1991 2-stroke whips the 450s

[belfastguzzi]

It was great to see Gordon Crockard taking his 1991 CR500 (No.7) out front in every race at the Bell's Hill Scramble yesterday. This is just the start of / first stab at a movie that I'll have to finish later some time. The video and audio was captured on a compact camera that I brought only intending to take a few stills. At the races, I thought that the nature of the event really needed the video, rather than photos.

 

To be continued – the rest will actually have the motorbike action

 

[stefano]

My last dirt bike (which i bought new) was an '87 CR500, essentially the same bike. I rode MX, enduro, cross country & hillclimbs on it for a number of years.

what i remember most about it (after the constantly bruised right arch, from kickstarting the beast) was the power when hillclimbing, which was almost like cheating. That, and it was WAY more competitive than i was.

stef

[belfastguzzi]

Hi Stefano

thanks for adding your comment. I think that he likes this type of course: it is like the sort that he started on – and I guess he chose the bike because it suits the course. There are not many natural courses like this left here, mostly they are artificially created now. I'm not an expert, I know little about this racing – but it was a great day and having the (fierce) older bike there, battling the modern 450s added special interest There was a '91 250 also. The Ulster Grand Prix (the 'fastest road race in the world') was on yesterday too. In some ways this scramble was better spectator value, I reckon.

 

Now, time to get back to the video editing while watching the Olympics closing ceremony.

David

[fotoguzzi]

NICE VIDEO, you should consider an upgrade to something like a Canon T3i or 60D for higher quality video to match your skills/creativity.. good editing too.

 

not sure if I posted my latest or not.. first two shots are my GoPro and the rest is shot with my new to me Canon 60D w/Rokinon 8mm..

 

 

bump up the res on bottom right of window..

[belfastguzzi]

Ha haa, better & better Foto. Excellent idea and execution.

As far as cameras are concerned, I'd love to get a good DSLR. For SLRs I stuck with Pentax (yes, my camera history parallels my motorbike history) and then got their first DSLR, the impossibly named *ist. It was not great then and it's primitive now. I'm tempted by the current K5 and when a new model comes out, I expect the K5's price will drop further. I wonder has anyone on here using Pentax? Should I stick or jump ship?

[fotoguzzi]

Ha haa, better & better Foto. Excellent idea and execution.

As far as cameras are concerned, I'd love to get a good DSLR. For SLRs I stuck with Pentax (yes, my camera history parallels my motorbike history) and then got their first DSLR, the impossibly named *ist. It was not great then and it's primitive now. I'm tempted by the current K5 and when a new model comes out, I expect the K5's price will drop further. I wonder has anyone on here using Pentax? Should I stick or jump ship?

 

I have a friend using Pentax, seems good.. if you have lenses stay w/Pentax if not Canon..

[Baldini]

You can get adaptors for Pentax lenses to Canon etc threads eg: http://www.amazon.co.uk/s/?ie=UTF8&keywords=pentax+canon+adapter

 

I have Canon stuff & don't know about Pentax, or cameras generally... but I do think today's amateur/semi-pro cameras are like most modern appliances: heavy on features, light on robustness. I have an 40D - card-reader just packed up - no abuse, just stopped working. I notice the latest 60D is plastic body. These cameras have to be built to a price & features are more seductive than build quality! The speed of technological development means immediate obselescence, so what's the point on building a product to last anyhow? We're seduced by technology, big numbers & features we'll never use. Someone'll tell you they've got a eleventeen million pixel point & shoot...that's great, but what quality is the lense?

 

I don't want/need most features - I don't even open most of the vast handbook. I want a simple, quality, usable, lasting product.

I have a 1960's Pentax SLR - still works, heavy but so nicely built. Compare the lense action on one of them to that of a modern Canon plastic USM.

 

I would like a video feature on a DSLR (40D doesn't have it), but is it just compromising the primary function & would a seperate camcorder would be a better bet - they are relatively cheap.

 

KB

[GuzziMoto]

As someone who still owns a KTM 440EXC I love the big bore two strokes.

Good to see one still being ridden in anger.

My first (and only) SLR was a Pentax K1000. Unfortunately, unlike the 440, I do not still have it.

[belfastguzzi]

As someone who still owns a KTM 440EXC I love the big bore two strokes.

Good to see one still being ridden in anger.

 

Is it the fault of American legislation that the 2 stroke MXs have disappeared? And what America does, the rest of the world has to follow.

My first (and only) SLR was a Pentax K1000. Unfortunately, unlike the 440, I do not still have it.

I do still have mine. No batteries required for it to operate if you're stuck. A very different era!

 

Baldini, build quality is one of the reasons that I like Pentax, as well as physical size) and the modern one is still robust - except you can't get away from dependence on all the micro electronics/computer.

I'm interested in the idea of the newish Pentax K-01 as a 'simpler' form of mirrorless DSLR with much of the same picture quality as the serious K5 and also cheaper. However, just looking on the web, it's not really quite right and the design probably isn't quite right either. For some reason, video doesn't seem so good on it. Maybe that's deliberate to have some artificial differentiation from the K5? It's designed by 'A Designer' and there's a nice idea (not quite) there.

 

[Tom M]

I look forward to seeing the racing part of the video BFG. I love the big bore 2 strokes and could never understand why the AMA dropped the 500 class at the pro level so many years ago. I had a 450 Maico back in the early eighties and rode a CR500 quite a bit when they first came out too. Both were great fun!

 

A buddy of mine was still racing and winning on his CR500 at age 53 a couple years ago so your buddy Gordon isn't the only one who can still pull it off.

 

FWIW I was talking to another friend who still races last year and asked him what he thought of his 450 thumper vs one of the 2 strokes that he used to run. He said he liked the way the thumper hooked up coming out of a corners because it gave him the traction that he needed to clear the double and triple jumps that are on so many MX tracks nowadays.

[belfastguzzi]

GuzziM & Tom:

This is interesting:

http://motocrossactionmag.com/Main/News/SHOOTOUT-CRF450-VERSUS-CR500-6558.aspx

You already know this >

“But, and this is a big but, if you have the skill to pull the trigger, the CR500 would actually gobble the CRF450 up in deep loam, rough straights and steep hills. The big two-stroke was a rocketship when it had a rocket man at the controls.”

[Tom M]

Thanks for the article BFG. Their conclusions make a lot of sense. A CR500 in a modern chassis would still be plenty competitive if the rules allowed for them. It would make a great playbike too. They're a lot easier and cheaper to maintain than the 450 thumpers too.

 

I haven't ridden a whole lot of different motorcycles, probably less than 20 total, but of those the open class 2 stroke motocrossers were hands down the most fun bikes that I've ever been on. You really need to learn throttle control to keep them hooked up, and when you do open them up all the way for a few seconds you better have you chin over the crossbar or it's going to stand straight up in anything but 5th gear when the tire stops spinning. Definitely something that you need to try if you ever get the chance.

[belfastguzzi]

not sure if I posted my latest or not.. first two shots are my GoPro and the rest is shot with my new to me Canon 60D w/Rokinon 8mm..

 

 

bump up the res on bottom right of window..

 

Foto, what format / size did you compress your movie to?

I did the longer version of mine as a 10 minute MPEG-4. It's 118MB.

 

As the quality is low to start with, the upload on Youtube is not good. Your movie has the range of playback settings. I can't save mine a HD quality movie, as it isn't HD, so I I have compressed mine again, a bit shorter at 8 minutes and this time saved it as a Quicktime movie at Best quality.

 

Of course this resulted in a very big file. It's 2.1GB and the upload to Youtube says it's going to be a 344 minutes upload. I'll probably not continue with that.

 

What's yours and what size was the file? Looks like I need to go back to a MPEG-4 version?

[belfastguzzi]

Here's the rest of the movie, if you've got eight and a half standard minutes to spare:

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FBf9m-RQJcQ