THE LIST!
10. 1974 HUSKY 450 DESERT MASTER.
9. 1981 HONDA CR450.
8._ROKON 340.
7._YAMAHA SC-500 SCRAMBLER.
6. HARLEY-DAVIDSON BAJA 100.
5. CZ 250 ENDURO.
4. YAMAHA YZ490 (MOST YEARS). Yamaha introduced the YZ 490 in 1982, after a solid run with the YZ465. Sadly, the 490 was heavier than the 465, nowhere near as reliable, horribly difficult to start (hot or cold), came with a grim suspension, vibrated enough to bring blisters to your hands and was impossible to jet.
If you jetted it rich enough to keep this dog from seizing, it would blubber, puke, foul plugs and produce no power. If you jetted it to run strong, it would invariably seize. It came with air leaks, a wandering ignition, gimpy motor mounts and the worst case of Yamahop at high speeds since the original DT-1. Yamaha issued a mountain of service bulletins to try to fix the problems. None of them worked.
3. PENTON 125 MUD LARK.
2. ANY THREE-WHEELER.
1. And the winner (or loser, actually) is:
THE 1971 SUZUKI TM-400R CYCLONE! It weighed 242 pounds, dry, and delivered about 40 hp at 6850 rpm. Sometimes it delivered it at 4400 rpm. At other times, it would deliver it just when you least expected it. You see, the Cyclone had a weird ignition that would go from a starting mode to full advance whenever it felt like it. Even a change in temperature would change the power hit.
Picture this: you're exiting a hard- packed turn in second gear and you roll the throttle on. All of a sudden, the engine lurches into the fat part of the power curve and the rear end leaps out about three feet. The chassis shudders and sends you sailing into the clear blue sky in a nice arc. Moments later, you thump into the ground, painfully, and then a microsecond after that, the Cyclone lands on top of you.
Adding to the bizarre powerband was a set of forks that went rigid on square bumps and rear shocks that faded from anything hotter than headlight glare. Many companies produced endless handling and frame modification kits. None of these things seemed to help much, but the bike cost only $995 brand new and people kept buying them, trying to make them work. They all failed, to one degree or another, to tame the Cyclone.
The legacy of the TM-400 can be summed up in an ad that appeared in a newspaper:
"For sale-1972 Suzuki TM-400. Only te
