"I had a used 1973 rt360r when i was 14 years old. I bought it with a bad piston and had to bore it to a 420 the shop said good luck and it ran like a top. I could hit 90 mph on pavement it was the bike that started a long path of spent money."
My riding partner I used to go to the enduros and hare & hounds races in SW MI back in 1972, when I bought my 360, had an earlier pair of the 360's, a '70 and a '71. One was the MX motor, which would walk-away from mine on pavement, and was quicker in the dirt, too. He could do 93 MPH, a full 10 MPH over my speed sitting upright. If I got down on the tank I could get it up to 89 MPH, but he'd still pull-away from me, upright.
His bikes had stock pinstripes around the perimeter of the tank. One was a 'yellow stripe," and the other was a "red stripe." I think the "red stripe" was the MX motor, which was a GYT KIT from Yamaha, if you wanted to alter your stocker to MX specs, it required new porting, a different piston, and a higher-compression head. The porting you could do yourself w/a grinder, if you were careful, and had the specs about port height, and width, the piston was a Yamaha item, though many ran Wiseco's (I did) and you could mill the head to up the compression. Accessible, fun, and not too-expensive, quick to accomplish, but longevity sometimes suffered. A new exhaust would allow the altered parts to best reward you w/new power, and "more redline."
Watching you kickstart that bike still makes me cringe, 44 years later. I used to walk around w/cracked tarsal bones in my right foot from the kickback from trying to kickstart my bike w/sneakers instead of boots. The only time it would heal was during winter, when I wasn't riding. The bike had a stock compression release, but if you didn't keep the cable and piston into the cylinder for the compression release clean, the compression release would freeze from the carbon, and when the kickstarter 'kicked-back,' well, there you were w/a cracked tarsal again.
Once I was racing at Mt. Garfield, which for decades has been a stop on the AMA hillclimbing circuit. It was the 1972 enduro, called the "Pearl Harbor Enduro" because it was held on Dec. 7. It was the last race of the year, as you can imagine, w/probably four inches of snow, ice on the trails and roads, and a temperature that was hovering around 32 degrees, it was cold. My buddy w/the two 360's also had a Rickman 125, which he decided to use that event, because of the tight trails, he'd run it before, and figured the lighter bike would be easier to ride. He was right. I started w/him, but after a couple of miles, he steadily pulled-away, and I didn't see him until the finish.
I was plugging along, it was bitterly cold, but the speeds in the woods were pretty-low, due to the tight trails, so the wind chill wasn't like doing 60 mph on the open sections. Mostly the roads were just ones being crossed to go from one trail to the next, not actual time spent on pavement.
We got to an area that was a powerline right-of-way, and the trail was down a two-track that was flooded earlier, and now was an icy sheet w/close-to a half-foot of frigid water under it. The faster riders had been there and were gone, you could see the various trails they had made through the ice, water, and snow. I stopped at the entry to the section, and watched a few people try to negotiate the trail, always a smart thing to do if you don't mind losing a bit of time, because if you observe where others get stuck, you avoid that.
So, there I am, watching and waiting (the clock's ticking) and sure-enough a couple of riders make attempts to traverse the route. I watch them begin with good intentions, but like the latter years of a politician's term, "things go to hell." These guys get stuck in the slush, ice, and freezing water after their momentum dissipates.
Well,
I have a powerful Yamaha 360! Surely
I can use my superior power to get through this difficult section! I boot it into first gear, and with a good head of steam, I wind it out in the gears, and head onto the ice. I get about a hundred yards into the trail, I break through the ice, my momentum falls-off, and soon I am "one of those guys," stuck in the ice, snow, and water an arctic seal would find cold. The bike stalls as I try to put it in-gear and try to power-out of where I got stuck.
When I try to kick-start the bike, the vicious kickstarter pedal rips my heel off my boot when it kicks-back. I pull the useless nail-ringed piece of rubber and leather out of the ice-laden water beneath me, and stick it in the pocket of my waxed-cotton Belstaff jacket. Another guy on a Suzuki Savage 250 comes to a stop within 30 feet of me, and we are contemplating how to get out of this predicament, when we hear the distinctive sound of a big Husqvarna two-stroke single winding-out. I turn in the direction of the road, and see this chrome and dark-red tank Husky throwing a rooster-tail of water and ice behind him as he stands on the pegs and rides as-far back as he can, and he's got the horsepower to keep a head of steam up and he continues off into the distance, the sound of his engine becoming less-distinct. Looks like he's successfully made it. The Suzuki guy and I take turns getting our bikes extricated, returning to the road. We decide there's no point in trying
that again, and we ride on the road, trying to figure out where we are, and "which direction to Mt. Garfield? (the start)" Of course, we're now out of contention, as we've abandoned the enduro. I'm concerned about my gas level, and as we crest a hill, and look down to the gas station at the bottom, my bike quits, out of gas. I manage to coast to the pumps, we fill-up, and a brief conversation w/the clerk confirms we're on the route back to Mt. Garfield.
Back at the start/finish, my friend took a high finish on his Sachs-engined Rickman, my feet feel like two ice cubes, and we head for home. The car heater eventually brought some feeling back into my feet, and within a month, I moved to Florida. The December puddles are much-warmer, and the only ice I encounter is in my highball glass.
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