The head-scratching yesterday bore fruit and the big Susie cracked into life by lunchtime today after a spot of soldering. Some previous owner had got carried away when they removed the troublesome alarm and took out one wire too many. She’s fine now and my reward will be to take my mate’s other bike for a spin.
A Ducati Diavel – fingers crossed for a dry day tomorrow —
I will probably fit perfectly on the 162bhp Ducati Diavel which is more than I could hope for on this lovely little V Twin GP Yamaha that I helped to finish off this afternoon —
She is a jewel of a thing. A ‘V’-twin twostroke – she’s so light compared with anything else out there. It’s a crying shame they stopped them racing in GPs.
A rev counter and a temperature gauge is all you have to bother about —
Just keep nicking in the gears —
It even has an idiot’s guide to the shift pattern printed on the swingarm – must be for the American market 🙂
Top class suspension —
She has an exup valve on the exhaust port of each cylinder —
Controlled from here – the valves start to open around 7000rpm but that like everything else on the bike is adjustable —
Gull arm swingarm makes room for the expansion chambers —
and ofcourse slick tyres are de rigeur —
but there’s no chance of me twisting this in anger — I would need to be a tiny Danny Pedrosa size to tuck away on this little bike 🙂
There’s no race series for the 2009 bike at the moment so she’s being fettled ready for a trackday at Jerez race circuit down near Gibraltar in two weeks time. Takes me back – feels like only yesterday – but 17 years ago I was down there with the 500 Grand Prix boys and their strokers when Scwantzie – Doohan & Co were ruling the roost.
My team on that occasion shared a pit (garage) at the circuit with the legendary American ex-World Champion, Wayne Rainey. Wayne had suffered a broken back in a horrific accident and was making a come-back as the wheel-chair bound Manager of the Works Yamaha team. They were funded by the Marlboro millions while we got by on a wing and a prayer.
So that was the 2009 Yamaha 250 GP bike. The TZ350 on the right is from 20 years before that even and is being prepped for another season in ICGP racing on the old GP circuits of Europe.
A really tough series getting tougher each year as more ex-GP riders return to the saddle with fast – well prepared bikes under them. Two races per meeting and nine meetings per year are hard on the old TZ350s requiring constant fettling and bike development is ongoing. The 30 bike isn’t just making up the numbers – she has been 2nd in the European Championship for three years in a row and last year was leading going into the last race of the season only for an unfortunate break down to rob the team of the 2011 championship.
Susie & Co
from-a-distance 