Rumi Rms650

RUMI RMS650

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Fine old name, fine new bike

WHEN HONDA INTROduced its oddball NX650 dual-purpose machine, nobody in the company that what it was really doing was introducing not a motorcycle, but an engine donor.

The sturdy four-valve Single that powered the NX now powers Honda’s wonderful XR650L, the crème de la crème of dual-purpose bikes. It powers grids-full of European and Japanese Sounds of Singles racers. And now it also powers the Rumi RMS650, a machine Oscar Rumi hopes will restore to his tiny compa-

ny the respectability and success that belonged to the firm in the 1950s, when his uncle, Donnino Rumi, ran it.

Oscar Rumi, you may recall, won the first two World Superbike titles with Fred Merkel aboard Honda RC30s, so perhaps it’s natural that the first reborn Rumi roadbike would be powered by a Honda engine.

The RMS650’s other primary component is its alloy dualspar frame, built in Verona, Italy, a city not far from Rumi’s Bergamo home base. It is sufficiently beefy that it will be the basis for

gle powered by a 78 horsepower engine that owes only its cases to the NX650. The fork is a 40mm Ceriani, and rear suspension is controlled by an Öhlins shock connected to the swingarm via rising-rate linkage. The result is an extremely tidy, tiny, nimble motorcycle that measures a scant 52.6 inches between its axle centers-shorter than a Honda’s NSR250 GP racer, though at 326 pounds dry, a lot heavier.

That’s not as bad as it sounds, for the little Rumi flat handles, thanks to its stiff frame, excellent suspension calibration and

ultra-responsive steering. This is frame bred for hard-core racing, after all, and the pinpoint nature of the steering it provides, coupled with the excellence of the suspension damping and spring rates, allows you to maintain hard-earned momentum in turns while you make the bike’s tires work for a living. It’s easy to scrub off momentum when you have to, however; the Rumi wears a pair of 11 -inch rotors up front, and a pair of fourpiston calipers, for race-bred braking potential. All in all, it’s an extremely capable chassis design-almost more capable than the engine requires.

By any standard, the power output of the NX motor is humble, dynoing out a puny 46 horsepower. That’s not nearly enough, and it’s no higher because mods, for now, at least, are restricted to a light flow job for the cylinder head, a boost in compression from 8.3:1 to 9.5:1, a pipe and a rejetted

Too bad. More is needed. Though it’s small, the Rumi supplies surprising amounts of riding room, and is, all in all, a nice little bike, though its gray paint scheme is on the far side of anonymous. It will have to be otherwise if Rumi hopes meet his numbers. He plans build 30 of these bikes, with each bike built to order for the equivalent of about $13,000. If this sounds like what you need, the line forms in Bergamo.

-Alan Cathcart