Quick Ride: High Revvin’ Fun
Some scooters cry out to be ridden hard and as Stan discovered, this RB-powered Lambretta is more than willing to oblige…
Some scooters cry out to be ridden hard and as Stan discovered, this RB-powered Lambretta is more than willing to oblige.
Originally built in 2012 by tuning supremo John Balcomb, this Indian GP was first featured back in edition 308. Although it wasn’t intended, its stunning paint scheme would inadvertently become JB’s ‘house scheme’. Thankfully, the paint remains untouched, but that’s about all that’s left from its previous incarnation. Although the spanner work is mostly by Brad, the hand of JB can still be felt throughout the machine so it’s still very much a JB ‘Dealer Special’.
The heart of this beast is, of course, the engine which reads 33bhp on JB’s dyno. Built on Indian casings, the whole system revolves around an RB25 kit which JB has fettled to his own recipe. The addition of a LTH 62x116 crank boosts the kit’s cubic capacity further, and a 35mm flatslide Mikuni feeds in fuel via a set of V-Force 4 reeds. A Bullet exhaust manipulates the burnt gasses and a Rimini Lambretta Centre Cyclone 5 gearbox transmits all that power to the road via a cassette clutch. There can be no doubt that it’s an impressive specification, but what’s it like to ride?
Keep on Runnin’
Once kicked into life the first thing I notice is the crisp exhaust note. The Superstrong clutch is obviously high performance, but the effort required to activate sits just on the right side of comfortable. One test of a well-set-up engine isn’t just how it performs at the top end, but also how easy it is to ride at low revs, and this RB is surprisingly docile at low speeds. Once on the open road it’s a different matter. Snap open the throttle and it responds instantly, a real ‘thump in the chest’ experience. When I stop to talk to Brad I’m grinning from ear to ear, but he asks why I’m taking things gently. With his assurance that the engine doesn’t stop until 10,000rpm he tells me to “Give it the beans” and I oblige. The SIP speedo shows crazy numbers, but the engine’s happiest at around 8,500rpm and easily pulls 5th gear. The Cyclone
gives crisp gear selection and movement on the twist change feels similar to that of a four-speed box. If I’ve any criticism it’s that the gap between third and fourth feels slightly long, but that really is splitting hairs. This is the first scooter I can recall riding with Tino Sacchi’s Targa Line suspension both front and rear, and I was impressed with the smoothness of the ride. The shocks also gave just the right amount of feedback to let me know exactly what was going on. I noticed a flat spot at around 4500 revs, but the motor had more than enough torque to pull through it. After the test, JB suggested fitting a Casatronic ignition and Brad says this has eliminated the flat spot completely. That man Balcomb knows his stuff…
Something for the weekend?
Prior to the test Brad told me that he GPS’d the RB at 85mph, in 4th gear, on the straight at Monza… just as he was changing up to 5th! I’m usually sceptical of such claims, but however hard I tried it was hard to make the engine complain, it just wanted to rev and then rev some more. Long-distance touring isn’t this engine’s natural environment, it’s just too energetic for comfortable mile crunching. However, as a weekend screamer it’s hard to imagine any engine more willing to please or a scooter that’s more fun to ride.