Bikes that made me: How a Suzuki RM80 taught me to respect the machine

Mine was a mid-1980s Suzuki RM80, bright yellow with a blue seat. When I first saw it, it was sitting on the landing between the basement and the garage, a splash of citrus against a stark and austere concrete background. It was used, with some stickers, scratches, and a little oil weeping at the seams. More sheen than shine, you might say, which was very much the tradition in our household. You can imagine that through the eyes of eight-year-old me, it was sheer perfection.

"Bikes that made me" is a series of articles by Common Tread writers about personal motorcycles that have been significant in their riding lives and the lessons learned from those machines.

Or maybe you don’t have to imagine because you had the same feeling at some point. After spending my entire childhood to that point sitting on motorcycles and pretending to ride, this one would actually be in my control. No more cards in the spokes of my bicycles, no more numb lips from making engine noises for hours in the garage. A 140-pound machine, built to scale but still tall and intimidating, intricate beyond my comprehension. My dad sat behind me on the seat to teach me how to ride, his hands over mine so I could feel the engagement point of the clutch and how much throttle to use.

I didn’t really understand the definition of a two-stroke. I knew they went “ring-ding” and regular engines did not. I figured that was why it was so hard to start, and maybe I was right. Still, soon I could ride around a small section of our 35-acre farm in first gear, cautiously stopping and going with this new weapon of fun at my disposal.

A late 1980s RM80 is not a sophisticated machine, but it’s all about perspective. I was coming from a rigid pedal bike, so it might as well have been a spaceship. The suspension gobbled up rocks and roots and the seat was made of foam. Fully upholstered. It had number plates, for crying out loud. I was basically a professional racer.

The little RM’s carburetor struggled to fulfill my horrible, low-rpm desires, and as a result I sputtered around the yard puffing smoke. Soon, the potential of the bike came into focus, as I learned to accelerate and shift and accelerate again. My goggleless eyes watered. I could feel the power surge as the revs climbed, but the calculus of how or why escaped me. There didn’t seem to be any point in questioning why the engine did what it did, and besides I was too focused on shifting to worry about power pulses resonating in the exhaust pipe.

One day I was chasing my dad around our property, this time up through an empty sheep pasture. The going was tricky, believe me, and so I was cautiously enjoying my safe haven of first gear. Daddio waited at the top as I climbed past juniper bushes and sapling stumps, trundling on the edge of the tiny torque curve. The revs dropped, the engine started to bog, and soon I had the throttle cable stretched, asking for the most that little shot-glass piston could give. The field leveled out and with the throttle still wide open the revs climbed quickly, releasing all 80 cc of fury in what felt like an instant. And then I was flat on my back, listening to the RM idle on its side, and eventually stall.

In the moment, it felt like my beloved new spaceship had betrayed me. In reality, it had only done what I had asked (which, incidentally, was a lesson I would learn many times before admitting it). Looking back, it was the perfect illustration of the charm and folly of two-stroke engines. Incredible power and an oh-so-fickle personality. My sheep-pasture mousetrap move on the RM led to a father-son conversation about expansion chambers and how they work — the birds and the bees of exhaust pressure waves. It was also one of the most valuable lessons of all in motorcycling: The machine deserves respect. It can take you to faraway lands and let you feel speed like you cannot imagine, yet it is not a spaceship. It is based in reality, and the consequences are real. Fortunately, I first learned that lesson at jogging speed on an empty hillside in Vermont, when my bones were made of rubber.

The RM80 is what I used to learn how to ride a real motorcycle, and it also taught me that there is a relationship. A little boy and a dirt bike can do things together that individually would be impossible, but it’s more than that. To know the bike’s potential and to care about its limits were, for me, what would deliver the experience of motorcycling.

My RM80 also taught my dad that such an ornery little beast was arguably not the ideal machine for my moto baptism. He sold the RM and bought me a used Honda XR80, which only put me on my back when I was truly asking for it and still starts on the first or second kick to this day. Even so, nearly every motorcycle I have ever ridden, the gentle and loyal XR80 included, have had a whiff of RM80 lurking inside. A good reminder to pay respect where it is due.