25 Years Ago July 1986

25 YEARS AGO JULY 1986

ROUNDUP

A couple of really cool blasts from Yamaha’s past were featured in this issue, including the FZ600, YX600 Radian and the SRX600 Thumper, all of which got the full road-test treatment. To wrap up the FZ road test, editors borrowed from Winston Churchill, saying, “In the mid-displacement sportbike battle, this may be Yamaha’s ‘finest hour.’”

•Anyone looking for a standard motorcycle at a good price that didn’t sacrifice performance would surely have been interested in the $2399 Radian. It was powered by the venerable FJ600 inline-Four, and editors commended its exciting engine performance and excellent handling.

•Even in 1986, the third featured 600 in the issue, Yamaha’s SRX, represented a questionable flashback to BSA, Matchless and Norton Singles, which had long ago seen their heydays. So, why would Yamaha revisit the big-bore, street-Thumper configuration, even after its previous SR500 Single didn’t exactly leap off showroom floors?

Call it romanticism and also that the bike was still a big seller in the Japanese and European markets. Looking back at the kickstart SRX 25 years later I couldn’t help but wonder if I need one.

•The enduro nut in me flipped to the 250cc shootout in which the Husky 250 Enduro beat out the KTM 250MXC, Can-Am 250 ASE and Honda XR250R. But as a huge roadracing fan, I couldn’t ignore Race Watch, which featured famed Moto Guzzi guru Dr. John Wittner and the story of his team’s fairy tale 1984 and ’85 AMA endurance championships, which were won against the might of Japan on very unlikely V-Twin machines.

Blake Conner