Diff'rent Strokers

Did you come and see us at one of the shows ? Picked up a card or maybe said hello ? Want to join in ? Register on the forum or email us (details for both below) and you'll be made very welcome. We need people like you to make it an interesting show each time, we can't do it all on our own...

Have you noticed how you always see the same old bikes displayed at classic bike shows ? Z1's, RD's, GT's and CBX's everywhere you look ? Nothing wrong with them of course, nice bikes, but it'd be nice to see something a bit different wouldn't it ? That's what we thought. When was the last time you saw an MVX250F ? Probably never, you might not even know what one is...

Like a lot of people, we're into the sort of bikes we wanted when we were younger but couldn't afford at the time. In our case that's 80's Japanese two-strokes, but the more oddball the better. We miss the days when grey imports were big business, all those rare exotic variants ignored by the mainstream UK importers. Weird engine configurations. GP-inspired styling. Trick adjustable suspension. Stuff with 'R' or 'SP' written on the side. That's what Diff'rent Strokers is all about.

We've been going to the shows for a few years but you rarely see many - if any - of these bikes on display. We happened to own a few unusual examples between us and so decided to show some of them off to a wider audience. We took a small stand at the Classic Mechanics Show at Stafford (Oct 2006) and put five bikes on it.

We weren't pretending to be experts about these bikes - you probably know more than we do. We weren't claiming to have the best examples either - these certainly aren't mint restorations or even 100% original, they're bikes that get ridden for fun. We just wanted to let people see something that they might not be able to see elsewhere.

Despite a few misgivings (Were the bikes mint enough ? Were they too modern for a 'classic' show ?) the response was very good. Check the Stafford 2006 page for more details.

So what next then ? Well, we'd already been invited to the VJMC 25th Anniversary Show and accepted, but in the meantime we wanted to try and get a few other people involved. Despite being asked by a few showgoers, we had no intention of starting a proper club, but the demand seemed to be there for some sort of online community. There are lots out there already of course and we regularly use them ourselves, but you asked for it and so we launched...

The Diff'rent Strokers Interactive Forum

It looks like the kind of forums you already know and use but we prefer to think of it as just somewhere you can display a couple of pictures of your bike and a few words to say what you love - and maybe hate - about it. There are sections for each of the Japanese manufacturers plus others to cover the Italian strokers, specials and even Gag bikes. And there's the usual For Sale and Wanted sections for when you realise you can't live with/without some obscure, hard-to-get-parts-for, high-maintenance 80's nightmare any longer.

We'll still be using the other forums regularly to ask and answer technical questions and share info and stories, and we want you to as well - there are links to all of them on ours. But please log on to ours, show off your bike, and maybe the next time we do a show we'll be asking you to bring it along, stand next to it all weekend and pretend you've got all the answers, just like us !

For the VJMC Anniversary Show (Jul 2007), we wanted to raise our game. We told them we'd be displaying twice as many bikes as last time so we'd definitely need help to pull it off. And that's exactly what we got. A post on the forum resulted in several offers of bikes and they duly arrived as planned, making a great display. That's not just our opinion either, check out the Uttoxeter 2007 page for details and pictures.

A few months later, our 1st Birthday saw us appearing at Stafford 2007 with a bigger and better stand and even more new people joining in. We seem to be doing something right, filling a small niche without trying to overlap with any of the other specialist clubs.

2008 saw us appearing at the Bristol Classic Show for the first time. Maybe even more 'classic' than we're used to, but we seemed to attract plenty of attention - see the Bristol 2008 page for details and pictures.

A few months later, the second running of the VJMC Uttoxeter Show (Jul 2008). The most bikes we've ever displayed, and none that we'd ever shown before either, including one priceless piece of racing history. A couple of trophies came our way too so we must be doing something right. See the Uttoxeter 2008 page for full details.

What's next ? Well, the Stafford show in October again of course (something special planned for that !) but we might also make a small appearance at other events too like the Classic Bike Burn Up at Cadwell Park or Paul Wilshaw's excellent 2-stroke Sundays (details of those on our forum) for example. And if you know of any other events that we should really be at, please let us know.

Diff'rent Strokers will be at the Stafford Show on October 18/19 2008. As usual, we need your help - if you've got a suitable bike that you'd like to display on our stand there, please get in touch with details as soon as possible.

Hopefully by now you can tell what sort of bikes we're into but if you still need inspiration, click these for just a few sample pictures, plus links to two-stroke forums and other interesting or relevant sites :

Honda          Kawasaki          Suzuki          Yamaha          Non-Japanese

Gag Bikes          Your Bikes          Brochures

Stafford 2006          Uttoxeter 2007          Stafford 2007          Bristol 2008          Uttoxeter 2008

If you don't want to use the forum but still want to contact us, please use the email address below. Perhaps you can suggest other bikes we've overlooked. Maybe we can help you with information, parts or advice, or you can help us instead. Please get in touch, even if it's just to say we've got something wrong...