Part 1: Where did all these mad bikes come from?

This site will cover the development of the GSXR, and the growth of superbikes from their source, including the infamous & hardcore 2-strokes, and the development & Era of first GSX-R, and the endless superbike era it created.

Also, I will have thrown in some TT highlights from TT 2011 when I followed the race closely,
and was routing for Guy Martin of course!!
The TT stuff is a bit more of an extreme cutting edge thing... But, of course it's a perfect example of just what these superbikes can really do.
The TT riders put their life on the line: Every time they go out, as it really is the ultimate test between man & machine, where nerves, skill, & engineering are all tested  pushed to the absolute limit on that course that even F1 riders stay away from!

During the 1970s and 1980s in London, which was basically: The Skol Bandit & Barry Sheene era,
I witnessed the development of the superbike develop into the full-on local street-craze that we see outside on our streets today... Most people think it all came from Japan, like the high-tech electronic
stuff... But, ironically, superbike 2-stroke technology did Not come from Japan at all. To find out exactly where it all came from..., read-on below.


Ever since 1962, thanks to the great man: Walter Kaaden at MZ Motorcycles, & his creation of a new type of 2-stroke engine, from East German Wartime technology, and not from Japanese technology, which the Japanese actually bought from Kaaden's apprentice & top rider: Ernst Degner, EVERYTHING CHANGED & the seed for the Superbike was sewn... Ernst Degner defected from East Germany leaving MZ & East Germany behind. He then went into hiding, only to be sought after by the Japanese keen to acquire Walter Kaaden's technology. Suzuki bought Walter Kaaden's technology from Degner, who stayed in hiding & continued racing, but later died in suspicious circumstances. (Source: Stealing Speed - Matt Oxley) The late 1970's & 1980's was era of the legendary Skoal Bandit 500 Gamma, followed by the Slab-side GSX-R bikes & the RD500 followed by the Yamaha FZR Genesis family...and of course the-ending flow of great Arai helmets everywhere!

It was nearly every day back then, when I would hear & see RG500s, Gixxers, including Skoal Bandit ones, and the 500 Gamma's competition bikes, the Yamaha RD500 YPVS, and the Honda NS400R...

Literally every day I would see these rippers caining up & down the A2, around south east London, up in central London sometimes down the strand towards Waterloo, and a lot across Blackheath, where the legendary "Burgerstand" is, which has been there for years, is open 24 hours a day & serves some great burgers & drinks. Some nights up at the Blackheath burger stand you can see some real hardcore race bikes lined up on the side of the heath whilst the riders grab a burger, before absolutely caning off back down the A2... When these bikers arrive at or leave the burger stand, you can hear them from about 2 kilometers  away! The heath has a fair strip of open road with just grass fields either side, so it's ideal to really open a bike for a few seconds...,before finding yourself back in built up traffic infested south east London again...

These blog pages will cover the best of the best motorbike products from: Suzuki , Honda, Yamaha & Kawasaki and also there will be links to Arai Helmets as well as many many photos of top superbike riders wearing the best Arai helmets, the latest Alpine Stars clothing & latest Sidi boots etc.

Being here in Japan brings back a lot of memories of the bikes I used to see every day & their sounds. Sometimes I am really woken up by the sound of a TZR250 or RGV250 or NS400 or an FZR1000, FZR400R or even a RZV500R\RD500!! They still have lots of these old school bikes here...and in really good condition..., I guess this is so because the weather is mostly warm here & all the main bike manufacturers are based here. At the same time of course I see a lot of very new superbikes & also some very well customized ones... Witness the Power & speed of the 500 Gamma from racing legend Kenny Roberts!!! There were loads of RD 125s and RG 125 Gammas & lots of RD 350 Power valves flying about London around the late 80's which were much faster than some of their counterparts today. These 2-stroke power bikes got a lot of attention, especially the 125s & the 250s as they were so popular. Now a scooter trend seems to have emerged for the smaller sized engines especially for young people. This however is a very small trend compared to in Japan where nearly everyone rides scooters & push-bikes! Sorry! Couldn't resist it!! For those of you old enough to remember these Ads: Ironically Skoal Bandit cigarettes were advertised on Suzuki bikes around the exact same period when Skol lager aired the above commercial for several years!!!

I went on the back of one of those 350 Powervalves in 1986 & witnessed the awesome speed of that acceleration when the bike hits 80MPH...I was looking over the riders shoulder as he hit the power-band & the needle on the speedo moved up seriously fast in about a second and a half... The sound of that bike was, like most RD & RZR 250 & 350 YPVS bikes, was just amazing!!! I will never forget it..., and that's why it's just so good to hear that sound nowadays when I hear & spot an RZR rippin it down the expressway here, or a TZR or RGV250...the old 2-strokes just sound so much better!!! The acceleration & speed of these old school 250cc bikes & even 125cc's makes their modern counterparts today look like a joke! ..bring back the Old School 2-strokes!!!

In London with both big and small bikes I always remember riders opening up the bikes any time they got some open road or no traffic after the lights.....But here in Japan no one rides like that at all in the cities...as there are just too many folks around (massive population) and they rarely get any open road because of this. The hardcore riders here tend to go up in the mountains to let loose & rip it on the latest & even the oldest sports bikes...
This next pic of a rider all in red with his Ducati 1098 was caining it through the Kyoto mountains near Kameoka, where I met him outside a convenience store & he told me that this is where most riders go. His other bike he told me was a 500 Gamma. I hope I see him on it & can get some pics & video! Nice Arai resting on his seat too!

On my daily travels here I still see the odd NSR or NS400R bike about & that brings back memories of NS400's & RD500's & Powervalves racing around London...

Sometimes I even see some of the old Rothmans coloured NSR's too and keep expecting to see an RGV whiz past it...!!! And yes there are lots of RGV bikes still about here, which are always a pleasure to see & hear & photo if I get the chance. Honda NSR's like these two are still a common site here in Japan, and I have seen a fair amount of them both parked up and riding in and around Kyoto and Osaka and even sometimes up in the mountains around Kyoto!

Check out the video below of the ultimate 500cc legends battle of Gammas, YZR's & NSR's at Suzuka race circuit in 1991!!!
Usually up in the mountains I see Suzuki Hayabusas, Honda CBR1000RR Fireblades, Yamaha YZF-R1 bikes and Suzuki GSX-R 600's, 750's and 1000's, Ducatis, Yamaha WR's and Suzuki DRZ's raging through the winding roads and ripping it up the straights....but occasionally I see the odd Honda NSR250 or even NSR125!...along with the odd Yamaha RZR350, RZ250R, or Suzuki RG250 Gamma or RGV250 Gamma. At the moment Yamaha TZR bikes ares till popular here in Japan & sometimes I come across the odd collector which is great to see. The TZR250R bikes from the early 1990's seem to be particularly prestigious & here are a few shots I have gathered when out and about...also, and quite refreshingly, theft is not very common at all here in Kyoto & Osaka, so it is normal to see Arai helmets just left on the tanks of bikes here outside shops & shopping malls...and no nobody touches them!

This guy had a great collection of RD!, TZR and RZR bikes: This well maintained TZR250R was a real breath of fresh air after riding down a road packed with scooters & push-bikes!

The condition of this early 90's bike was just phenomenal! I took these pics last summer in Osaka & some of the parts on this bike with the "Pure 2 stroke spirit" theme looked brand new!!! To see this level of care & maintenance is great!! Witness the speed & two stoke power of the TZR here:

And just the other week I saw this rare R1Z250 in Kyoto. Never saw these in London.

Check out the insane acceleration of the RGV250 Gamma in the video below: In some of the big bike shops here & even in some of the smaller dealers, you can still pickup lots of great condition old school bikes. Last November I came across some great rare bikes mixed in alongside the latest good stuff!!

This bike shop was up in the mountains in the town of Umahori in the outskirts of Kyoto, and the guys there had some amazingly good conditioned old & new bikes. I was lucky enough to find the extremely rare (well in England anyway!): GSX-R400!! And the staff were great there, and even brought the bike outside the shop for me in the sun so I could get a better look at it & get some great pics!

I think I maybe saw one of these in the UK in the late 80's or early 90's and that was in Motorcycle News!!! These were seriously rare on the street, and although as always I used to & still do see lots of GSX-R750's & 1000's and now 600's...., I never saw these awesome smaller GSX-R400's. Maybe they just weren't popular in London...

It's not uncommon to find car parks here full of history outside bike shops..., which is also a great opportunity for yours truly to take get some great pics and then sit back with a beer or a coffee in sheer admiration & sometimes politely ask the some of the riders if they actually realize just how rare or new their bikes are. These next few pics below this silver GSX-R400 are examples of this car park history.

1999 GSX1300R Hayabusa

And sometimes I'm faced with sheer technical beauty from Japan like these Gixxers & Busa below! Checkout the Yoshi pipe on the white Gixxer parked outside!:

And look at this Manga Gixxer 1000!! & Old school Bling Ninja below the Manga Gixxer...

This old & new bikes at the same time thing is like a journey back in time with the future sitting right next to it!!!

Being here seeing all this together is like living in a parallel dimension!!! But I love it!, as it shows you what life can offer sometimes with a bit oil & good maintenance...!! Maybe it's due to the population sheer size here that will not let old trends die easily... Most people drive slowly in built up areas on superbikes..., but I still see the odd nutter just obliterate the road & fully open up as soon he sees an open path...and then it's just a question of whether I can get my camera out in time!!!

CBRXX1100...

And a seriously Fat wheel on a Blinged out ZZR1400!

...Old school Slingshot 750!

...and a New School CBR250R

And here we have Old Beast & New Beast!!!

Followed by Road Runner!!!

Now for some input from Superbike Engineer: Switch.

A landmark in global superbike history & the bike that coined the phrase "Race Replica", which is the GSX-R 750F 1985, not to be confused with the G or H, the F has 3 Gills in the side of the fairing and 3 bolts that hold the top cowl to the side fairings, the G & H only have 2 bolts and no gills. Now, I said the GSX-R 750F was a landmark in "Global" superbike history, as it was exactly that in 1985, however, in Japan this was not the case; as they had launched their "own" GSX-R a year before in 1984 & we hardly new!!! It was exclusively released in Japan only, and of course exported in rare small numbers later. This Baby Slabby: The GSX-R 400, at the time, was just referred to as: The GSX-R, and quite rightly too!, as it was about to become a legend!!! Also, it is no surprise to learn that it was the best-handling & fastest 400cc bike ever made in the world. Here it is in all its' splendor. From the side, it looks like an RG250!:

The GSX-R750 and GSX-R1100 The phrase race-replica was bandied about a lot when the first GSX-R was launched in 1985. This was a mistake, the smaller GSX-R was not a race-replica, it was a racer: period. It even looked like the factory endurance racer on which various components had been developed.
The GSX-R didn't make any more power than its competitors, both the Suzuki and the FZ750 Yamaha claimed to make 100bhp and the 900cc GPZ Kawasaki made 115bhp, it was the fact the thing only weighed 388Ibs & that made it so amazing. The old saying goes that the most expensive thing to add to a bike is lightness, but Suzuki managed it with a combination of lightweight components, oil cooling, and a decided lack of creature comforts.

The frame weighed only 18Ibs without the swinging arm and wrapped around a motor that was pared down to the minimum possible weight thanks to oil cooling. Five-and-a-half litres of the stuff were pumped around the cylinder head and cooled in a big radiator thus enabling all the top-end components to be as light as possible.

On the road, the GSX-R felt like a racer. A third of the power arrived between 7000 and 9000 rpm, the flat-slide carbs didn't like being snapped open at low revs, and the chassis was very, very sensitive. If you twitched so did the bike, despite the unfashionably large 18-inch front wheel.

I once took my left hand off the bars on one of the first GSX-Rs to look over my shoulder and was rewarded with a lock-to-lock tank-slapper. I was on one of London's major arterial roads at the time... By contrast the first of the 1100cc GSX-Rs had all of the technology, lack of weight and race-track cred of the 750, but it was astoundingly civilised. The twitchiness was gone, the fussy carburation banished. In its place was a massively powerful yet very usable if slightly plain sports tourer that could hustle when asked.

After all, this is still a race-track bred machine we're talking about - it just didn't seem like it. The GSX750F Katana model Over the years the 750 GSX-R was tamed whereas the 1100 got less civilised. The J-model 750 of 1988 was the first to get the Slingshot designation - actually a reference to a new carburettor design.

Solid input there from the man himself, Switch. I will always remember the GSXR-1100 as the King of the road back in 1987... and low & behold guess what I saw in Osaka the other day:

And here is the legendary beast the GSX-R1100 in action!:
















To get the most out of this site, and get the latest scoop from Japan & around the world, and, yes: Japan will always be years ahead in bike technology & so many other things period, feel free to navigate the through the pages below, to see just how much things changed after Japan developed the GSX-R in the early 1980's and never looked back.



 Great Deals on Goodies Here!!!

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Alpine Stars Deals!


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Alpinestars Scheme Kevlar Motorcycle Motorbike Gloves Black new M 
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Alpinestars Gravity Cycling Long Finger Glove - White/Red, X-Small 
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Awesome Alpine Stars Boots!!!

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Dainese Stuff! 

Dainese 1735114 Air Frame Tex Jackets, Black, Size 58 
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