What a strange revolution we have witnessed. A mere 10 years ago, four-stroke dirt bikes were quaint obscurities built by incurable eccentrics. Now, thanks to a long series of legislative events, they form the mainstream of hardcore racing, making the two-stroke and its 30 years at the forefront an increasingly distant memory.

Today I ride a 450cc four-stroke, and I don’t hesitate to say that it’s the best bike I’ve ever ridden. Yet I still wish there were a way we could keep the two-stroke around in motocross. My reasons are more than sentimental:

--Two-strokes are cheap to buy and easy to work on. Even a broke college kid can afford to replace the parts on a blown-up two-stroke, and even a neophyte backyard tuner can swap the top end himself.

--Two-strokes easily outperform four-strokes when given equal displacement, and weigh less in doing so.

--Two-strokes are a blast to ride. Their lightness and snappy powerband make them perfect for blasting berms and seat-bouncing doubles.

But how can we realistically keep the two-stroke alive in the age of the four-stroke? No matter how you slice it, trying to alter the displacement formulas is a dead end. If we allow two-strokes of a larger displacement to compete against the 250Fs and 450s, they will likely need some pretty heavy numbers--say, 167cc and 350cc--to even compete. And it is unlikely that racers would arrive in droves to buy 167cc and 350cc two-strokes, given that these models would likely be harder to ride than their four-stroke counterparts. Remember the 500cc two-stroke? It died because it was too much of a good thing. All that two-stroke zap, mated to a giant piston, translated into a scary experience for most riders. It is unlikely that any other jumbo two-strokes would fair much better.

Conversely, if we seek to reduce four-stroke displacements to give two-strokes a chance, we will have made obsolete the thousands of four-stroke race bikes now in existence (how would you like to sell your 450 in a world that no longer has a class for it?) And, maybe more importantly, we will have forced the manufacturers to spend millions in new R&D to develop bikes with new displacements. Not that we care about their bottom lines, but this fact simply means that this option was never really up for consideration, given the power the manufacturers yield in the legislative end of racing.

Yet if we leave the classes as they are, the two-stroke will disappear entirely in the coming years, and the costs of increasingly sophisticated four-strokes--which by then will be the only bikes available--could price many racers out of the sport.

I see only one option left for the two-stroke and it is a long shot: resurrecting the 125.

If every sanctioning body in the nation--including AMA Pro Racing--made room on its schedule for a 125cc two-stroke class, the venerable tiddler could live on in its traditional role as an entry-level racing machine that is cheap to buy, easy to rebuild and great for building a rider’s skills.

Think of it: most riders enter the sport in adolescence, often between the ages of 12 and 15. They often have little mechanical knowledge and less money. They need a bike that will sharpen the foundational aspects of their riding. A 125 two-stroke fits in every respect.

I realize the KX125 and CR125 are already dead or dying, but the other manufacturers wouldn’t even need to pour money into their 125 models if this idea took off. Most of the 125s today are plenty sophisticated for an entry-level racer, and simply specifying the suspension and brake components off the high-volume four-stroke models could keep the existing 125s competitive against each other indefinitely.

Most satisfyingly, the birth of this new class would insure that the sweet song of the 125 lives on--if only for two motos per day.

As I said, this is a long shot. I have no assurance that anyone beyond myself and a few other moldy traditionalists would back this plan, and without backers, it is destined to fail swiftly. But if it were to succeed, it would help manage the cost of entry-level racing and preserve a significant part of the sport’s history. Those are benefits worth considering.

But even if this proposal fails, there will still be one last option. It’s one that I might take myself: finding an old 125 and riding it for fun. In the end, I can’t help whether the world will care enough to save the two-stroke. But I can help to give at least one more of the aged machines--in addition to my ‘83 CR480--a comfortable to home to live out its golden years doing what it was meant to do: making beautiful two-stroke music.

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