Oh, and the other common thing is that both these machines are an absolute hoot to pilot. The Valko drives like a 65 bhp skateboard. Firstly, you don’t sit in the car, you plug yourself into it. It’s so low, you could put your hand out and have your nails filed. The interior (and I use that in an extremely loose sense, since there’s no roof to make it so) in true roadster fashion is bare-basic, yet with a Sparco steering wheel, master kill switch and a starter button, it is adequate. The only safety bits are a four-point harness, a roll-over bar, and quick reactions.
Driving the Valko is actually a bit scary at first, and it takes a while to get used to how low you sit. Stones flung up by the traffic aim straight for your head and if the driver of that Cayenne behind you isn’t paying attention, you’re street pizza. But hit the open road and it’s exactly the lack of height that adds to the whole experience. And in spite of being so low, the Valko didn’t bottom out even once. Also because you sit so low, the sensation of speed is amplified and there is ample elbow room to allow an elbows-in-the-wind driving style.
The RX on the other hand goes like it’s a regular feature on Looney Tunes. You get on the gas, wait for the power to come in, wait a bit more, a bit more and just when you are about to give up on it, the power kicks in so hard it almost throws you off. Power band? You bet! More like power banned. But seriously, this thing covers distance like a road runner, leaving you giggling like a teenager every single time the throttle hits its stop. And it’s the same story in every single gear. This bike is so good, it’s a testimony to two-stroke performance and the ‘less is more’ philosophy.
But let’s take a moment to reflect on what these guys have done. In a country where there is one race track for every 500 million people, they have gone ahead and built machines that are so focused, they smell of pit-lane. What we have here aren’t mere machines, they are realisations of boyhood dreams of every true petrolhead. The result of their creators ignoring the ‘Don’t try this at home’ fine print. I might be getting a bit carried away here, but to create something from nothing is remarkable. So Josh, at the next signal then?
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