I drive my classic motorcycle as daily transport. And sometimes I do quite a few miles. That led to my trusty old Moto Guzzi having some deferred maintenance. And actually a bit tired. More
What Yamaha succeeded so wonderfully with the XS 650 line, that also got Suzuki thinking. There was still a demand for and a market for 'classic' parallel twins after the English example. Only the general opinion was that to be happy with that… at least you don't have to have a British twin. The Yamaha XS 650 line became legendary and iconic. But if you proudly report that you own a Suzuki GR(D) 650 'Tempter'. Then misunderstanding is your part. Oh, yes: Suzuki's own British twin was just launched too late to be a success. More
If you are a trader, you are silent about your purchase prices. If you're not a trader, you can be a little more open-minded. So you may all know that the purchase of the extremely rare Yamaha XZ550 started with the comment from friend Kees van Rumpt that he had run into a motorcycle that could go for any serious offer above 150 euros. I offered 151 euros and an apple tart. Then there was the ride to Dirksland vv. More
We last saw each other only about fifteen years ago: the extremely amiable and skilled Mang Yuan as Mister Yamaha showed at that time that there were also good managers. He had been a genetic motorcyclist and for years Yamaha's PR man in the Netherlands and then did the accessories and parts and the project development for the brand with the crossed tuning forks. More
It's all 'water under the bridge', but 'earlier' the motorcycle world was different. The motorcycles still had a lot to learn and the people who worked for the importers were not yet very standardized. There was still plenty of room for improvement and characters. More
We can't get out of it. We get older and classics get younger. Of course it is 100% understandable for 60 +ers to have a Triumph Bonneville or Honda CB 750 OHC can be found at the top. But for the later born, that machine doesn't have the spell it did for us. In the meantime, the Yamaha FJ 1200 has been made from 1986 to 1993. And that was quite a few weeks ago. More
Okay. There are more brilliant puns made. But still… Sachs. For the over-XNUMXs and early seventies, Sachs was a world-leading manufacturer of single-cylinder two-strokes. We / they may also remember that playboy Günther Sachs who had a relationship with Brigitte Bardot. He committed suicide. But that wasn't out of heartbreak. He was suffering from Alzheimer's and wanted to forget it. More
The seventies were the peak years in the short history of the two-stroke. At the end of that period, in 1979, Yamaha introduced the ultimate two-stroke street fighter: the Yamaha RD 350 LC (1979-1983). More
We talked about the legendary self-made techie Cees Fick Auto Motor Klassiek already an impressive article. The man who actually used a textile factory as an alibi for his passion took advantage of what was there and then did his own thing with it. That started with mounting Matchless cylinders […] More
Yamaha has an impressive two-stroke history And the provisional (?) end of that was the Yamaha RD350 LC YPVS. LC stood for liquid cooled. Liquid cooled. We will return to the YPVS. The Yamaha was a cheetah in wolf's fur. The Yamaha RD350 LC – with a conventional exhaust system – was the basis of the story […] More
Recently, fellow villager Theo Terwel found a crated BMW R80 G/S. In Leende there is a Harley Sportster with the same number of kilometers at Joppen motorcycles among the recent used cars. Rob Remmerswaal from Wezup has an XS650 that has never had a wet tank and we know a man who keeps twenty+ motorcycles in their cardboard or […] More
Two-Stroke vs Four-Stroke: Yamaha In the XNUMXs, there was a jihad between four-stroke and two-stroke riders. Just look at the Joe Bar Team's first album. Then we are not talking about endearing free-range animals such as the then dated Jawas, but about Japanese two-strokes. Motorcycles like musical instrument manufacturer Yamaha – think of the […] More
