Hello to all 2 stroke enthusiasts! This is my story about my love affair with them.
Working my way up from a couple of RXS100s (first one written off, broken leg, lessons learned) I had a RD350LC way back when I was 20, and always regretted selling it to buy a ploddy GPZ550, which I then sold to get an even more boring car. Four strokes always seemed dull to me, with their sensible power bands. Like sitting down at a gig rather than jumping around in the mosh. Over the years I've not had the money or opportunity to get another bike due to surprising myself with a family. Now the kids are almost grown up, I negotiated with the wife that I would get a bike in exchange for her getting another cat. There was only one I wanted - another RD350LC. Well, obviously I wouldn't say no to a RD500LC or Gamma, but they are a bit out of reach, price-wise. I bought a tidy looking one for £6,500 from a bloke just after Christmas 2022 and took it home.
It was obvious that the previous owners were bodgers - screws that were too long, the wrong side stand and other bits and bobs. The front brake was spongey to the point of being useless. The bloke said the brakes needed bleeding. Turns out the master cylinder needed bleeding replacing because it was the wrong bleeding one.
So, with my newly-found ability to stop, I took her out for a test ride. It ran like a dog - barely revving past 4K. OK, you can't actually rev a dog at all, but not many similes stand up to close scrutiny. It was nice to be out and about, even if I was being overtaken by cyclists. Then the clutch stopped working about 3 miles out. The lever went to the bar with no resistance and the clutch stayed engaged. I assumed the cable had snapped or come off. Riding back wasn't too bad because you don't need a clutch to change gears on a bike. The difficult bit was when I had to stop. You do need a clutch to go from 0 MPH to anything over 0 MPH. Or you need to push the bike and get it going fast enough that it doesn't stall when you slam it into first. Luckily I managed to find a bit of downhill to get some speed up and made it back without stopping again.
The clutch cable seemed fine. The mechanism that pushes the clutch rod in was fine. Weird. I drained the oil and took the cover off to get to the clutch itself. It looked OK, so I gave the rod a little push. The clutch fell off. The whole fucking clutch just fell off. The whole fucking clutch just fell off on to the garage floor. I stood there for a couple of minutes trying to remember if maybe this was supposed to happen?
