High noon for 250s
The end was nigh, yet the stream of rapid 250 strokers continued. Mat Oxley, who raced them in the ’80s at the Isle of Man, recalls the breath-taking buzz of it all
THE 1980S WERE the beginning of the end for two-strokes. Ever-tighter emissions legislation would eventually ban two-stroke road bikes, which in turn led to the demise of two-stroke race bikes. The Japanese factories knew what was coming and decided to make hay while the sun shone, through the two-stroke haze. Yamaha built the RD500LC, Suzuki the RG500, Honda the NS400R. And then they were gone, leaving only the 250s.
But what jewels these machines these were – the pinnacle of three decades of two-stroke development, turbocharged by Japan’s 1980s biking boom and its 250cc licence limit.
It started in 1981, with the water-cooled RD250LC, the machine which, along with its 350cc big brother, launched thousands of bikers into racing and even more into hospital. I bought mine with a bank loan. “Why do you need the money?” asked the manager. “I need a reliable bike to get to work,” I replied, before rushing home to prep the little beauty for its first race at Snetterton.
The development curve from there was precipitously steep. Suzuki responded with the RG250, which deposed the LC as quickly as the LC had ousted Suzuki’s air-cooled X7 of the late 1970s. And then Kawasaki’s KR-1, Honda’s NS250R, Yamaha’s TZR250, Suzuki’s RGV250, the NSR250R and a reverse-cylinder TZR, all created primarily for the Japanese market.
I found myself in the middle of this madness, contesting the Isle of Man proddie TT – for showroom-spec road bikes – from 1984 to 1989, on an RG, then an NS, then a TZR, then a year I try to forget on an FZR400R and finally that achingly beautiful reverse-cylinder TZR.
The competition between Japan’s Big Four for the lucrative quarter-litre market had engineers working flat-out for years, so the rate of improvement in performance was remarkable. At the 1984 TT, I averaged 94.84mph on an RG; in 1985 I did 98.74 on an NS, enough to win the race; and in 1987 I did 101.53 on a TZR, the first ton-up score by a 250 proddie bike.
I geared the TZR for around 130mph – against the stock 118mph – because it happily pulled that gearing coming down the Mountain, where you can make a lot of time.
Bear in mind that these days TT lap and race records often go unbroken for several years, because the development curve has risen and risen and finally flattened out. In the 1980s it was still heading for the stars, with engine, chassis and tyre technology improving at a dizzying rate, which is what turned so many people onto sports bikes.
The FZR400 I raced in 1988 highlighted how wonderful the 250s were. The four-cylinder four-stroke made 60 horsepower – 15 more than the TZR, but it was bigger and heavier with zero torque. And no faster around the Mountain course; OK, exactly 0.1mph faster. I hated the FZR because it was much less fun to ride, which is why I went back to a 250 – the reverse-cylinder TZR, for my last TT in 1989.
I also raced 250 GP bikes in the early 1980s and in 1985 I got to test arguably the greatest 250 of them all – Freddie Spencer’s NSR250, with which he won the ’85 250 world title – at Suzuka, Japan. I’ve ridden 500 GPS and Motogp bikes, but when I go to heaven (ha!) all I want to ride around God’s own race track is a 250 GP bike. They are the perfect race machine and it’s a crying shame they’re extinct.
Same with those 250 road bikes, because there’ll probably never be another high-performance lightweight to match them. Sorry, I’m welling up...