Taking on a project inevitably plunges you into a world of possible pain and uncertainty – and bike magazine projects are no different. Some are more successful than others, as these bikes prove – all taken oln by bokes we know, and maybe should have known better
THE IDEA
Show the true potential of Suzuki’s 100mph 250 X7
SUZUKI X7 MICRON
Magazine Motorcycle Mechanics &The Biker
When 1980-1982
Journalist Brian Crichton
“I tested one of the first X7s back in 1978. It did a genuine 100mph and I was impressed. A year later, I bought one secondhand. I was working for Motorcycle Mechanics at the time, and myself and fellow staffer Dave Walker wanted to see if we could make it quicker. “After that, Dave bought an RD250, so we ran a shoot-out feature in the mag between the two bikes. I fitted Micron pipes to the X7 which made a real difference – and that caught the attention of Paul Slater at Micron, who decided he wanted to get involved.
“Paul made a box-section swingarm, tuned the engine, and fitted a race seat and rearsets. I got it rebored to take TS125 pistons, which took capacity to 272cc. At Santa Pod it did a quarter-mile in 13.25 seconds, beating a lot of bigger bikes in the process. Paul wanted to take it further still, but the editor at the time cut the feature.
“Dave and I then went to work for The Biker, taking the Micron with us. At Elvington in 1983, I set a 350cc Pro-street speed record with The Micron. Flat out it pulled 116.5mph – it could have gone faster with higher gearing.
Where is it now? I kept the bike, but never ran it much after The Biker closed. In 2021 I sold it to Steve Wagstaff who got it up and running again – pleasing to see. It was centre stage on the VJMC stand at the Stafford Show last October.
THE IDEA
Restore a cost-effective Triton true to the hybrid’s DIY roots
TRITON
Magazine Classic Bike
When 2008
Journalist Rick Parkington
“We reckoned that a Triton project would be ideal in Classic Bike, and luckily a mate of mine had one that he’d yet to get around to doing anything with. It was a pre-unit Tiger 110 motor in a wideline Featherbed frame. What I liked about it was the fact it’d been built in the ’70s and hadn’t been touched since.
“It was in poor shape, but it was true to Tritons of the time – naively put together by someone who probably didn’t know what they were doing. It wasn’t awful, but bits of it made me winc
