[Video Transcript]
High card scramble. There ain’t nothin’ to it. Until there is.
We got five players in the scrambler game today. Haven’t seen this many since McQueen had a seat.
First one you’ll meet is “The Stallion.”
Stallion’s Italian in case you couldn’t tell.
I think his Duc looks like a duck… a little too European if you ask me.
But then again no one gives a shit because for the last two years… he’s King.
After that is “Bonnie.”
Bonnie’s a good gal… been around since before any of us.
You could say her Triumph tries too hard. That it’s new makeup on an old face.
But then again you wouldn’t say any of that… ‘cause she’s the queen.
“Le Germain” is the German.
Don’t ask why the German spells his name in French… some shit about global appeal.
What matters is that he’s sitting on an overpriced street bike…
Even when you go all in for the scrambler game, Le Germain ain’t got jack.
And this is where “Gucci Guzzi” sits, but no one knows where he is.
Anytime the King’s at the table, we never do.
Then there’s me – “Skid.”
They say only a crasher would choose a scrambler based on a cruiser.
Or that it’s a kid’s choice below ten grand. S’kid’s choice. Skid. Get it?
Me neither. But then again, the joke’s always on me.
Everyone expects me to lose the scrambler game. To come last when the cards hit the table. But what they don’t know is that the SCR950 has an ace in the hole.
So how does a Yamaha-Bolt-Turned-SCR950 con its way to the top of the scrambler deck? To answer that question, you’d better know what a scrambler is.
See fifty years ago, if you wanted adventure, you’d grab a cheap bike – anything really – then slap on some knobbies and tall suspension, remove un-necessary parts – including your shirt – and go balls to the wall. That was scramblin’.
So if our SCR950 is a bargain bin hack job, pieced together with scraps that fell off the Yamaha Bolt assembly line… well that only increases its claim to Scrambler-hood.
Same goes for the absence of modernity. Not a tickle of traction control, no ABS BS, an utter lack of mag wheels and tubeless tires, a plank seat that scoffs in the face of ergonomics, and two steel middle fingers saying piss off to plastic.
Strangely, the least analog thing on this bike is the dash. I’d expect a needle, but got a tiny prick of a digital screen instead. A square display in a round hole .
For every scrambly part added, there’s one a scrambler would remove. The slightly raised exhaust is a token gesture at best – McQueen would have it off immediately. Shortly followed by the air box and – of course – his shirt.
But being perfectly imperfect – and the only scrambler nutty enough to start from a cruiser – is it somehow the most scrambly of them all?
Are the number plates daring you to race it? Flat track it? Hill climb it? To look at this wildly-inapproriate-base-bike-turned-mildly-prepared-dirt-bike and saying yeah, screw it, let’s do something ridiculous with the SCR950.
Because when it comes to scramblers… it doesn’t get more authentic than that.
When I ride a scrambler, it should have a heady engine noise.
It should grab gears with a thunky clunk.
And without rubber mounts, you should feel every explosion that kicks your ass forward.
A scrambler should have a litre of air-cooled V-twin, so it heats up the same time I do.
It should have a single rotor and miniscule suspension, so at the limit I’m ham fisting levers and bottoming out shocks.
It should drag pegs super early , so the only way to get a knee down is to fall off.
It should make about 50 horsepower and 70Nms at a low tachometer reading… if it had a tachometer.
That way you’ll be working the gearbox like crazy, shortshifting everything to keep up with the Ducatis.
Which make 20 more horses from 140 fewer cubes and 137 fewer pounds, by the way.
A scrambler should tease a 6 th gear that doesn’t exist… just so you know you’re faster than the bike.
Because at the end of the day, you want to feel like you’re riding the balls off the thing. And the SCR950 is perfect, because any noob can out-ride this bike.
It’s a RocknRolla but not by accident. See Yamaha wanted a sportier seat height – 32.7 inches versus the Bolt’s 27.2. But rather than raise the bike by … raising the bike … they notched the ground clearance up by a mere 0.4 inches – from 5.1 to 5.5. It’s the re-designed subframe provides most of our lift, leaving the centre of gravity easily flickable and the pegs hilariously scrape-able.
It’s an engineering joke. A cheap fix. But it makes me feel like an ace.
On dirt… it’s the same deal.
With the torquey low-end of a cruiser, Mother Teresa could get slideways on this thing.
Then the power delivery is lazy and linear… I couldn’t lose it if I tried.
Thrashing a cruiser off-road certainly isn’t fast. But it is surprisingly easy to do.
Plus the SCR looks bloody gorgeous out here. The dirtbike bars, the spoked wheels, the rubber dust boots, the seamless TT500 tank, the racing livery… this thing might be more sportster than scrambler but it’s still the best-looking option .
Of course there’s no easy way to say that it weighs a quarter tonne. I have more mass than an R1200GS, riding on a puny 2.8 and 4.7 inches of travel…. why not.
Welcome to the scrambler experience. Notice how the tall bars let me stand comfortably at 6’3.
Then notice how the shocks bottom out, through the hard seat and straight into my spine.
See the massive air filter bruising my knee off-road?
And bite-y footpegs, hunting my calves like wild animals?
Also notice how it skims the ground like a pot-bellied pig.
Steve McQueen didn’t have any more ground clearance than this… and yammy sells a sled for these bottom rails, so I guess I’m bulletproof.
Or maybe I’m not. Maybe this is a jarring, exhausting, painful and mechanically risky experience. But that’s what scrambling is!
And at least when I brake something, I won’t be trailside with a tricky triumph, a baffling BMW or a delicate Ducati. …Or a Guzzi… God help us.
The SCR950 feels like a 1960s scrambler. And that’s because it’s a rough ‘n tumble offshoot of another bike, which itself is an offshoot of a Harley, if we’re being honest. Every time I slam the throttle, I feel reverberations from two or three motorcycles that don’t belong out here. And it feels perfect .
Having said that – of a thousand flavourful leftovers – two have gone bad.
One is the engine’s width. Bolts have always been inexplicably wide… more like straddling a horse than a motorcycle.
This would be less of an issue if I got an equally wide tank. But instead the SCR is narrow between the knees and wide between the feet… awkward.
Second problem is the belt drive… we all know why that’s a Very Bad Thing off-road.
So the SCR ain’t really set up for the dirt – it won’t hit a postage stamp on the drift at 100. But it does hit something bigger…
The ace in the hole. The trick to coming out on top.
See everyone thinks the scrambler game is about balancing street and dirt. And they’re trying to be the best of both worlds. Or second best. Or third best. But they don’t realize that the game they’re playing … it’s already over.
Rules change… and the best modern-day scramblers… they don’t look like scramblers anymore.
The only hand left to play is the original one. When scrambling was just about joking around, hooliganing with friends on cheap and under-prepared motorcycles.
In this game, being expensive is no good. Having heritage doesn’t help. And dominating off-road is beating a dead horse. It’s the hilarious SCR950, the joker that was never a joke, that comes up aces.