Different Strokes

2 strokes

There must be many bikers, these days, who have never ridden a 2 stroke powered machine. I pity those poor souls. I started my motorcycle life on a underpowered 2 stroke moped and I could not recommend that particular abomination to anyone. In later life however I did get my hands on many more exciting smokers. The thing about 2Ts is that they are extremely simple with only about three moving engine parts, when designed correctly they are excellent fun. The power delivery is unique requiring the rider to fully engage in order to extract the maximum from their ride.The powerband is small, impossibly tiny, covering a couple of thousand revs. You have to concentrate. Being in the wrong gear will deliver the performance of an asthmatic snail get it right and you will be rewarded with an exhilarating roller coaster ride. Select first, build the revs, drop the clutch and take off like the proverbial scolded cat. Don't relax, a nano second later you're grabbing another gear, no clutch, slight pressure on the gear lever, slam the throttle shut and immediately grab another handful as the gear snicks into place. Repeat this pattern until you run out of gears, road or talent.

Until relatively recently all GP bikes were 2 strokes, they were basically banned for being a polluting health hazard. They were a health hazard alright but mostly to their riders, this was due to the on/off nature of their power delivery. Get your timing wrong and the bike would viciously spit you off into the scenery with absolutely no warning. Most racers seemed to love them and hate them in equal measure. They were highly strung and so were the bikes.

So when you hear some ageing racer banging on about how difficult these beast were to ride don't take the piss out of the old fart. He's lucky to be alive.