WHEN THE TINKERING GENE and a love of RZs are passed on to a younger generation, the force can be strong.
When your bike is left behind by newer machines with better handling, huge brakes and tons more power it’s probably smarter to just trade your old bike in and go new. But when you have a passion for Yamaha 2-strokes this is simply not on. The answer is to modify your older bike with some newer goodies so it can compete with the newer bikes and give you a whole lot more street cred at the same time.
This was the case for Adelaide’s Ron Steinmuller who has kept his passion for early Yamaha strokers alive with a couple of highly modified RZ500s, a Kenny Roberts replica and a trick street fighter.
Not only that but Ron has passed on his love of tinkering and RZs to his nephew Craig Webber, who owns the RZ350 you see here.
Ron’s 500s
“I’ve always been into ’70s and ’80s bikes,” said Ron. “They were always Yamahas though. I have done up and raced pre 1975 Moto X bikes and wanted to try my hand at a road bike.
“My first build was a 1984 RZ500 factory replica which I started in 2011. I had extra frames and parts left over from buying other people’s leftovers while trying to complete my first bike. It seemed to me that I had to buy half a bike to get a couple of parts that I needed.
“I always liked the TZ
