Video: The nastiest Suzuki in the whole range

Before I take myself off to our local casualty department  to get these graunching rib bones checked out, I thought it might be a good idea to tell you why you must buy a 2011 RM85 Suzuki as soon as feasibly possible. Time is running out.

Two-strokes are toast, right? They have no justifiable place in our ozone-aware, politically correct World any more. They pollute the atmosphere, they sound like an angry and offensive wasp and they guzzle precious hydrocarbons like they're going out of fashion (which they obviously are).

But they are (for all the above reasons and many more) absolutely bloody fantastic. The very fact that they punish mistakes with brutal disregard for human wellbeing, only makes them even more fantastic. 

And it doesn't matter how small they are, either.

Suzuki’s diddy RM85 produces 25 screaming horsepower at the back wheel. Doesn’t sound very impressive? In a package with a 48 in wheelbase that weighs just 70 kilos, let me tell you, it is.

If the bumps (and your smashed ribs) allow, these things accelerate so fast through the gears that your left foot can barely keep up. Given the right (or the wrong) conditions it will flip you over backwards in top gear. Brilliant.

I shot this video shortly after flipping it over backwards in second gear and although the bike was pretty much unscathed (need to buy a new rear mudguard and that's it) I didn’t fare quite so well. The reason I abort the lap is based on forty-six years of ingrained self preservation techniques. Massive pain is nature’s way of telling you that you’ve bust something. Been there before.

But you know what? I respect the RM85 more for it. It’s a savage, brutal, unforgiving and lazer-focused piece of competition-bike brilliance. Flipping me over backwards was the RM85s way of telling me that I’m a soft, road-bike riding old git who needs to show some respect and let my thirteen year-old nipper take the reigns instead. The RM85 is the edgy, super-flyweight boxer of the bike world. Even though it’s small, at last orders in the boozer, this is not a bike to start staring at. 

The best bit? For over a grand less than the Yamaha YZF125 learner bike you can have a piece of this two-stroke, finely honed genius in your garage. More precisely, £3,267.06 – and don’t you love the six pence bit – buys you a slice of two-stroke history and, trust me, in one, two or three years time it will be just that. History.

Use your kids as an excuse to buy one, keep hold of it (and a box full of pistons and rings) and horrify your grandkids in years to come. 

'What's that little bike Grand Dad at the back of the garage?'

'Oh, it's nothing really. Just a little yellow motorbike. It's quite old. Would you like a go on it?'

Make sure you know where the first aid box is, though...

By mark forsyth