ONCE AND FOR ALL...

An attempt at paying tribute to the original wild one

- Kartik Ware

Imagination and inspiration are ethereal concepts, both infinite. And the pair of them are ejected in smoky abundance by each of a Yamaha RD 350's twin pipes. Everything you pour into the bottomless pit that is an RD — petrol, 2T oil, blood, sweat, tears, your very self — is returned a hundredfold, in the most chaotic white-knuckled way. Even today, 42 years later, the RD's far from being just another old motorcycle — it's a wide-eyed powerband-detonation of a revelation. And I knew that this issue would be incomplete without an RD, so I decided to bring one along one last time.

In the past 17 years, I've written more about the RD 350 than is probably decent; comparisons to new performance bikes, modded-RD features, wishful thinking, drawn-out laments, and then some. And I've thought about it a great deal more. That's only because the motorcycle keeps drawing me to itself, one way or another... actually, it's just that engine — all the other parts merely surround that barbaric parallel-twin to disguise it as a motorcycle. Make no mistake, there are litre-bikes that feel decidedly tamer than this 350cc unit of two-stroke hair-raising fury.

And that’s probably why, the day I hit riding age back in the day (as soon as one foot reached the ground on a bike. I was 12... different times, you see), my father promptly sold his RD 350. Ten years later, I sneaked an RD home, one running contact-breaker points and an original single-caliper Yamaha front disc brake; I had that bike for all of a week before my father found out and made me return it to the dealer. I still remember the veins in his forehead popping, and those threats still haunt me on occasion. Before that, I wasn’t aware that he could sound as guttural as an RD at low rpm himself, although he smoked as much as one.