VOLUME ISSUE OCTOBER , P133
the very design of the
powerplant itself, moan-
ing, "the engine doesn't
breathe well enough
to wind up far enough
in second to find the
powerband in third."
Getting the bike to
slow down seemed
about as great a pain
as it was getting it up
to speed. The rear brake chat-
tered and locked up "immediate-
ly." Fortunately, the front brake
worked fairly well. In fact, the
front end of this racer seemed to
be the only element of the motor-
cycle that the staff found accept-
able. While navigating through
a set of whoops, "the front end
comes up easily." However, in
the very next sentence, they note,
"…and then the rear end goes
berserk. Instantly, the front wheel
slams back onto the ground in
a hobby-horse fashion. The rear
wheel paws the air."
The story doesn't get much
better. Some of the friendly
words that appear near
the end of the test
include "flails," "horrible,"
and the scientific engi
-
neering term, "garbage."
Apparently, even the
distributor was well
aware of the TM's short
-
comings, for when they
returned the motorcycle
to U.S. Suzuki, a com
-
pany rep asked, "whether anyone
got hurt on it?"
The same ad team that had
dubbed the TM400 the Cyclone
pitched this Suzuki 250 with tag-
lines that were cut out of whole
cloth.
"A 220-pound streak of light-
ning that handles like a feather."
Nifty scrivening, to be sure, but
had they actually spent time
on the TM250, they would have
likely agreed with the Cycle
News' team summation that the
bike "does handle like a feather—
a feather in a hurricane."
"What the heck happened,"
asked the test crew. Surely,
Suzuki could do better than this?
The works bikes ridden by Roger
DeCoster and Joel Robert may
have been world beaters, but the
CN staff felt that the new TM250
would be better classified as
a "...body beater. Somewhere
along the line, there has been
a sorry lack of communication
between the European racing
department and the production
engineering department."
"So, what is there to recom
-
mend about the TM250 Suzuki,"
the test concluded? "Well, not
much," and the writer threw down
a laundry list of the reasons why
you shouldn't buy this motorcy-
cle, including the fact that it was
"obnoxiously noisy."
This motorcycle was like an ill-
mannered relative who shows up
as a houseguest; it was a wrong-
headed move to invite them in
the first place, and one counts
the minutes until they leave the
premises. And, they are nothing
at all like their sophisticated,
high-class kin!
CN
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(Left) The Cycle
News testers said
the 1973 TM250
"does handle like a
feather—a feather
in a hurricane."
(Right) Evidently,
Suzuki figured they
could save some
weight by leaving
off the muffler. We
said the bike was
"obnoxiously noisy."
