1970s
Two-time British champion James Whitham cut his motorcycling teeth on Japanese sports mopeds. He explains why they rank amongst the greatest ever inventions from the far east
The first year of getting a moped was one of the best of my life. For six months after buying my FS1-E, I’d wake up on a Saturday morning, check the weather, put four quid of fuel in and go where I wanted. Anywhere! I went to Blackpool, Cadwell, the Dales... and I didn’t have to ask for a lift. As a 16-year-old, that was a massive deal.
I was 16 in 1982, so that was five years after the sports moped era finished in 1977, when the law changed. It had begun in 1971 – until then you could ride a 250 on L-plates at 16, but the politicians thought: ‘Hang on, we can’t have kids flying about on 250s’, so they restricted you to a 50cc with pedals. Some government advisor obviously thought that if it the bike pedals, it would be something like a granny’s Raleigh Wisp with a basket on the front – and what harm could you do with that?
But the manufacturers got into it – especially Suzuki, Yamaha and the Italians. With FS1-Es, APs and Garellis you could rip along at 60mph – 65 on a good day – and have a proper motorbike. They tapped into a generation of kids who would never have had a grandma-style moped, but definitely wanted a Fizzy or whatever because you could look pretty cool on them.
So despite being ’80s kids, we all got pre-’77 bikes because they were quicker – the ones after ’77 were restricted to a wheezy 30mph. I wanted to go as fast as I could. Mine was a 1976 FS1-E and it was a reasonable thing considering I only paid £85 for it. I bought it off a kid who just turned 17, who had bought it off a kid who had turned 17 and so on. That’s how it worked. My mate bought his AP for 30 quid, which was a bargain. It was shit, though.
