Which Montesa?

[Tahitian_Red]

Once I find a set of Montesa 250 V75 forks I will have the parts to put together either a 250 VR or a 250 V75.  Which one should I build?

[mx250]

Now that's what I call a conundrum

There's not much between it when it comes to prettiness or desirability. The LTR V75 might be a little easier on the body.

I think the VR would be more competitive in the pre75 rather than the V75 in the pre78 (which I think would be the competition classes they would fall into).

[cappra]

I would build a VR. Worth more than the V75. I don't know your rules, but in AHRMA, the
V75 and VA have to compete against the VB, which is a bit of a disadvantage. The V75/VA
does have a little more travel, but the rear suspension is harder to get correct in respect to
dampning and spring rate.

[Tahitian_Red]

Jared,

I'm in the U.S.   I'm racing my Ossa Phantom 250 and Bultaco Model 135 in AHRMA races now, so I don't really need a VR to race (But it would be cool).  I was thinking V75, because you see less of them restored and I have an NOS V75 tank.  What is your experience, are there more restored VR's or more V75's for sale or at the bike shows?

[cappra]

I see alot of V75's out there, not many restored and unfortunatly,many used as donor bikes to make AHRMA legal VR's. It seems that the VR gets all the glory and the V75/VA are the
"red headed step child" of the bunch. I have owned and raced both models in the day. The V75 had minor porting changes that made the powerband a bit more usable down low. It just seemed it was harder to get the rear suspension dialed in, due to the laydown setup. Although, this could have been a problem with other makes that had the same type of rear suspension. In the shop that I worked at, we sponsored a national caliber expert and the only problem we ever had with the V75 was with the tubing that the shocks were mounted to, would start to bend, even though it was beefed up from the factory. We ended up welding some small struts from the shock mounts to front part of the frame and that ended the problem.Build the V75, it's a more interesting model!   By the way, the picture above is of an early model (clutch mounted on the crank) 76' VA 360.

[mx250]

 By the way, the picture above is of an early model (clutch mounted on the crank) 76' VA 360.

Very observant Jared. I just loaded it from my Photobucket library thumbnail without thinking about it too much (the yellow plates registered but the Grey Matter didn't click over to the correct deduction )