What? Yes seriously. It's already had a few mentions, and I'd have to have one. To understand why, it's worth thinking about just how these things appeared, because they are about the best example you can get of how to exploit regulations to the extreme. Formula One constructors have nothing on moped manufacturers.

I think it was Yamaha who best recognised the scope in the market for a small motorcycle, complying with the moped rules, and pretty soon the things were everywhere. The first Yamaha models I remember were called "SS", and then came the FS1-E and later the FS1-DX which had a front disc brake. Suzuki and Honda had their own offerings, the Suzi being very good and, importantly to us acne faced ones, 5 mph faster. There were many Italian mopeds, as this capacity class had always been popular in Europe, but the legendary Italian style was definitely missing when Fantic built "The Chopper". I kid you not. Puch really upped their game and produced a beaut of a bike with alloy wheels and a rev counter.

You certainly could pedal a Fizzy, if you were mad, fit, and had double-jointed knees, but that aside, they were great. I did miles on mine, fell off it, rebuilt it, and probably learned any mechanical skills I have, by keeping it on the road. Of course we all tried riding them with the exhaust baffles removed, kidding ourselves that louder meant faster. There was a lot of deep argument about the merits of different tyres. This is because they had far more effect on speed than on grip. TT100 back tyres had a higher profile than the original Avon Squaremaster, which affected the overall gearing so much that the top speed was a crucial 5 mph higher! Took longer to get there though, and hills were a bit of a struggle. Still they were fun, and riding everywhere flat out became a habit. The bigger tyre profile had another side effect - It lifted the bike up so much that the centre stand only just touched the ground. Many a parked Fizzy on TT100's ended up on its side.

So what happened? Well, if you think about 50 cc racers, you will realise that the Fizzy's humble 4 to 5 bhp was really scratching the surface. There was a lot of power to come, and with it speed. Expansion chambers were fitted, radical disc valve replacements were available, and speeds went up. Pretty soon, these mopeds outperformed the 50cc motorcycles, which you couldn't ride until you were 17. Since a lot of young riders had already suffered bad accidents at low power levels, nobody wanted to see what would happen with the lid off power limits, so the restricted moped, or "Slo-ped" was born. The ridiculous pedals disappeared, but maximum speed was limited to 35mph. Despite the lack of power, the designers still went the whole hog, with race bike styling, disc brakes, rev counters and everything the bikes' bigger brothers offered. The technology was getting advanced too, with liquid cooling and monoshocks appearing. It was possible for the bikes to be de-restricted, and they went well if you did, but you had better not get stopped!

The lottery choice is an FS1-E in metallic gold - Registration number WBJ 145M- Where are you?

Sticking with two strokes, I have to give a quick mention to these two. The earlier aircooled RD250C introduced me to the idea of power bands. On a borrowed one, I found that it pulled cleanly up to 5000 RPM, the reed valve stopping it from bogging down, but above 5K the engine note changed, and it was off. Keeping it on the boil was great fun The "coffin" tank styling on the 250 was a welcome change to the traditional styling everyone else was using, and they handled well.

Time for a Yamaha four stroke, and here it's a slightly unusual choice. I know FJ1200's are probably the definitive 80's Yamaha, but for me the FJ was at the wrong end of the decade. Then again there is the XS1100, but we've already had a Hippo in the Z1300, and the XS11 just wasn't extreme enough to make the list. I could tell the same tales about the 1100 as I did about the Z13, and yes I have seen an XS1100 raced. So, it's the 850 for me.

The result was a big leggy tourer that got on with the job without making a fuss. It was a "working" bike rather than a weekender. Its tall gearing meant it would do 90 in second, and return 50 to the gallon. And of course, being a triple it sounded good. I'd have had one like a shot.

Trouble is, they were a bit on the heavy side. When you build a large capacity, shaft driven tourer, it always gets compared with BMW's. But it was heavier than the BM's, and not so agile. It certainly couldn't compete in the sporty stakes with the competition coming out of Japan, and sort of fell out of sight down a hole between the two camps. Shame. There was a damn good bike in there waiting to be developed. Triumph made it work in the 90's didn't they?

I only ever saw them in one colour - a sort of metallic black. Henry Ford would have approved, so that's the lottery choice.