I had a '69 H1 and a '73 RD350. The H1 had scary acceleration, but the RD350 handled like a dream, could scrape the pegs in a corner with no worries. The H1 was not known for its handling.
I had a 72 H1 in 78 which could beat my buddy's Yamaha 650 twin. He bought a brand new Yamaha 750 Triple, and I still beat him. Pissed him off, made me smile.
Had an H1 and would regularly beat my buddy who had his Honda 750 punched out to a 900! And I still kicked his ass on my little 500. But let's be honest, the 500's were only 2-10's of a second slower through the quarter-mile. So if you could beat someone on a 750, you could still take them on a 500!
Love the is video. When I was in my twenties I had a 1969 H1 and my friend Scott had an RD 350. This reminds me of the times we rode over highway 9 in the Santa Cruz mountains. He handled way better but the H1 would catch him the in the straights. Great memories. Thanks
I had a '73 Kawasaki 500cc and it would scream. Great acceleration and there was a 20-30 mile of interstate I frequented where I'd roll on the throttle, hit the passing lane and just pass everything rolling.
Had (and still have) a 72 Kawasaki 500 Pearl Candy tone Orange , neighbor had a 72, 750, Blue in color. Lots of great riding growing up as a kid in Montana. Zip off the prairie up through Glacier Park, around Flathead lake, through the Seely Swan, Clearwater Jct, back through Lincoln, over Rogers pass, Bauman's Corner, Augusta, Choteau and back to Dutton. Back then the speed limit during the day was "Reasonable and Prudent", don't recall ever being either....... Sleeping bag and a pup tent, if we got a late start........Fabulous memories!!!!
OMG! I was 16nagain! Memories of me on my H1 and my best friend on his S2. The difference being, our front wheels spent a lot less time on the pavement! LOVE IT!
1984, my brother had a totally built rd350 and I had an h2 with chambers. I’d lose him on the straights and he’d reel me in through the corners. I bet I could take him in fist fight still. I’m gonna give him call.
Those country roads look awesome to rip around on! Great bikes and excellent riding. Reminds me of riding my Rd400 and racing around with my brother on his Kawasaki Kh400. Let the good times roll!
That Kawasaki wasn't even trying, the front wheel didn't even come up, which was the default position for those bikes. I owned a 500 and 750 triple back in the 70s and nothing on the road had anything for them.
I once drove an RD 350 torque induction and thought it was very fast , however the 500 mach sounded and looked amazingly quick! It was the one of the best sounding two stroke oil burners of all time!! Wish I had the chance to drive one back in the day!! Great video by the way. Cheers from Scotland.
It's no wonder why these '60's era 2-strokes that sold new, in the day, for well under a thousand US, are now pulling 5-10 grand minimum in all original, good condition. When the Mach III came out in '69, it retailed in California for exactly $999.oo out the door. One dollar short of a grand with an unheard of 60 hp. If the Honda 750-Four was the world's first "superbike", the Mach3 was the world's first hooligan bike and genuine "streetfighter". I think the 1973 RD350 Yam went for a little under nine hundred bucks retail.
+Eric Mowrey I rode one back in the day. Long story shorter, I raced and beat a 750 honda and at the next light the Honda rider told me he had $1,200 in performance engine work, I told him my Mach III was stock and only cost $999.
@@theriddler6227 Lemme tell ya, as a former Honda shop employee, the 1969 and 1970 Honda Four was nearly as quick, or AS quick, as the Mach III stock. If he put $1,200 in engine work (the entire Honda bike sold for only $300 more than the engine work cost!!) into that bike, someone didn't know wtf they were doing! $1,200 in engine work would take that Honda 4 into the 10s@over 125mph in the quarter. It would run away, hide, and if it could drink, pop a beer and get a few swallows down before that Mach III rode into view. Either this dude couldn't ride, the engine shop that put $1,200 worth of engine work into it butchered the job, or I call TOTAL BULLSHIT!!!!
@@milojanis4901 Honda 750-4 vs. Kawa 500 triple. The Honda has 50% more cubic capacity than the Mach 111 and still can't beat it in a race. Says somethin' for 2-strokes I'd say..
Exactly and I had all three the 71 500 first then the 72 750 and last the 73 z1 900 man I miss them. My best friend was killed on his 74 500 though. I miss him also. Ride safe.
Had an 74 H2 that I bought at the dealership I worked at and raced an RD 350 belonging to a friend of mine ,he was right beside me up to about 90 MPH then the H2's HP would show up .I also had 2 more gears to go thru . Now the old H2 is rather slow.The H1's were nasty ,it felt like someone hit you from be hide when they hit 6000 rpm. We rebuilt a few that the driver could not hold onto and it pulled away without him. Great stuff!!
I bought a 70 HI in 1971 for 600.00. Rode it for a year while in Texas with the Marines And the most impressive thing is I'm still here. Lots of fun but it was a chainsaw on wheels that liked to do wheelies on it's own.
Great bikes. I had the H1. Always wanted an RD. Of course the H1 was faster (look at her scoot!) but the Yamaha 250/350 won way more AMA and GP titles than any bike ever. Wish I had one of each. 😅
London Road, Glasgow. Very late 60s, I guess it'd have to be 69 or so. Summer time. Just came out of Bill Fleming's shop with something like clutch plates for the old A10 Beeza I had at the time. This stranger guy walks over to this funny-lookin' Japanese thing with two megas up one side (at the time the H1 was only seen in Motor Cycle Nudes etc, not in the flesh.) He mounts up, kicks over with NO effort at all - unlike the Brit 650 twins that usually took a man sized boot to kick them over - it tinkles into life sounding like half a dozen Yam Fizzies, he hooks into first and - with a Yowl! that echoes round the buildings - he's GONE. Leaving three thick grey jets of stroker-smoke like I never saw before - or since come to that. Such was my first sighting of the infamously rubber-framed H1. There was no wind, that smoke more or less obscured the street for a couple minutes or so. The next man to leave did so on a Velocette Thruxton. Chalk and Cheese, indeed. Then I rattled my way home to Rutherglen feeling rather humbled. Up till that show-off takeaway I'd been under the delusion my bike was *reasonably* quick.... Rose Tints is what looking back on those days needs - the fact of the matter is half the time our bikes were in bits to fix this or that, or setting tappets or fiddling with carburation or timing - or fixing god awful bloody oil leaks! I'm sure Mr Duckham loved Brit bikes, the way they ran through oil - weeping a bit here, there a dri-drip after a fast blast. And so on. But NONE of those early Nip bikes could stay with a quick Brit bike on difficult bendy roads - especially if that bike was a Dominator. Also, their Japanese tyres were made for roads that seldom saw rain - try riding an H1 on those tyres on a newly-wetted road, you better not try out more than a few of those 60 horses.....
I have a buddy that owned a Yamaha shop for about 30 years. We're gonna start restoring the old bikes. Guess which ones I'm picking. LOL Just got the RD 250 home. It has all the parts. There is a RD 400 in the pile which I may restore and keep. I'm a Kawasaki 2-stroke rider. Had a H1 for 7 years and rode it to work every day and the front wheel was up in the air at leat 3 days a week. LOL
Loved my 500 and my 750, that sound when they get on the pipe, dam I would just love to ride one of those new newfangled 500's though, the ones with close to 200 ponies....Imagine one of those puppies on the street.
I have a 70 KAW Mach 3 500 the first day I got it and did a 1/4 mile pass when I hit 3 rd I was doing 95 mph and sliding off the backend of my bike and I was a big guy 6.6 and 250 lbs .,I could slap that throttle up to 12 grand , by the grace of GOD l never got the wobbles they talk about maybe being 250 lbs had something to do with that. It's been hiding in my barn with his other buddy's since the 70s just waiting to hit the pavement again .
Beautiful bikes. Beautiful engine notes... Beautiful smell (especially on a cold morning - I've had my fair share of strokers) AND beautiful place where you dudes live! Where is that may I ask?
A HS buddy brought one of these by and I rode it around the block. I thought I was just accelerating normally. I tried to steer. The front end wasn't even on the ground! Single leading-shoe drum on something like that? $999 new? What's your life worth? I used to hear these things late at night in the distance with a unique banshee wail intake sound. I'd think "good luck!".
All these old two strokes are selling for big money now :( Back in the day I had a 1976 RD 350B, a 1977 KH400, a 1980 Yam RD 250LC and a 1981 RD 350LC and the last two stroke I owned was a 1987 Suzuki RG500 (now that was scarily quick! - lots of BHP, low weight and a tiny powerband). They were sold for about 3 pence as old bikes many years back but are are now worth loads!
Its impressive how quickly the H1 leaps past the RD when they get on it. 0 to 60mph in 4.0 seconds flat and a top speed of 120mph for an early H1 according to a 1969 Cycle world test,wqw what a rocket.
Melting a hole through the center piston on an H1 was a common occurrence when "testing" for top speed. The RD was bullet-proof no matter what you did to.
The first kwakas were horrible in traffic due to their narrow power band and the suddenness for which it went from nothing to ripping your arms off. They would out accelerate my 750 Suzi waterbottle. But the suzuki was the diametric opposite. Civilized in traffic in any gear. No problem on hills. Just open the throttle a little. The yammy 350 with the reed valves had the same problem as the hondas. Good low end torque, good high end power and a dead spot between the two. (Which just so happened to coincide with my normal sedate cruising speeds ).
The yammie was better handling more docile (human) to ride ...The Kawi when it got on the pipe was downright scary to me ...like I hope I can hold on scary ....Loved it
Even the 'lowly' little HONDA MB5 (50cc, 2-stroke, 5-speed, 55 MPH) is selling for several grand in very good condition! They were under $600 brand new back in 1982!
Such a pity they were outlawed by the damn oil and emissions crap. I used to call buzzy 2 strokes 'sewing machines' too, like many other idiots.. until I got a crosser.. then I was hooked on the power.. my god, I'd no idea.. 4 strokes just don't compare at all.. 45 years ago the 500 GP bikes were making almost 200bhp.. and that's without all the electronics they have now.. yet only weighed around 160/170 lbs. just great engine and pipe design. 4 strokes have to rev their balls off to get anywhere near the power of a good 2 stroke. A 500 crosser will embarrass anything on the road.
Lovely ! Revs out nice even with stock pipes. I am 5280 Ft Boulder CO USA, stock pipe 1974 350 A Y boot mod..27.5 pilot. stock needle.240 main! still wants more main!
I own them bothmy Kawa 500 Mach is from 1974 and the Yamaha 350 RD water cooled from 1985 ! ! ! Even own a Yamaha rd 250 from 1972,but this one is no mathch at all to the Kawa ! The water cooled Yamaha 350 is almost the same as the Kawa !,plus it handles much more better the roads.On the straights,the ten year older Kawa is not any faster than the RD !
That H-1 sounds a little off. I rode one of the first in 1970, and it would carry the front wheel through first, second, and most of third. Even the 750s that followed didn't have the adrenaline rush of the first H1s. In '76-'77 the RDs were really popular for the twisty mountain roads West of Denver. I worked at Yamaha Denver at the time, and the new RD 400 was just a blast. They ran rings around the XS750 in the mountains. Always partial to the RD350, though.
Awesome Guys《☆》They both sound nice & crisp revving from idle :*: Look out 2 strokes are on the road :*: Man the huge tags on the back must create mega drag at higher speeds🤠☻🤠
I "enjoyed" a death wobble on my H1. Doing 95 and backed off on the throttle and opppps. Rolled it back on a slowly backed down. Lucky I was on the turnpike.
I THOUGHT THE 2 - STROKE TWINS WERE SCARY , PLYMOUTH BUILT THE ROAD RUNNER IN 68 WITH MANUAL DRUM BRAKES , THE SAME WITH THE BIKES OF THE SAME TIME , HOW IN THE HELL CAN YOU MAKE SOMETHING BREAK A 100 MPH AND NO WAY TO STOP IT , OH I GET IT FLOOR IT AND HANG - ON , YOU COULD LOOSE YOUR FACIAL AND EYEBALLS FLYING , THOSE H1 , H2 500 , 750 , KZ 900 , MAN I NEED SOME MORE WHEELS TO KEEP IT STABLE IN THE TURNS !!! DON’T KID YOURSELF THE RD LINE FROM YAMAHA WAS BRUTAL , MY COUSIN TOOK A CB 750 SUPERSPORT ON HIS 75 RD 350 WITH ME ON THE BACK , THAT HONDA GOT LEFT IN THE DUST FROM STOPLIGHT TO STOPLIGHT !!! LOOKING FOR A 79 DAYTONA RD 400 SPECIAL !!!
I have a '72 R5C 350 and '73 RD 350, that RD is not a 350, 250 maybe. I'll take the Yamaha's over the Kaw all day long, they are so much fun to ride and look awesome.
Not a single sparkplug was fouled during this test ? What I remenber from my old '73 Rd it's that in addition to the oil it was necessary to carry a box of sparkplug and even a spare coil for any big trip .
Sounds like you were probably running with the injector turned up too much. Set properly, there should be no smoke and no plug issues while cruising. I haven't fouled a plug on my 400 triple (points bike) since I replaced a bad condenser.
That's odd. I had a 1975 RD350B and never once had any problem smoking the guys on the 500's. Wasn't even close. My RD was a closer match to the KZ650's that came out in 78 This was with stock pipes. Only modification was I cleaned up the ports. I could even walk away from the KZ900 UP TO 100mph....then they came by fast.
thats one badass video.....i wud add couple of teeth on Yamaha....make it a little quicker......u wud lose on top end... maybe funner ride !!!...... maybe put a mini sheild on it
