DIRTBIKE

35

36

38

THE BACK END | 2015 KX85 V 1983 KX80 COMPARO

FUJI^

>37

>38

SPOILT

ROTTEN

Kids nowadays have it too easy! Cameron

Bell learns the hard way in this KX comparo

WORDS & PHOTOS // MITCH LEES

G

rommets, are you sick of

hearing the phrase “Back

in my day...”? Do your

parents like to remind you

how much harder they

had it when they were kids? Well, we’ve

put together a feature that will put to

rest all those claims. We don’t want to

encourage dissing your parents, but this

yarn could keep them at bay.

What if you could ride a bike that was

top of its class when your parents were

ankle biters, back in the 1980s, and

then hop straight on the latest version of

the same machine, the 2015 Kawasaki

KX85, that sports the same model name

and capacity and has claimed titles all

over the world?

We reckon it’s the best way to silence

the oldies, and the best way to compare

the bike your old man rode with the one

you ride. But, to give the 2015 model

a slight advantage we decided to run a

modifi ed KX85, much like you’d race

(who runs a bike in stock trim anyway?)

To get a fare assessment of both

machines we enlisted the help of

Cameron Bell, who rides a KX85. Cam

is not a front runner at the nationals but

can hold his own on a motocross track,

so his skill level should even the playing

fi eld and give us the best chance of an

unbiased outcome. Cam owns a 2015

KX85 (the one in this test) so he is

already familiar with the green machine.

ADB: What was your fi rst reaction when

you threw a leg over the 1983 KX80?

CAMERON BELL: When I sat on the

KX80 it felt higher than my KX85

because mine has been lowered. It was

higher, but the frame felt smaller than

mine. It was a whole different bike to the

KX85. My seat is chopped down so the

old seat felt a lot different. It was easy

1

2

3

4