To Rutland for breakfast
18 miles: causing tailbacks on a frosty morning…
How quickly the years fall away. It’s 8.30am on a bright, crisp Sunday morning and I’m overjoyed to discover not only a kickstart but also a carburettor with manual choke on the Kurz RT1. There’s a four-stroke pop-pop from the exhaust rather than the two-stroke ring-ding of my youth, but I’m 16 again. With more tub and less hair.
More memories of my formative years are generated by our early start. It’s less than 20 miles to our rendezvous with the Langs at Mcdonald’s (we’re fully embracing being teens) and we’re not meeting until 10am, but with a fuel stop planned on the way we’re allowing plenty of time. This is something I love about small bikes – you have to think about the journey more, and become immersed in the ride rather than just focusing on the destination.
First impressions of the Kurz are good. It’s a supermoto style device, with a Honda Cub inspired engine and four-speed gearbox, that’s compact, with 14 inch wheels, and nicely made. In China, obviously. Details such as the machined alloy yokes, forged levers and powder-coated frame aren’t what I expected on a 1600-quid moped. It flicks around excitedly on its diddy wheels and the horizontal 49cc motor is willing, with an edgy bark from the high-level pipe. It makes me feel mischievous. It’s quickly apparent that little separates the performance of this bike and the 125-scale Yamasaki F30 that’s easily coping with Ed’s six-foot frame. The Yamasaki is also powered by a Honda Cub lookalike motor, but it’s fitted into a frame that’d happily house a bigger motor.
The Kurz can hold speed better up hill, the Yamasaki a little swifter on descents (‘It’s indicating over 40mph!’), and there’s nowt in it on the flat. And so we’re soon in a highly entertaining game of drafting, rude hand signals and drawnout overtakes. It’s joyous riding alongside and seeing his face beaming back. I’m not sure the trail of traffic that’s behind us on the double-white-lined climb up the A606 out of Melton Mowbray is as amused.
We arrive at the fast food establishment, do a couple of noisy laps of the car park to show everyone how cool we are and fall straight into excited babble about the ride. Despite my ability to be 20 minutes late for everything we appear to be the first here, so head inside where Ed shows me how to use those big touchscreens to order something oozing cheese and calories.