The RD 350

3 Pages 868 Words

Before we had any clue about the myriad dangers of triple cheeseburgers, saturated fat, unburned hydrocarbons and street-going two-strokes, there was the RD350. Dirty, foul-mouthed, deliciously quick and relatively affordable, it was (is?) a Giant Killer for the ages. Back when gas and thrills were cheap, the RD's minimalist approach was more suited to eating up twisty pavement than straight stretches. "The RD was a cult bike if there ever was one.". All it takes to initiate membership is that velvet shriek. Once you know what it could do to a perfect road on a perfect morning, nothing else was even close.
The Yamaha RD (Race Derived) 350 is the BEST bike that ever came to India. Escorts got this baby here during the early- to mid-1980s, but unfortunately (if predictably) it was not a sales success. With the majority of our riders’ obsession with mileage, the RD’s stupendous (for its time) performance was largely ignored. And what a pity that was, for ultimately, during the early-90s, Escorts had to stop production of this bike here... The bike essentially belonged to the late-70s/early-80s. The glorious era of ring-ding-ding two strokes. The version that came here was considerably dumbed-down (no alloy wheels or disc-brakes and certainly not the liquid-cooling of the later RZ models that were sold worldwide...), but it was still a 350cc parallel twin which used to kick out 32bhp at the crank. Even more unfortunate were the later versions, which were detuned to about 28 horses, just so that mileage figures would be better! I made my first acquaintance with the bike in 2002. ( better late than never!!). On my first ride I was quite taken by the bike’s performance. It sounded absolutely fantastic, and the acceleration was vivid! This is indeed a dream bike for any speed-freak. This is the most dangerous bike because it’s got tremendous power & pick up...and the most dangerous thing about RD is it’s sheer acceleration. This ma...