Last of the Two-Strokes! 1985 Yamaha RZ350 Review Daily Rider
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00:00Good day everybody, Zach Kortz with RevZilla here and welcome to another episode of Daily Rider
00:05where we learn about motorcycles as we ride. I am super excited about today's guest because it's
00:10from another era, one of loud paint, loud pipes, and smoking, you might say. That's right, that is
00:16a 1985 Yamaha RZ350 Parallel Twin 2-stroke, about 50 horsepower, and when it was new, $2,400
00:24American dollars. If you're anything like me, you'd take that right about now, yeah? Anyway,
00:28let's step into the time machine and see what this sucker's like on the daily ride.
00:39All right, everybody, here it is. RZ350, or if you're Canadian, the old RZ350, yeah? Yeah. Anyway,
00:48Kenny Roberts signature on the fairing. Of course, that adds legitimacy to any motorcycle.
00:53Dual rotors. We'll talk a little bit about the brakes as we use them. These big old expansion
00:58chambers underneath, of course, a trademark of the two-stroke engine. Not stock pipes because
01:05basically no RZ350 has stock pipes, as far as I can tell. Basically, everyone changed them
01:10because the stock ones really choked the bike up, early emission stuff. Anyhoo, here's the engine,
01:15347cc Parallel Twin 2-stroke YPVS. That is Yamaha Power Valve System. So we'll talk about that. So
01:23that's a way to make the engine run a little bit better at two different RPMs. But yeah, stone
01:27simple, right? Look at that. You can just see everything. It's all right here. It's remarkable.
01:32And a nice sort of flat seat, lovely paint job. Yeah, let's fire it up, right?
01:37No electric start. Gotta kick this mamma jamma. Old school. Yeah.
01:44Oh, totally wicked, right? Let's hit the road, shall we? I can't tell you how excited I am.
02:02All righty, here we are. Trucking along our first little stint on the old RZ350. I know that specs
02:20are probably a little bit less important to you, maybe, I don't know, with an old bike than they
02:23would be with a new bike. But I'll run through some of them anyway. You got about 370 pounds.
02:29It's a pretty light bike. I mean, it's a small displacement. Also, two strokes are sort of
02:32famously light. Like I said, about 50 horsepower. I think the dyno that I looked up said it was 52
02:40horsepower when they dynoed it in 1984, 85, something like that. That probably would have
02:45been with stock pipes on and probably make a little bit more power now. But then again, it's
02:50old. I don't know, whatever. The point is that's the approximate horsepower. What's really exciting
02:55about it is how it feels, not so much the actual number. And we'll, of course, talk about that as
02:59well. Other specs is a 31.5 inch seat height, I believe. I don't know. Some people told me in
03:07my research it was a little tall for the era, but it doesn't feel particularly big to me.
03:12And yeah, like I said, 2,400 bucks, brand new in 1984, I believe. But now they probably sell for
03:22maybe 7,000, 8,000, 7,500 bucks. I think that was the last
03:26sale price I saw for one. And last of all, the important specification that I'd like to share
03:32before I forget is the fuel capacity, which you're probably thinking, oh, a little 350 from the 80s,
03:36probably got a little tiny tank. It's actually a 5.2 gallon gas tank, which I find, I don't know,
03:43maybe fascinating is not the right word, but surprising, I suppose. Whoa, hey.
03:48I got to test the brakes a little early. Anyhow, there's a basic rundown for you of
03:54specifications on our Z350. There we go. A little power, really? Holy smokes.
04:10About to fire out onto the freeway here, which was one of my big questions about this bike was
04:15what it was like to ride on the freeway. So here we go, emerging.
04:27Certainly has enough power to go down the freeway, that's for sure.
04:36All right, there we go. Into overdrive, sixth gear, about 70 miles an hour,
04:43something like that, or cruising along at 6,500 RPM, something like that, I guess,
04:476,500, 75 miles an hour. Anyway, and surprisingly relaxed and comfortable, I would say. The seat is
04:55a little bit narrow and kind of stiff. I don't know if the foam's original, so that might have
05:00something to do with it, but in general, the riding position is not too bad. The pegs feel
05:04pretty high. And one thing that's very common with riding old bikes is that the, basically,
05:09the tank feels long. I'm not going to look down, I'm going to point the camera down if you can see
05:13it. It's very long. If you think about how far it is from the front of the seat to the headstock on
05:20an MT-07 or something like that, I don't know, it feels significantly shorter. This feels like
05:25kind of a long reach from the seat to the bars, which is fine for me because I'm tall,
05:29but does feel a little bit antiquated, which I suppose isn't that surprising.
05:34But yeah, otherwise, geez, it's pretty nice. I don't know, not a lot of wind protection.
05:41Basically, just getting anywhere from my sternum up is all getting wind blast on it,
05:45my shoulders, my head, of course. So I don't know, it's not like, not particularly comfortable, but
05:51I don't know, I guess it's better than I was expecting.
05:57Riding position feels weird when you lean it over.
06:00Feels like I'm sitting on top of the rear tire and the bar's the way out in front of me.
06:10So yeah, we don't often talk about really specific stuff about engine design on
06:14a daily rider, but the Yamaha power valve system on this bike is pretty interesting.
06:20It's basically variable valve timing for two-strokes, essentially. I was talking to a
06:25buddy of mine who's had one of these since high school, when he was in high school,
06:29in the early 90s. And yeah, he explained it basically as Honda VTEC or Ducati DVT,
06:38except for two-strokes. And that's essentially what it is, because when you change where the
06:41ports are on a two-stroke engine, you change essentially when the gases are released and
06:49compressed in the combustion chamber. So you essentially change the valve timing of the
06:55engine. So that's what this power valve does at 7,000 RPM. This little dial in there swivels
07:02on a servo motor and it allows better airflow through the engine at the high end of the rev
07:08range. And then below 7,000, that little guy spins the other way and restricts some of the airflow
07:16that you'd get at high RPM. So it's pretty nifty technology. It's sort of the stuff they started
07:21using in two-strokes in the late 70s, I think. So by the mid 80s, it was something they could
07:28apply to a street bike for sure. And yeah, you'll notice as we accelerate throughout this episode,
07:35as I get up above 7,000 is where it really kind of starts to scream, really kind of packs a punch.
07:41It's pretty cool. When I was doing my research on this bike, I had a friend of mine tell me
07:47that the engine is rubber mounted, which is something I didn't really realize because
07:51the only two-strokes that I really spent a lot of time on were essentially race bikes. They were
07:54either dirt bikes or road racing bikes, but they weren't designed for the street. And so the rubber
07:59mounted engine just takes a lot of the vibes out of the perimeter frame and therefore your hands
08:07and feet and butt where you contact the motorcycle. So now that I'm cruising along here and it feels
08:12pretty comfortable, I guess that kind of snaps into focus. That whole rubber mounted engine
08:17thing makes sense. This is usually where we talk about mirrors. These aren't bad. They're
08:23surprisingly smooth, although they're not placed in a particularly good spot for someone my size.
08:28I basically am getting a lot of elbow. That's entirely possible that 1985 was a little too soon,
08:37especially for a bike like this, for companies to have really specific goals in mind for ergonomics
08:42and mirror sight lines and that kind of thing. All right, time to trundle through the neighborhood
08:50here and see what the spike's low speed manners are like. And spoiler alert, they're not that great.
09:00Balance is pretty good. You definitely got to be a little cautious with the
09:06clutch. It's not exactly designed for parking lot maneuvers. This bike,
09:14the clutch is a little bit grabby, but you know, it's an old dog. Give it a little bit of a pass,
09:22I suppose. Let's see if we can get this stop sign. Nope.
09:36That's one thing about two-strokes, they don't really like to be lugged, you know.
09:39I'm the type of rider that usually rides bikes at basically as low an RPM as the
09:44engine seems happy. And that's definitely the case with this bike too.
09:48The engine's just not very happy below, I don't know, 3,000 or 4,000 RPM
09:52in general. Here we go. Yeah, we got a clean stop that time. Yeah.
10:02Yeah, the fueling is surprisingly good. I mean, two-strokes are notoriously
10:06kind of fickle and finicky when it comes to tuning and mixture and that kind of thing.
10:13But the fueling on this bike is surprisingly good, especially considering it's vintage.
10:20It just works pretty well.
10:29When it zips up past 6,500 there, it really comes alive. It's pretty fun.
10:35And one more thing about that Yamaha power valve thing, it's interesting to me that it's so
10:41seamless. You can't feel anything. I stalled it. That's my bad. I'm just going to have to
10:50be a little bit strategic at this stoplight here. It's the perfect timing for the stoplight.
10:54Just got to kick it back to life here.
11:05There we go. Anyway, the power valve thing, I find it really interesting that it's so smooth because
11:11I mean, Ducati's DVT system is pretty smooth in this day and age. What's up? All right. Super
11:19Duke. Commuter Super Duke. Respect. Anyway, the DVT system is pretty smooth in this day and age.
11:28I remember that Honda VFR 800, that sort of rebirth that they did in 2014 or something,
11:37maybe. Oh, he wants to talk to me. What's that? Yeah, it sure is. Nice bike yourself. Yeah.
11:48He's got respect. The guy in the Super Duke's got respect. That says something for the RC 350.
11:53He's got big respect. His eyes are wide, man. He's loving it. Anyway, where I was going with
11:59that point, it was not terribly interesting. The point is that VFR that came out in 2014 there,
12:05it was really obvious when the valves would change. Granted,
12:08four-stroke valve systems are a lot more complicated,
12:14but you could hear it in the engine. You could hear this little shaft moving around and it would
12:18clank and the engine character would change. Considering two-strokes are famous for
12:25having difficult to manage power bands, I'm pretty impressed with this engine in general.
12:38This is where I always talk about passenger accommodations, often behind
12:42Alexis. I don't know what this street's called, but I hope it's called Lover's Lane
12:48because this is where I always talk about my wife and how I put her on the back of motorcycles and
12:52ask for her opinion. I didn't have a chance to do that on this bike and I apologize.
12:56What I can tell you about the passenger accommodations is that the seat's pretty
13:00flat and the ergonomics will be pretty similar in the lower body as they are for the rider,
13:03which is to say maybe a little tight if you're tall, but in general, pretty reasonable.
13:07Passenger riding this bike is going to be very similar to a rider riding this bike
13:10in so much as it might not be the best way to get from point A to point B, but
13:17you're going to soak in the senses, you know? You're going to get the sounds and the smells
13:21of riding a two-stroke, so hopefully your passenger enjoys that, I guess is all I have to say.
13:33I'm pushing a pretty big wheelie. It actually brings me to an interesting point about passengers
13:38come to think of it. If you put a passenger on this bike, that's a situation in which you could
13:45get yourself in a little bit of trouble if you weren't ready for that, you know, power valve to
13:50open and the bike to kind of shoot forward like that. You could loop the thing and a passenger
13:58would help. So, I mean, you know, that is to say a passenger would help make the front wheel light,
14:05which could hurt you and the passenger, so keep that in mind, maybe.
14:12Bye. Getting a nice little run at this twisty roads. These tar snakes, not super fun.
14:22Oh, what a delightful little machine.
14:29Outstanding.
14:30This is great. I mean, I'm having a blast, but I will say it doesn't handle great, if I'm honest.
14:39It feels like the front end is pretty far away from my body, and it also, if you hit bumps in
14:47the middle of a corner, it kind of like shimmies and shakes a little bit. I know aftermarket
14:54steering dampers were definitely a popular modification on this bike.
15:00Yeah, it was definitely, this bike is from an era when, you know, machines were still sometimes
15:07focused on making horsepower or looking cool a lot more than they were focused on balance and,
15:13I don't know, accountability, you might say. It's a real treat to ride, but it's definitely
15:20anachronistic, especially when it comes to the chassis. I haven't really talked about the dash
15:24yet, but I will say I just love the instrumentation. It's so fighter pilot. It's rad.
15:32I mean, the tack right in the middle is just so purposeful, and yeah, I don't know, the Speedo
15:38with the multi-colors, it's got kph and miles an hour on there. I don't know, it's just, and all
15:42these like little freaking Star Wars looking lights for the signals and the high beam and
15:48stuff, these like weak incandescent bulbs in there behind this thick almost opaque plastic,
15:56it looks like. I don't know, it's like, feels like being in a spaceship that was designed in
16:01the 70s or something. It's awesome, and the temp gauge is nice and big. You'll notice that over
16:07here. This is, you know, coolant temperature, and they used a lot of dash space to show that
16:11because that's pretty important. Liquid cooling a two-stroke is a big deal. That was a huge stride
16:17for two-strokes because they do get really hot when they run well, and when they don't run well,
16:24they can run even hotter sometimes, so something that they figured the rider would want to have
16:32their eye on. Here we go!
16:36Oh my god, it's like eating a baguette in Paris or, I don't know, Cannoli in Milan and
16:47so on and so forth. The slice of New York pizza, it just feels right. The accelerating on a two-stroke
16:52is like, you're going to its happy place. You're experiencing the engine in the place that it just
16:58only ever wants to live, and the sound is just, it's intoxicating.
17:06All right, red light. We can talk about these brakes. Paws on a little bit.
17:12They're really not bad. I mean, there's a surprising amount of power. I would assume
17:16vintage brakes like this to be quite a bit worse, but someone on Instagram did ask, you know, like,
17:22is that kind of overkill? And what I can tell you is, no, it's not overkill. First of all,
17:27because the bike's pretty fast.
17:33I mean, it's not actually fast, but it's sort of like surprisingly fast. We're surprising
17:38in how fast it is, if that makes sense. But anyway, the brakes are, they're not overkill
17:43for a couple reasons, but the big one is, they're not overkill. They're not overkill
17:48They're not overkill for a couple reasons, but the big one is that, yeah, it's, you know,
17:53dual rotors and they look kind of beefy, but it's not the same dual rotors you get today. You know,
17:58it's like, these aren't the same brakes you get on a, on a Kawasaki Z900 or I don't know,
18:05even just brakes nowadays that are not very good are probably be better than these because
18:11the technology is just a little bit better. So I definitely appreciate having the dual rotors.
18:16I don't think I'd want to ride this bike if it didn't have that.
18:23You can spin past red line. That's another two stroke thing. I just love it. So good. Like
18:29it has red line at 9,500, but like you can, you can go way past that. Not going to float any valves,
18:36no intake valves, no exhaust valves, no camshafts, no push rods,
18:41nothing. Just air getting forced around and exploded.
18:49I'm having a great time, everybody. I hope you are too.
18:54I can try and crank over and let you guys get a better look at this dash. Can you see that? Is
18:58that a little better? It's just delightful. That's sort of like old textured plastic,
19:05you know, it does look a little bit antique and worn out, but I don't know. I just, I love the,
19:13I love the simplicity of it. It's awesome. It's even got like little like crosshairs kind of,
19:19you see that? It's got, you know, a vertical line and a horizontal line in the tack and in
19:24the Speedo and in here, it's all just very aviation. It's rad.
19:38You know, it's worth comparing this bike to, you know, a modern 300 class engine, I suppose,
19:45you know, it is much faster than, you know, a Ninja 400 or an R3 or MT03, whatever, same, you
19:52know, kind of thing. And that's because of the nature of a two-stroke, right? It's firing
20:00once every two strokes instead of once every four. So theoretically, you get twice as much
20:06power at the same displacement. Not actually true in practice, but yeah, you do get a lot more power
20:12from an engine like this. And just the dynamic is so much different, you know, where those engines
20:16are designed to be kind of understressed and, you know, rev happy, but able to trundle along and
20:24get good mileage and be compact and reasonable and while being fun. This one's a little bit more,
20:30a little bit more purposeful, you might say. But yeah, the big difference with this bike compared
20:38to say an MT03, I would say is the ergonomics and chassis, you know, just the brakes and the
20:43suspension and stuff. It's newer, right? And it's also a little more balanced and, you know, the MT03
20:50riding position feels a lot more contemporary and neutral and compact. This feels kind of,
20:57yeah, it just feels a little bit antiquated because it is, you know, my feet feel like
21:01they're pretty far forward and my butt feels low and the tank feels long. The controls feel
21:06kind of far away. The front end feels far away. I don't feel like I'm over the front of the bike,
21:10like you're on a new bike. But yeah, I don't know, just some food for thought in case you were
21:15wondering. Something I'd like to talk a little bit about is history of this bike and sort of where it
21:20fits in to motorcycling history. And I don't have all the, I don't have all the answers. There are a
21:26lot of people who are a lot more knowledgeable than I am about motorcycling in general, but
21:30specifically, you know, RZs and Yamaha two-strokes. But just really broadly, you know, this was the
21:37end of the era. This was kind of the end of the line for two-strokes. It was 1985. They imported
21:44these bikes at 84 and 85, I think, for the RZ350. There was also the, was it RD350LC, which was
21:51an RD which had historically been air-cooled, but it was LC because it was liquid-cooled.
21:56And before that, there was a whole slew of Japanese two-strokes that really took the world
22:00by storm and sort of arguably, you know, drove British bikes underground. And I don't know, I
22:07guess those were Japanese bikes in general. But yeah, this is the end of a pretty
22:13important era in motorcycling and sort of two-stroke street bikes. It wasn't literally the last one,
22:19I don't think. I don't know, maybe it was. But if not, it's sort of a cornerstone of
22:26the end of the era. Because 1986 was when the first GSX-R750 hit. And that was a
22:36real watershed moment for motorcycling, you know. Like, that bike changed the sort of
22:42outlook of sport bikes forever. And, you know, 84, 82, 84? Gosh, now I forget. That was the first
22:52Kawasaki Ninja. So the world was shifting then. And these bikes were dying, essentially.
23:01But I think in a lot of ways that's what makes it feel kind of special. And this is where we'd
23:08normally come out for our dirt ride. But I did not take this guy in the dirt because,
23:14you know, it's not mine. It could be in a museum as far as I'm concerned.
23:18It's arguably rude enough for me to wheelie it around. So we didn't take it down the dirt. Sorry
23:25everybody who wanted to know how an RZ350 goes over a jump. But back to the point I was making,
23:29it's too special. And I think that's one of the reasons this bike is really cool. It might not be
23:34the utmost or the absolute pinnacle best two-stroke street bike that ever existed. But
23:40because it is a lightning rod for the end of the era, I think it feels important and special.
23:49My buddy who's had one for 30 years now pointed out that, you know, Top Gun came out in 1986,
23:55right? And Tom Cruise was riding a Ninja. And, you know, culturally then, like, everyone just
24:01wanted a Ninja, right? And when you look at this dash, you're like, this is a Top Gun dash, man.
24:05This is like an 80s fighter pilot setup. So what if Top Gun had come out in 1984, 85, and he had
24:14been riding an RZ350? I don't know. Would that have changed the course of history? Probably not.
24:19I don't know. I'm just saying it was an interesting time. Anyway, I don't even know what I'm talking
24:24about. I'm going to start reading tarot cards here pretty soon. The point is I just think this
24:28bike is awesome. And I hope you've had fun riding along with it. I've had a blast. I think it's so
24:34fun. And I hope the lovely owner, Christina, lets me ride it again sometime. It's so cool.
24:46Now, this is historically where we talk about competitors and price and kind of wrap up the
24:51episode. I guess maybe I did that a little bit early. I said before that, you know, I saw one
24:56of these go up for auction or sold at auction, excuse me, for $7,500, I think, which I don't
25:02know, feels like kind of a steal. It's a really cool bike. And you know, granted, yeah, it's kind
25:07of a, it's kind of a Sunday rider, you know? I mean, you could daily this thing, but I don't know
25:12how, I don't know how smart that would be. You know, you'd rack up miles and you'd also just,
25:20I don't know, say a little harder to find parts and stuff like that. And of course, with an old
25:25bike, you're always a little bit more likely to get stranded. I mean, this thing isn't famous for
25:30massive failures or anything like that, but it's an old bike. And I don't know, if I had one of
25:35these, I definitely want to have something to ride around on the reg and then take this out when I
25:40was in a special kind of mood, I suppose. Okay, now just time to, oh, weird. Accident right there.
25:54All right. Down the freeway we go. Back home and we'll rank this sucker.
26:08Peeling off the freeway.
26:16Awesome. I mean, you can see how you'd feel like Kenny Roberts exiting the freeway.
26:24In 1985.
26:34Can you back it in? Not really. I'm not gonna, I'm not gonna lean into that too hard. I'm not
26:42trying to chuck this thing on the ground. You probably could if you really tried, but I mean,
26:47come on. We don't need to go down that road, do we? Oh, look at that. It's got a center stand.
26:52That's pretty cool. I mean, that's definitely old school. Agreed.
27:01Now that it's warmed up, we can give it a little rev.
27:05I mean, oh man. Neighbors probably hate me, but that's delightful, isn't it?
27:09Oh man. All right. One more. Just one more.
27:17Lovely. Just lovely. Okay. I hope you had fun. I'm gonna answer some Instagram questions now,
27:24and we'll rank this sucker on the leaderboard, and I'll let you go.
27:27Dave and Bummers asks, are you able to keep it cool in traffic? The one I rode really didn't
27:31like idling in summertime traffic. Well, it's a pretty warm day today, and the temp gauge didn't
27:36really go above half or something. So I can't say I have a ton of experience with that. I'm sure
27:39there are some problems with them overheating, but I haven't had any problem. And I asked the
27:44owner, and I asked a bunch of people in my research for this article, everyone from old
27:49codgers that were journalists when this bike came out to my friend who's owned one for 30 years,
27:54and that wasn't something that came up. So I don't know. Hopefully that makes you feel better,
27:58answers your question a little bit. Guy Reynolds 49 says, fun fact, the 1985 RZ350 NC California
28:04model made two more horsepower than the 49 state version due to an improvement to California version
28:08of the catalyzed exhaust that year. I saved this comment because it's obviously not a question.
28:13This is a perfect example of how much more some people might know than I do about this bike,
28:18but that does bring up the fact also that the pipes were a real hot button on these bikes,
28:23right? Like lots of people swapped them out for different ones. They were usually louder.
28:28They usually were made a little bit more horsepower because they weren't as
28:32choked by the catalyzers. So thanks for the info there, Guy Reynolds. Crack Moen asks,
28:38how practical would it really be to daily something like this in 2020? Maintenance,
28:42mileage, parts availability. I can't speak exactly to parts availability depending on
28:48where you live. I know that my buddy who's owned one for so long races his now. So he still races
28:54it in the summer and he's able to keep it going. So I don't think he's dropping a fortune
29:02on parts and he does crash it occasionally. But anyway, yeah, I think that bikes like this are,
29:08they were designed to be street bikes. It's not like a two-stroke supercross bike that you might
29:13remember from your youth or something like that, that had to get rebuilt all the time. And you're
29:17supposed to check all the things every eight hours. That's not the case with this bike.
29:22At its root, pretty simple. There's not a lot of moving parts, right? It's just a
29:26crank and a piston basically flying around in there. So I think you could do it. Like I said
29:32before, I wouldn't, I would ride it on Sundays and when I felt like I was in the mood. Reader904
29:39says, so you got mix oil and gas or separate places to fill? Okay, I got it. So the question
29:46is, do you have to premix the gas with oil? Because of course, two-strokes don't have crankcase oil.
29:51They use the oil mixed in with the gasoline to lubricate the bottom end and use it to explode
29:56and move the bike down the road. But no, the answer is you don't have to premix the gas.
30:01Under the seat, there's a little oil reservoir and it's got an oil injector. And so you just
30:04put pump gas in the tank, the oil injector mixes it for you and sends it into the engine. There
30:09are occasionally problems with that whereby the pump breaks and then the bike does not get oil
30:16mixed into the gas and then it runs all too hot and melts itself. But I haven't heard that being
30:21a huge problem. But yeah, based on the design that Yamaha did, you can actually accidentally
30:26not know that the oil pump is not operational. So that's a little tricky. Shankysammy asks,
30:32RZ350 or MT-03, which one would you choose? I mean, if I had to rely on, I don't know,
30:42maybe I should ride an MT-03 and remind myself what that's like. Maybe I'll do that. Come to
30:45think of it. Stay tuned. Anyway, the short answer is I would recommend someone get an MT-03 if you
30:52have to rely on it for transportation to get places. For me, I'd get this thing. How could
30:57you not? Look at it. You're riding around on history. It's just, it's just excellent from
31:05start to finish. I wouldn't be able to resist, but I would probably spend more time in the garage
31:09than someone who bought an MT-03. Last question, Adam Zalt asks, how do you like the analog feel
31:14of it compared to newer bikes? Good question, Adam Zalt. I feel like I remember that username.
31:18You've got good questions, Adam. I love the feel. I think it's just terrific. I think it connects me
31:26with an era of motorcycling that I otherwise wouldn't know about. Or even if I did know about
31:30it, I wouldn't understand it because I've never felt it. So I love it. I think it's excellent,
31:35but you cannot deny that newer bikes are more confidence inspiring, whether it's because of
31:41the electronics like ABS and TC and that kind of thing, or it's just the layout, you know, the sort
31:47of like modern tires and wheel sizes and brake systems and suspension components, you know, it
31:51just, you feel more connected to the road on a new bike. And, and in general, you're probably just,
31:58yeah, you're going to have a little bit more confidence. But for me, like the feel of it is,
32:01it's just, it's super special. It's something that, you know, it's locked in time and, you know,
32:09something like this is never going to get made again. And that's why it's so cool. So anyway,
32:14let's go rank it on the leaderboard and then I'll let you guys go.
32:17All right, everybody, here we are back at Daily Rider headquarters. Now the fun part's over. We
32:22got some serious business to attend to. Ranking the RZ350 on the Daily Rider leaderboard. First
32:28things first, exciting day here at Daily Rider. First use of a blue pin. I know the bike's red
32:33and white, but you know, if you know motorcycles, blue for Yamaha. Makes sense, right? Where does
32:37it fall on the expense scale? Hmm. I don't have a great idea of what $2,400 looked like in 1985.
32:44Wasn't really super into finance then, if I'm honest. But, uh, regardless now, you know,
32:49seven, eight grand, I think is approximately you have to pay to get one of those bikes. And
32:53that's not a ton of money realistically for how kind of reasonable it is and how well it works,
32:57I don't think. So I think it's in the bottom half of the price scale. Um, you know, a little cheaper
33:03than versus 650. So it'll be in this area. And then as far as, you know, dorky versus cool,
33:08I mean, this is a cool bike, right? It's a two-stroke. It's got Kenny Roberts signature.
33:13I get here. Of course it's cool. It's unbelievably cool. Maybe not as advanced as a V4S Streetfighter.
33:19Maybe not as capable as an Africa Twin. Um, but as far as kickstand presence,
33:25mwah. So, uh, I'm going to drop the pin here. Cool. Right about there. I think. Yamaha RZ350.
33:34Cool. Now the big kahuna. Where does it fall on the leaderboard? It's not as good as versus 650
33:41or an Africa Twin. It's not as good as a Streetfighter. Realistically, the Streetfighter,
33:46I know it's, uh, mostly has allure, but it also is a pretty reasonable bike aside from being a
33:50little warm on a warm day. Um, you know, comfy seat, ABS, all that kind of stuff. Is it better
33:56than my 2006 KTM 950 Supermoto? Oh, I mean, an RZ350 has got a bigger fuel tank, probably more
34:03range. It's got a lower seat height. My bike doesn't have ABS. RZ doesn't have ABS, but
34:10it's pretty close, right? It's pretty close. No, it's not. It's not as good. My bike is better as
34:18a daily rider. It's got electric start. It's got better brakes, even if it doesn't have ABS.
34:22I think realistically for a daily ride, aside from the seat height, my bike is pretty reasonable. So
34:27I did think there was going to be a fun subtext, honestly, of daily rider about how my bike was
34:31always just going to be the worst bike I've ever ridden or ranked anyway. Um, but very proud to
34:36say that it's not at the bottom of the list anymore. That is the RZ350, although on the
34:40cool scale, as we know, it would be right at the top. Anyhow, that was a fun trip into yesteryear.
34:46Thank you so much for joining me. I hope you learned something. I hope you had fun, of course,
34:50and I'll see you next time on Daily Rider. Ah, yes. Famous stomping grounds of the RZ350.
34:59Stuck in traffic between K-rails in a construction zone.
35:08That's what we're all about here on Daily Rider though. Taking it for the daily ride.