Gareth is a prolific builder and collector of classic motocross bikes
Gareth races them, he shows them and he enjoys them.
One of the most iconic VMX bikes is certainly the HL 500. I don’t think a VMX bike collection is complete without a tribute HL.
Hey everyone. Uh, just thought I’d talk you through my HL500 here. So, uh, HL stands for Hunson Lundrum. So, it’s a bike that was built in the mid70s by Husqavana. Husqavan only had a 362 stroke in those days and they wanted to enter the 500 class. So what they did was they uh they went and took a TT500 motor and shoehorned it into a Husqavana ML frame. So quite uh quite um semi different. So it’s uh bred, you know, a bit of an icon in terms of motocross history. And what what’s happened is that these have now, you know, become a bit of a cult uh movement in terms of building replicas of these. So, uh yeah, this particular one uh thought I’d do something different. Normally they do it in Husqavana frames. This uh one is a HL500 uh sorry, a KTM 504 frame. So, this has oil inside the frame like you would with a XT or a TT. Um actually a more of a calaboration bike. Um, you know, I’ve supplied the frame and bits and pieces to a guy called Bruce Famera. He he essentially did a lot of the fabrication. He built the pipe, the swing arm, most of the bike. He put together, got the Fox suspension, and then uh he immigrated. So, I ended up finishing it off with a spray job, etc. Um, so I’ll walk you through the bike. Um, it is a standard kind of XT motor, uh, standard bore. Um, I’m looking to, you know, upscale that to a 50 540 big ball kit. Um, the frame is a KTM 504 1982 KTM 504 frame. Um, we’ll uh shift. It’s got a modern muconeyi round slide carb and then it’s got a stainless steel custom exhaust put on it. If we look at the uh the ignition on the bike is also an electronic ignition. Um, and uh, yeah, it just makes it a lot easier to start. From a chassis perspective, it’s running YZ uh, 250 wheels. Um, so you’ll see that it’s running Fox forks and Fox suspension. So those are quite unique. Those are air forks. So rather than oil displacement forks, um the tank that you see here is uh this is a about a mid70s MR250 Honda tank. It fits quite nicely. You can see over here it actually covers the the oil filler. And then from a seats and plastics perspective, it’s running uh Red Rocket 197879 Red Rocket Honda CR250 seats, rear fender, front fender, and uh and side covers. And then lastly, I’ll just show you the uh the actual fabricated swing arm. Fabricated swing arm here is a 1981 CR250. It’s two of those uh turned upside down. uh welded together and made into a twin shock. So quite a piece of art. Um a lot of the work put done by Bruce uh and uh finished off by myself. So quite a unique bike and uh one one of a kind bike really. So uh hope you enjoy it.