Old Robbie owned the RD from new. That isn't to say, that a couple of decades down the line, it's anywhere near new condition. In the early days it went the ace-bars and spannies route. Lovely noise, hot performance and good handling. The cops loved it, one local pig must've got a promotion on the back of all the pulls he made!
Then the bike spent a couple of years in proddie racing trim, screaming around the race tracks. The bike was on the pace, Robbie wasn't, spending half his time doing the gravel rash blues. A short stint followed as a despatch hack, which soon reduced the bike to a rolling piece of rubble.
The engine was amazingly tough, though, only choking on its reed valves at 39000 miles really doing for it! The whole bike was deemed a wreck and thrown into a corner of the garage. Robbie had fun and games on an RD350LC for a few years until a chance meeting found him the proud owner of a second RD400E. Its main claim to fame, a brand new frame.
The engine was in lots of bits, many missing. But combining the best parts from the two motors, along with an exchange crankshaft, produced a running machine. Robbie had doubled in weight in a decade of self-indulgence, the ace-bars no longer much use. The RD ended up back in stock set-up; all the better for it.
Robbie got enough kicks out of the deal to sell his GTi and buy a CBR600. I was allowed to borrow the RD during the summer; in the winter it was used by Robbie instead of the CBR. As my previous mount was a CG125, the RD's 40 horses and 350lbs were more than enough for me!
The direct flow of two-stroke power was a bit of a revelation, the CG always seemed to be going backwards! I was soon screaming up to the ton, hanging on to the CBR's back wheel. The suspension had been upgraded to allow for Robbie's massive weight, was rock solid for me. Gave really taut handling. Screaming the motor, I could keep up with the CBR when it was ridden in a half sane manner. When riding in a pack, though, Robbie didn't want to lose face and left me for dead.
Top speed turned out to be about 120mph on the clock, probably a true 115mph. It pulled strongly up to about 110mph without really causing any problems at lower revs, thanks to a large amount of midrange torque. The reed valves helped as did the electronic ignition. Despite the useful low end power, the motor ran much better if given maximum throttle all the time. Which meant 35-40mpg, against 60mpg if it was kept below five grand.
The back end of the bike came unhinged if full throttle was applied when banked over in third gear (never tried it in second, not wanting to fall off...) but would come back into line if the throttle was backed off momentarily. I became a bit blase about the twitching, really putting the bike through its paces. No surprise that I fell off! The bike hit a bump as I backed off once too often and the back tyre lost it all. Gravel rash time.
The bike was relatively unscathed - had to do a respray to keep Robbie happy. I had half the skin taken off my leg! Bloody motorcycles. Bloody NHS, which kept me hanging around for hours in a lot of pain. Not being entirely sane at this point, next day I swung my leg over the bike and promptly rode it into rather than around a roundabout! No great damage, just dented pride!
A week or so later I was back on the pace, though getting some odd looks from biking mates! I was slightly more restrained on the controls, at last realising that the narrow tyres couldn't hope to match the fat, sticky rubber of modern tackle. One vague acquaintance had a mono-shock conversion on his RD400 and also fitted smaller, wider wheels to take modern rubber. The result was a slow turning piece of madness that did a wild speed wobble at 90mph. The steering geometry obviously doesn't suit modern tyres.
Maintenance was relatively easy. Add oil to the tank and balance the carbs every 300-350 miles. Tyres lasted about 8000 miles but don't mix makes as the handling goes to pot. Brake pads were EBC's, worked fine in the wet and had just enough power in the dry. So much cut and thrust went down, though, that I was only getting about 4500 miles out of a set! The bike had an expensive O-ring chain conversion and I never got close to wearing it out; needed adjustment every 400 miles. Fuel and oil were the major expenses.
I've made various offers to Robbie to buy the RD but he doesn't want to know, likes it too much as a back-up and contrast to the sublime but too civilised Honda. I'm on the look-out for a good 'un, there are still some on offer.