The Japanese scene is sometimes influenced by us
Jun 16, 2023 5:01:15 GMT 1
midlifecrisisrd, jessy03, and 3 more like this
Post by JonW on Jun 16, 2023 5:01:15 GMT 1
As Im sure many know, Im a huge fan of the JDM RZ scene.
Like many other countries, they pick and choose from the available materials when creating specials.
In Japan it would appear that there were lots of FZR/TZR 250s and so lots of their bikes use those forks/wheels/brakes etc, whereas in UK/AUS the RGV was king for a decade or two as parts were plentiful and cheap.
Sadly ours and their scenes dont interact very much at all (never really) which is believe is a language issue.
This is a shame really as we all would benefit from talking and easier sharing of parts. If anyone reads this from Japan, Brazil or Malaysia which are who we tend not to have dialogue with then I would love to be the guy to facilitate. So, please do get in touch... not least as I would really love some BEET Al-fin side covers...
Yes for my 251LC... You might also remember that Ive built that LC to ape some (a little only really) of what they are doing over there.
Anyway the point of this post... Interestingly, Quality Works in Japan has had the same idea as I'd had, they looked outside of their own scene and decided to do something 'new and different' - for their market at least. What they did was build a 'Western Style' special with RGV parts.
Reading between the lines it seems they copied my mate Jeff's approach to the shock mount and also swapped the stem which is different. They used a VJ21 swinger too... I wish we had shared experiences on this, they might have used an NK kit and a P model arm to do it more easily and get more of 'our look', we could also have steered them on the stem work.
What is nice is that it is still quite JDM, the pipes and the overall look is still 'from japan' in its modding. I guess just like my 251LC is to the JDM crowd.
Either way its nice that 'we' are influencing a build in another country... even if the RGV swaps are a bit Marmite these days on here.
As an aside, amusingly I have dealt with the owner of QW before and his bikes are always an influence to me, so perhaps my 421 had some bearing on his build as it was online with my old 2smoked site for over a decade. We'll never know i guess, but what they have done is a fun build all the same and I bet it draws comments at shows in Tokyo.
Here it is, written up by Webike.
japan.webike.net/magazine/custom/yamaha-rz250-custom-by-quality-works/
Like many other countries, they pick and choose from the available materials when creating specials.
In Japan it would appear that there were lots of FZR/TZR 250s and so lots of their bikes use those forks/wheels/brakes etc, whereas in UK/AUS the RGV was king for a decade or two as parts were plentiful and cheap.
Sadly ours and their scenes dont interact very much at all (never really) which is believe is a language issue.
This is a shame really as we all would benefit from talking and easier sharing of parts. If anyone reads this from Japan, Brazil or Malaysia which are who we tend not to have dialogue with then I would love to be the guy to facilitate. So, please do get in touch... not least as I would really love some BEET Al-fin side covers...
Yes for my 251LC... You might also remember that Ive built that LC to ape some (a little only really) of what they are doing over there.
Anyway the point of this post... Interestingly, Quality Works in Japan has had the same idea as I'd had, they looked outside of their own scene and decided to do something 'new and different' - for their market at least. What they did was build a 'Western Style' special with RGV parts.
Reading between the lines it seems they copied my mate Jeff's approach to the shock mount and also swapped the stem which is different. They used a VJ21 swinger too... I wish we had shared experiences on this, they might have used an NK kit and a P model arm to do it more easily and get more of 'our look', we could also have steered them on the stem work.
What is nice is that it is still quite JDM, the pipes and the overall look is still 'from japan' in its modding. I guess just like my 251LC is to the JDM crowd.
Either way its nice that 'we' are influencing a build in another country... even if the RGV swaps are a bit Marmite these days on here.
As an aside, amusingly I have dealt with the owner of QW before and his bikes are always an influence to me, so perhaps my 421 had some bearing on his build as it was online with my old 2smoked site for over a decade. We'll never know i guess, but what they have done is a fun build all the same and I bet it draws comments at shows in Tokyo.
Here it is, written up by Webike.
japan.webike.net/magazine/custom/yamaha-rz250-custom-by-quality-works/
