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/1475687
installed, and many other smaller hand- made tweaks per- formed throughout the engine, includ- ing cylinder port- ing, carburetion mods, and so on. Again, all these tricks Johnson and Lett devised were revealed in Yamaha's Wrench Report. Yamaha was adamant—no secrets. Well, sort of. The YZ60 ignition trick was a bit of a secret because Yamaha just didn't have enough of them to go around. "It was a word-of-mouth thing," Lett said. "But if anyone asks, I'd tell them." However, despite the great motor, I found Johnson's bike to be nearly unrideable. The culprit? The stiff forks. I just couldn't com- prehend how any human could ride a motocross bike with forks set up as stiff as Johnson's. "Stiff doesn't really describe how they feel—it's more like rigid," I wrote. I said they "felt as though they had two inches of travel instead of 12." Lett agreed with me and said Broc Glover and Keith Bowen, Johnson's teammates at the time, ran much softer forks. Lett said Johnson likes them this way so he can "really push the bike through rough terrain and over huge whoop as hard as he can, and he doesn't like the front end to dive when entering turns." I tried to ride like that at DeAn- za that day, but it didn't work for me. To give you an idea of how stiff Johnson's forks were, the stock YZ250L came stock with .300 fork springs. The optional heavy-duty .325 spring was con- sidered extremely stiff. Johnson used .375 springs. The rear suspension, however, was way more in line. In fact, I could quickly tell that it was better than the stock suspension, which was overly soft and springy off the showroom floor. Johnson's rear suspension felt much firmer and just flat-out better, even though Johnson outweighed me by approximately 20 pounds. Still, improved rear suspension didn't make up for the insanely stiff forks that, I must admit, ruined the experience of riding a factory race bike for me. I concluded my article by saying I was bummed because Johnson's bike didn't turn me into a national-caliber rider, but I did have fun trying. Since then, I've ridden a few factory bikes and discovered Johnson isn't the only top-level racer who likes their forks ridiculously stiff. They pretty much all do. So, if I ever get to ride a factory motocrosser again, I'll do what the pros do— bring my own forks. CN CN III ARCHIVES P124 Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives installed, and many other smaller hand- made tweaks per formed throughout the engine, includ ing cylinder port ing, carburetion mods, and so on. Again, all these tricks Johnson and Lett devised were revealed Wrench Report. Yamaha was adamant—no secrets. Well, sort of. The YZ60 ignition trick was a bit of a secret I wrote: "The most impressive aspect of the motor wasn't the top speed, but the strong and smooth powerband. It hooked up well and was very predictable." Not what I was expecting from a championship-winning moto- cross bike, for sure. It was faster than a stock YZ250 but way more rideable from top to bot- tom. Back then, two-stroke MX bikes had the tendency to be ei- ther all bottom-end, all midrange, all top-end, or a slight mixture of the two (bottom/mid or mid/ top). This bike, however, had it all. To this day, I remember it as being amazing. This was partly due to a long-rod kit, a custom Stuart Toomey-built exhaust pipe Johnson wrapped up the 250cc title at Washougal, finishing just eight points ahead of Ron Lechien, who rode a true "works" Honda.