Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/125989
BRiding impression ~ . g t Cable -operated rea r brake tended to isolate the fo ot fr om brak ing feel , but worked sm oothly enough in the dry. Awfully vulnerable place for the clutch throwout arm. There's a general lack of grou nd clea rance and case protection. By Lane Campbell What do you do with a 300 pound dirt bike? Well, not quite 300 pounds (296, wet) and not totally a dirt bike, because the Apache is in all respects street legal and fully in tended for dual-p urpose use. . . Therein lies th e rub . Physically, it is as big as any 350-5 00 street bike • lon , tall and g • . . bul~y between the knees. Set up as It IS. 21-m ch front wheel and all. the TS400 is a pretty de cent handling street bike. Not great, just de cent - it goes ....rhere than to rev. Once in top, it will gru nt on up to about 65 or 70 mp h an.d . hol~ that. Just fro m th e feel of It. the m ach in e seems grossly under-car bure ted on the street. . B,;,kes are fair for paveme n t use, and relativel y fade-proo f, though not particularl y strong. Th e motorcycle 's great weight (for a sin gle) m ake s itself felt any tim e you need to slow down in a hurry. Th is to rquey but sh ort-winded engine has tremendo us pote ntial - somewhere. 24 it's pointed, doesn't wobble (though th e trials pattern tires squirm when pushed), and tracks well over rain grooves or cobby pavement. But it's not fast . Compared (say) to the Yamaha DT400 , the engine is smooth, torquey, but awfu lly slow-turning, running ou t of wind far ear lier than you'd expect or want. Gas it and it mo ves out deliberatel y , b ut n ot quickly. The heavy fron t en d stays down , yo u find y o urself ru shing thro ugh th e gears, as the engine always seems more willing to pull a h igher gea r It g,:",s about the b usin ess of commutmg in a quiet , no-nonsense manner, with n o hint of overheating or ex cessive strain. The electrics all worked, though the hom was a joke. Starting from col d is a five or eight kick affair, choke on. St artin g with a hot engine is a on e-to' five kic k job most o f t he ti me. Sometim es it go t a little reluctant to fire, acting as though th e big cylin der was a bi t hard to sca venge at kickover speeds. Prim ary kic kstar t , o f co urse , with a lo ng t hro w and no com pression release. It helps if you It won't give you a lifetime of wedded bliss , but at 10 minutes for a little foolin' around, there's some good times to be had. It seems to handle best w ith a flat front t ire. weigh 200 p ounds. It also h elps if yo u're ph ysi call y big, for the bike's fairly tall and slightly top-heavy . The clutch was smooth and apparen tly fry-proof. Gear sele ction was cris p and effortless, no h ang- ups, no false neutrals. Powershifts, just leave the throttle open. press up on the shifter and tweak the clutch lever with a sin gle finger. Very sm oo t h . very reli able . and not a lo t of lu rch , as th e ratios seem close-spaced once you ge t past th e first-sec on d sh ift. Th at first one's a long step, com pared to t he o thers. Afte r stoogin g aro un d be t wee n work and hom e fo r a week . with a fe w sid e the vacant oil fields trips into roundabout to play at bank clim bing an d gull y-vaulting, we had to rate it. -uh-, ad equate, but . . . So it was tim e to truck it o ut to the desert with a co uple of other play bikes and test o ut its wee kend personality. It was by far th e he aviest th in g we 've taken o ff in to th e dirt sin ce fooling around with a T R5 -T Triumph. We thrashed it around second and th ird gear trails, ch ase d our buddies nose-tail like sex-crazed ground squirrels. ch arge d the big clay bluffs. pl ay ed pi cky-p icky trials rider in spots. reall y trying to adjust to th is monst er an d feel out its performance en velope. The TS400 is nose heavy as it ever was. but th e suspensi on has been di ddled and balanced so it 's no t so vio lently no ticeable. Like . th e very earl ies t Suzuki 400 Enduro we rode. the rear end kic ked so ba d th at co m bined with its general nose-he avin ess, the bike seemed to be co ns ta n tl y co nspiring to toss the rider over th e bars. At least th e latest version st ays st raight and level . It 's a Herculean effort ge ttin g th e front to loft, ever , but to co mpe nsate . the bike's been se t up wi th almost no tendency to pitch, up or down. It just sort of flies straight and level with the wheels off th e ground more ,often than not. It jumps flat, lan ds flat with sort of a controlled crash . Go ing uphill , downhill, or on the level. it seems best to shift weigh t bac k and load the rear wheel. con fident th e fron t will stay do wn . Always . To tum quickly, just shi ft we ight forward an d let th e rear en d swing. in these te rms . th e Taken fron t-heav iness can be m ad e to work fo r you for straigh t tracking an d fo r hi tting fairly quic k p ivots. (Got to be rel ative there , after all, how quickly can 0 pivot a 300 pound dirt bike.] In th e dirt, the engine still seem short-winded an d overl y slow-turning Ordinarily this would indicate goo useable to rque for slow. trials type trai picking. But lumpy idl e and engin surge so typical of many big-bore t w strokes mak es ti gh t trail work an iff th in g a t best. Th en, too, th e groun clearance is noth in g to shout abo u t. W won't te ll yo u wh at happen ed wh en i simul tan eo usly hig h-ce n te red on Yucca p lan t and stalled whil e travers in