Look lads, take the mick if you want, you have to admit, the fizzy era was a very clever and yes *cool* way to overcome the establishment.
Hey they looked good, they made a lot of noise, they could be pursuaded to travel quite quickly and they pulled admiring glances from 15 year old girls who hadn't yet migrated to 18 year old boys with cars. In fact they were so good they had to be banned - how cool is that?
what more could yoof ask for?
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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I'm not taking the mick, I loved the things, it makes me all nostalgic just to see a picture of one.
M.
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In truth I am glad they have gone.
My lad is 16 years old. I can easily pursuade him to stay off the road till he gets a car license. I mean, 30 mph moped riding just aint cool is it.
Had we still been in the fizzy era, I just know he would have been on two wheels asap. (or sooner - illegaly)
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TourVanMan TM < Ex RF >
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I had a Honda SS50 in my youth, the only four stroke sports moped. Whilst slower off the mark than a FS1E or Suzuki AP50 (let alone my mate's Fantic GT) it eventually over hauled them at a genuine 50 MPH (apart from the Fantic).
There is an excellent book out called Funky Mopeds which tells the tales of pedals for foot-rest proper mopeds not these ridiculous scooters buzzing around now.
On a serious note I attended an RAC Training course on Sunday mornings and rode responsibly according to conditions, unlike the little brainless chavs of today.
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Ah, the Yamaha 'Fizzy'. Had 2 of them, one was the resticted 30 mph DX model, but was geared so heavily by replacing the front sprocket for a larger one, so that a) it went faster, and b) it kept the engine revs down. On the downside, it was slightly slower accelerating but it would do 40 to 45 mph.
I also had an unrestricted race tuned one. It had also been converted from a bog standard one to a DX model, but still had the original small petrol tank. 60cc barrel and piston kit, modified rotary disc valve, carb had a larger main jet fitted. Trouble was it only did approx 30 to the gallon when caned, so the 2 gallon tank constantly needed refilling. Still, it gave the 125cc and some 250cc bikes a run for their money ;o)
I remember the slogan fitted on the back of my mates Fizzy moped "Fizzy's never die - they just sieze". How true.
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I also remember the Honda SS50. I tuned my mates bike by replacing the barrel and piston from a scrapped Honda C70. It was basically the same engine, but the SS50 had a manual clutch, whereas the C50 & C70 had the centrifugal clutch. That SS50 , sorry SS70 ;o) gave my raced tuned Fizzy a run for it's money.
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I too had a FS1E, a metallic orangy brown 75 model, KYH959P IIRC, as did a load of mates, the Suzuki AP50 had the advantage of a 5th gear and a conventional 1 down four up gear change though the paint was thinner, the chrome peeled off and it was no faster and less tunable. I still have an FSIE crank in my garage.
Re skimming the head, we found that a higher compression gave more power though the engine would not rev as high so acceleration improved though top speed was reduced, reducing the rear sprocket by one tooth helped the latter though made 1st gear too high.
I also know a guy who restores these along with old RDs etc, a good FS1E can go for £3000 to £4000.
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>>Re skimming the head,.....etc etc
Ah, but you clearly knew what you were doing, we had not the faintest idea. We just did stuff that someone else said about that we thought sounded like it might work. This included all sorts of stuff in the fuel tank, various holes drilled in various places on the exhaust, and various bits of the engine "skimmed". "skimmed" in speech marks since it usually transleted to "filed". And who knew there were different files for wood and metal ?
Teh SS50 was just rubbish. Ok on a long run the top speed which was a) actually 50 and b) reasonably resilient as opposed to an FS1E which would do its top speed once in a lifetime, but it was like a soggy sponge to ride. Mind you, I shouldn't think one of us had any idea what they did to the gallon, although knew within 1/2 mile how much further you could get before a petrol sub was required. Sadly all too often that 1/2 mile error resulted in a pushing exercise or my one and only ever pedalling of an FS1E.
Still we all had 75mph race-tuned FS1Es bored out to 750cc and capable of out performing a KH250. Or at least strongly maintained that we did when challenged. We were also all superb racers, personal mates of Barry Sheene, able to drink 37 pints without getting drunk and incredibly successful with girls.
I'm also sure that the summers were longer, the beer cheaper and the cigarettes less harmful to health. There were virtually no consequences whatever you did and volvos were to be abused, not feared.
Halcyon days indeed....
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I'm also sure that the summers were longer, the beer cheaper and the cigarettes less harmful to health.
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And you could get away with "Tax in Post" for months .....
and volvos were to be abused
Reminds me of my bike test, I had had my RD250 for 5 days, turned up at the test centre and rode around the block as requested, I was looking for the bloke with the clipboard about to jump out on me when a 240 estate pulled out on me, I slammmed on the anchors and the bloke with the clipboard came up and patted me on the back, 'well done' he said, needless to say I passed.
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Many years past,I can remember talking to a representative of Sachs(who built most European moped engines) and he told me that they had to make 30+ versions of their 50cc. motor as no two European countries could agree on what constituted a moped.
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IIRC there was a 750cc MV Agusta with pedals in the 70's stretching the Italian moped regs to the limit.
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