25 Years Ago September 1987

25 YEARS AGO SEPTEMBER 1987

ROUNDUP

If any of our readers were lusting for variety, this issue should have given them terminal goosebumps. In hawking a comparison between three sporty Twins—the Cagiva SS650, Kawasaki EX500 and Moto Guzzi V65 Lario— the cover brazenly asked, "Do you really need 4 cylinders, 100 hp and 160 mph?" Given today's near— 200-hp, 186-mph four-cylinder racebikes thinly disguised as street machines, it's apparent that we did.

•Other tests involved an eclectic mix of hardware that included the Kawasaki 600 Ninja (the most popular middleweight sportbike of the era), the fat-tired Yamaha Trailway 200 (still sold today as the TW200) and the Suzuki LT80 mini-quad (yes, we tested ATVs back then).

•Team Cycle World and rider Steve Thompson attacked the Isle of Man TT, with Thompson achieving his lifelong dream of turning a lap on The Island in excess of 100 mph. Two accompanying stories were a motorcyclist's guide to the Isle of Man and the TT races, as well as a nostalgic look back 25 years to Mike Hailwood's 12th TT victory in 1967. • Managing Editor Ron Lawson conducted a thoughtful interview on the touchy subject of motocross safety with Danny "Magoo" Chandler, the colorful MX rider who, in a racing crash two years earlier, had been paralyzed from the waist down.

Paul Dean