MY LCS by Jon Bentman
I had two, maybe three LCS back in the 1980s. Two 350LC road bikes, I think (I have pictures somewhere of an earlier white ‘Bounty’ example and later black three-stripe – but it might be just the one bike as I recall changing the bodywork on one bike). And a 250LC proddie racer: I loved them dearly.
The proddie racer got a Stan Stephens cylinder porting job (£200); a steering damper (Kawasaki type – £25); off-the-shelf rear-sets; and (after a crash) ace bars. I knew next to nothing about mechanics, but that didn’t seem to matter, I could drain the liquid coolant (water only in the racer), remove the barrels, slip in new rings, maybe pistons as well, and have the thing rebuilt ready to go again in an evening – usually a Friday evening before Saturday race day (running-in took place between paddock and grid). They were Lego-simple to work on.
All three got race tyres – yeah, I rode Dunlop KR124S on the road as well as the track! Always second-hand buys, they lasted 1000 miles on the road, but they meant you could corner down to the pegs with full confidence – back then well-scraped foot-pegs were the equivalent of the well-scraped knee slider today.
The LCS made way, eventually, for a TZR and YPVS, then I went four-stroke, 600-7501000, as you do. But dammit, I should have kept at least one of those LCS. They taught me so much about motorcycling, on road and track. And now catching up with this one – Niall’s beautifully fettled LC – I find they are as engaging and wonderful now as they were then. It looks as it rides: beautiful, truly beautiful.