The test ride went quite well, if you consider doing a hundred yard wheelie and dropping the front wheel at a angle as doing well. The resulting wobble lasted another hundred yards and a dose of tarmac rash was only avoided by a hurried dab with my boot.
When I returned the machine to the owner he did not look very impressed but brightened up when I made an offer of £1750 against the two grand he was demanding. We eventually settled on £1875 and I was only too happy to start adding to the 22000 miles already on the clock of this 1989 gem of two stroke technology.
You either love these kind of raunchy bikes or you throw up at the thought of clouds of blue smoke and the cost of consumables. The tyres were worn down to the carcass and I put the twitchy, ultra fast handing down to the this. If you moved any part of your body a fraction of an inch the machine veered off in that direction. It required fanatical concentration to maintain a straight line.
The two stroke twin had a delightful howl, down to the race pipes, and punched out a liquid, wailing rush of power once the speedo hit 7000rpm. Hence the propensity to wheelies. Despite the clip-ons which must have put a lot of weight on the front end, all you had to do was whip open the throttle in first, second or third and the machine would instantly be airborne. Similarly in the wet, massive wheelspin would result from less than cautious use of the throttle.
The engine featured watercooling, naturally, and something called KIPS which I never fully fathomed but I guess aided induction in some manner. The reason I never became immersed in the engine is that as far as the rider was concerned all you had to do was add oil and forget it, at least until something terminal occurred. More of which later.
A new set of Avons was bunged on by the local tyre dealer, not without a lot of abusive language due to the low profile nature of the tyres. I hate to think what it would be like to change tyres in the middle of nowhere, but as they are tubeless they can be fixed with a repair kit, so I suppose that's okay.
I have noticed that modern tyres don't have the same tendency towards punctures as the older type, one big nail went in, hit the banding inside the tyre and turned through 90 degrees - I was able to pull it out and there was no damage to the tyre, no air escaping. Even with the new tyres the handling was still fast and twitchy. In a bike capable of over an indicated 130mph this is not very inspiring.
The single shock rear end was in particular subject to a lot of jumping about on quite mild roads and at quite moderate speeds. The shock was the original Kawasaki and replacement might have improved things, but I never got around to it. To be fair, it didn't seem to get any worse if you went faster and there was excellent ground clearance available to exploit the grip of the tyres. I have never taken a bike over quite so far before.
These lightweight strokers with a grin inducing power to weight ratio (at around 50hp it was approaching an awe inspiring 200hp/litre) are great fun for throwing through tight bends. Here, you can forgive the effort involved to keep them on the straight and narrow on more boring roads, and instead revel in singing up and down the six speed gearbox. The latter has a light change and precise feel, as does the clutch. Clutchless changes are not a problem.
Low speed running did not result in fouled plugs or any engine stalling, there was just not much by way of usable torque. Running on stock pipes broadens the power range but loses the edge and the window shattering wail. The latter is great for short runs but becomes a bit unnerving if you are forced to indulge in a continuous motorway drone.
I have used the bike for touring but there are two problems. The seat is very uncomfortable after 50 miles and the fuel averages 30 to 35mpg, the latter both expensive and limiting the range of the bike to about 90 miles. My body is quite comfortable with the clip-ons and rear-sets and benefits from the protectiveness of the fairing - someone less thin and long of arm might well find it total torture.
It's quite possible to cruise along at as much as 110mph for as long as the fuel holds out. However, in some adverse conditions that's its pratical top speed. In neutral conditions it'll eventually creep up to 135mph on the clock but it takes a long straight to do that. Cruising at 90mph is much more sensible and there's a very useful burst of acceleration left in hand to get out of any difficult situations that might arise.
On A roads, doing say 60mph in top, will need a change down to fourth and a bit of clutch abuse to put the engine back in its power band in order to produce some rapid acceleration for overtaking. On some roads gearchanging takes on a rather crazy aspect and you have to work the left leg like a madman to stay ahead of rivals on larger bikes. It's great fun to buzz 600s until their riders overcook it and run off the road. Things like Z1s can be blown into the weeds if you're willing to use the gearbox.
Falling over isn't too bad either. The large box section frame is resistant to bending - I went straight into the side of a car at 30mph and got away with bent forks and wheel. I went over the bars and over the car, losing most of the momentum with a series of sommersaults and was able to leap back up - just as well there were no lamp-posts or other cars in the way.
In another spill on diesel, the bike just scraped along the floor on the GRP, only damage was bent levers. The whole of one side of my jean was torn off and I got a lot of pain from the gravel rash but no permanent injury from that one.
Another time......no, it's too embarrassing to go on. Suffice to say, I was able to repair the KR-1 easily and cheaply in my own garage with a bit of ingenuity. Generally, finish was okay and the bike polished up well. The only chassis components to fail were the swinging arm bearings at 32,400 miles, due I would guess to a lack of sufficient grease upon assembly.
I managed to get 45600 miles on the clock after a mere 8 months of abuse. This shows that the bike was immense fun to ride.....I found it hard to keep off the KR, during the summer I used to do 50 to 150 miles every night just for the kicks. A whole pack of us on two stroke 125 and 250 race replicas would scream around the countryside annoying farmers, sheep and anyone else who got in the way. Happy days.
The end came one sunny Sunday afternoon, with the sun high in the bright blue sky, not a care in the world other than to extract the maximum amount of joy out of the ride, myself and three other young hoodlums screaming along the winding A46 with the speedo anywhere between 50 and 100mph. The engine seized up solid, as did the back wheel. The bike would have spat me off if I hadn't had the presence of mind to pull in the clutch lever. As I was out in front my sudden retardation also scared the shit out of my mates and we were all white faced and trembling by the time we came to a halt.
It seems unlikely that there was some fault in the carburation due to the race pipes, for it had done at least 25000 miles on that set up. Perhaps it was just old age. I have been phoning around breakers over the past week and have not yet located a KR-1 engine that has not been seized itself, but I shall keep looking until I find one. The bike is far too much fun to discard just because the motor seized up.
G.H.R