54 amcn.com.au
SUZUKI RG500
In good company
SMALL-BORE TWO-strokes have been the staple
of motorcycling since the dawn of time: often
smelly and usually wreathed in a cloud of
smoke, the engines were cheap to produce, easy
to maintain and delivered good power – but
were environmentally ruinous.
As a result, traditional two-stroke engines
have been phased out, and most notably in
motorcycle grand prix racing. Who can forget
the fearsome wail of a TZ750?
But as streetbikes, the last century was
blessed with bikes like Yamaha’s sweet RD250,
350 and 400 twins, Kawasaki’s tidy KR-1,
Suzuki’s RG250 Gamma and more recently,
Cagiva’s Mito and Aprilia’s RS125 and RS250
racer for the road.
Most of these were twins – the 125cc varients
were single-cylinder affairs and only Yamaha
with its RD500 (pictured, above) and Suzuki’s
Gamma took big-bore two-strokes to the logical
production-bike race-replica max: 500cc fours.
Honda’s toe-in-the-water NS400 triple orphan
defied their continued focus on four-stroke
technology. Kawasaki’s two-stroke KH400,
500 and 750cc triples a decade earlier earned a
reputation for evil handling, while Suzuki’s air-
cooled GT380, GT550 and water-cooled GT750
were respectable roadbikes without a sporting
bone in their candy-apple painted bodies.
While the RZ500 beat the Gamma onto
dealership f loors, it too had disappointing sales
between its introduction in 1984 and its demise
in 1986: roughly 6800 were built. It was heavier
(178kg), made less power (64.2kW) and used
a 50-degree twin-crank V4 (essentially two
TZR250s very close together), which needed
a power-stealing balancer shaft. Not even
Bimota’s fabulous but fraught V-Due 500 could
tempt buyers into a smoky blue haze.impressed enough to let me race his bike for the
rest of the season.
I bought a crashed RG500 from Bike Centre in
Adelaide for $2000, rebuilt my RG and got myself
out of debt. These days, I wish I never sold that
bike and when the chance came up to ride a similar
machine, I couldn’t turn it down.Fast forward 30 years
You may have seen the article we did on crazy
front ends last year (AMCN Vol 67 No 04) where we
compared a couple of unconventional Aussie-built
front ends at Wakefield Park, NSW. Alan King, one
of the bike’s owners, got talking to Editor Dobie and
it turned out he had an RG500 which he still rode
regularly. We negotiated a trackday on the bike to
see if my old memories matched modern realities,
and to see how the bike has stood the test of time.
Alan’s bike is a really nice, clean example of the
RG; although touted as a racer on its release, Alan
has been using his for touring. He finds it comfy,
great for his wife to sit on the back of and easy to
fit luggage to – which completely contradicts the
manufacturer’s design brief. It’s never been on a
track before, so a big thanks to Alan for putting his
trust in AMCN.
The first thing you notice is there’s no electric
start. You need to sit on the bike, open the fuel taps
and play with the left handlebar-mounted choke
while giving it a big kick to get it humming, but once
those four cylinders chime in, there’s a magical
symphony of noise. There’s no taking off straight
away either – it needs to be warm and you must be
careful not to load it up, so giving it a blip every 10
seconds or so clears its throat. The throttle is quite
heavy – no fly-by-wire here – just the cables pulling- What a difference three
decades makes: the RG
shows its age next to Josh
Waters’ championship-
winning GSX-R1000R - Steve takes the outside
line around AIR - The underseat exhausts
are from the rear cylinder
bank while the lower ones
snake under the engine
from the front
When the
chance came up
to ride a similar
machine, I
couldn’t turn it
down
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