Mate of mine had 3 at once back in the day, Bought and sold many for £350-£600, He still has a couple, Never owned one myself, KR1S is as close as I got, Looney machine that seized coming into a sharp downhill bend, Pushed the bike for 2 mile before I could get a phone, Could hardly walk after that lol, Wouldn't mind an RD but the prices have gone crazy for what it is
That's the way unfortunately. If you valued a bike purely on it's age, condition, reliability, technical specification, power, speed etc, you'd never buy a classic and all bikes would simply depreciate. Nostalgia + Availability = The grease that opens a rusty wallet.
They never did appeal to me. Much preferred big 4-strokes personally, although I did have a few off-road 2-strokes for fun.
No bike before or since has had the combination of performance price or fun. You could ride your bike to work all week and race it at the weekend they were simply a bike for the working class bloke to live his dreams on. The FZR1000 exup was the ultimate sportsbike at the time and manufactures were just getting their heads round the fact that suspension and brakes were an important part of motorcycle design. A GPZ900 was still classed as a sportsbike when the LC came out ! https://www.google.co.uk/amp/s/www.motorcyclenews.com/amp/news/2000/may/ready-for-a-riot/
Two-strokes were a technical cul-de-sac. Much of the motorcycle industry led by Yamaha galloped off down this blind alley for several years. Then reality hit, a U-turn was performed, and the whole mirage disappeared as was much predicted at the time. Eventually two-strokes were discontinued for both road and racing purposes. None of today's models is in any way descended from the RD350LC or anything like it.
Most two strokes are fun, i just picked up a two stroke project the other day 350lc is an icon to motorcycling, MCN got it right for two strokes.
Regardless of the development of the two stroke engine the LC range of bikes paved the way for a new breed of lightweight sports bikes instead of the pig iron that consumers had been riding. The late John Cutts of superbike magazine wrote ‘ after the storm blows a lighter, fresher breeze ‘.
A generation grew up with them, loved them, raced them, crashed them and forgot them. That generation now has the money to go back to those days and indulge themselves. Iconic in it's time, very very desirable now. https://classic-motorbikes.net/yamaha-rd350lc/
