Tas, and Gemini. The way I remember it, these bikes with five-inch wheels and lawn-mower engines were advertised as fitting in the boot of a family car and just the shot for a bit of fun around a family picnic. There was no drama about people having fun on a non-ADR-compliant bike in those days. I was in primary school in Sydney's west, and anyone lucky enough to have one of these little pull-start wonders had heaps of places to ride. All we needed, as I recall, was a vacant block, and there were plenty of those.

Then Yamaha released a GT80 that looked like a REAL dirt bike, with suspension and spoked wheels and a killer yellow-and-black colour scheme, and suddenly the minibike was out of fashion. We still pull-started our way around the housing estates and bushland, but we were dreaming of that Yamaha.

It's curious, because in my badly flawed memory, I think it was Suzuki which was probably the dominant dirt bike marque at the time. It's not as straightforward as today, because there were plenty of marques around, especially European manufacturers. Australia was a much freer place and trials used to get equal magazine space with scrambles (as motocross was then), so Montessa and Sherco were quite prominent. Yamaha had the DT, of course, the ultimate trail weapon for anyone with $800 or so, but for kids relying on their parents' generosity it was often a second-hand step-though with the plastic fairing taken off. Suzuki's TS was popular among the older kids as well, I remember.

When I hit high school I remember lusting after the 1975, down-pipe KX250. I had no idea what the bike was like, but in those days the dealers all had glossy pamphlets and while my pubescent colleagues were sneaking off behind the shelter sheds with Ribald and Penthouse, I carried a school case with pamphlets of the best-looking bikes of the day. Just as a curiosity, Yamaha used to give the angle of climb its bikes could negotiate. With all my riding experience being in vacant blocks, building estates and the occasional dried-up dam, I had no idea why angle of climb would be of any interest to anyone. Also, Yamaha claimed a top speed for its RDs (I was forming an interest in road bikes as well).

But that KX250 embodied everything that was glorious in a dirt bike for me. I still think it's a sensational-looking bike.

A couple of things happened in the later part of the 1970s that had a huge impact on me and my perception of bikes. The first was seeing On Any Sunday. The second was discovering Australasian Dirt Bike Magazine.

I immersed myself in dreams of riding to Cape York, enduros and motocross, and began to see images from Europe where Husqvarna and KTM seemed to be weapons of choice. Images from America showed seemingly everyone on Japanese bikes, and after some back and forth, it seemed Yamaha's YZs were the go - therefore, in my totally uninformed mind - Yamahas were the go. Again. Every second month I'd be waiting outside the newsagent for the doors to open so I could get my new ADB. That mag was the bible for me.

Then I finished school and started working. I bought a KL250 and started really riding. Not racing, but trail riding, sometimes four times a week, and during this time Kawasaki seemed to me to be a prominent brand. They had TV ads and everything! So did Honda, and those in my group who were riding XL250s sure seemed to be doing it easy. Those little white Yamaha XT250s seemed to go okay, too.

As we moved through the 1980s the TT/XT and the XL/XR models seemed to set the pace in my peer group. The writers at ADB - the Gods of Australian dirt bike riding - were still racing around the world on KTMs and Husqvarnas, but for those of us in the real world, Japanese bikes were still the go. I upgraded to a KLX250 and revelled in the success of Kawasaki worldwide. But I'll never forget the first time a saw an XR in the wild. The rider had nylons and jersey and everything, and his chain was all slack and running over roller things. Man! That bike looked horn! But ADB said it wasn't much chop. Suzuki's RMX and Yamaha's WR250 (technically "YZ250WR") were the real enduro bikes according to ADB. And the KDX was a revelation.

My memories of the early 1990s are of Doug Henry and Jeremy McGrath cleaning up on Hondas, but Kawasaki made a charge with a new KLX250 and the KLX650. Suzuki had pretty much faded from the front-running, especially with the camo-seated RMs and not really much of significance in the trail market (even though Kim Ashkenazi spanked everyone around that time on those RMs). Yamaha threw the TT-R into the market place and Honda continued to improve the XR, which was winning a lot enduros. Four-strokes weren't supposed to win things. Suzuki's DR600 and 650 were winning ardent admirers all over the planet as an adventure bike and the RMX was a firm favourite with hard-core enduro riders, but the XR600 was pretty much the first pick for the big-bore guys and the smaller XRs were gaining a lot of popularity thanks to Al Baker in the US and Geoff Ballard in Australia. Without realising it was happening, it suddenly seemed that there were XRs everywhere I looked. A series called the Thumper Nats kicked of in 1993 and it could almost have been designed to give the XR a chance to shine. Husqvarna was licking its lips because it had genuine, purpose-built four-stroke motocrossers, and at that time, no-one else did. I'll never forget Lyndon Heffernan pushing his TC across the finish line at Dargle in 1994. The Number One plate must've weighed a tonne. With Heffo and the two Cunningham brothers whopping freckle in the Thumper Nats, and riders like Mark Peacock stomping through enduros, Husky was flying high. It couldn't seem to convince trailriders, though, despite a sensational little WRE125. The WRE was an oil-injected 125cc two-stroke, and Man! I loved that bike! I never owned one, and it would've been difficult to justify haveing the WRE over the WR125, but it was a great bike.

Then, about the middle of the 1990s, there were a couple more landmark happenings. Jeff Leisk joined KTM and the Austrians started marking the orange bikes. Also, Yamaha came up with a YZ400 four-stroke and Doug Henry swapped from Honda to campaign it in the 250cc two-stroke class (the premier class in US motocross). It was kind of weird to have a four-stroke in the two-stroke class, and four-strokes weren't race bikes anyway, as we all knew. Four-strokes were farm bikes, or maybe trail bikes for old men who couldn't hack a two-stroke. Yamaha, we were all sure, had obviously lost touch with reality. Thanks to working in magazines, I spent most of that decade riding and racing, and I was happy to be on a Honda - two-stroke and four-stroke - for much of the time. Parts and technology were everywhere, and I was in good company. I raced and owned plenty of other brands as well. I had a Yamaha WR200 that was fabulous, and a season on a KTM200 which I'll never forget, but I remember spending a lot of happy time on Hondas.

KTM, meanwhile, seemed to snap into everyone's consciousness. The orange models - as opposed to the purple and white ones or, Dog forbid, the green and white ones of the early 1990s - were actually easy to ride. And they didn't fly to bits and fail at the first sign of inattention to maintenance. And they had a 200cc two-stroke which was an absolute joy. Not only did KTMs still suit hard-core racers, but they were fabulous trail bikes as well.

Whoever thought such a thing could happen?

Now I'm sitting here looking at Yamaha and KTM seemingly with the trail and race markets sewn up. If I want pics of other brands at trail rides I have to go looking for them.

But both Chad Reed and David Knight are looking like serious contenders at the very pinnacle of dirt bike racing on Kawasakis (injuries notwithstanding), and after Chad's and Ricky Carmichael's showing on Suzuki over the last few years, suddenly the yellow bikes are back in favour. I'm wondering how Suzuki sales will look in a couple of years if the new RMX proves a winner.

I'm not an historian. These are just personal observations, and as a youngster my observations were likely to have been very localised. Similarly, when I started working for bike magazines my observations were (and are) built around a smattering of narrow, insider knowledge. Honda felt last week's blog was hinting at some problem inside its organisation, but it wasn't. It was just saying I've seen the ebb and flow in the popularity of the bike marques. I've been seeing it all my life, and I bet I go on seeing it for many years to come.

I admit I felt all important to think someone at Honda had read the blog, though, and thought it was worth questioning it. That was pretty cool.

Okay, that's enough rambling from me today. The RMX press release is on Wednesday and Thursday this week, so check in. If I have anything interesting, or if I have the chance to do some video, I'll upload it straight away.

TF