THE WEEKEND stretched into the middle-distance.

It was warm, it was dry and the first Yellow Custard Thing of summer was splattered appetizingly across my visor. I was on a Suzuki RGV25O, trembling and panting. I had RGV Fever- speed was inevitable.

That was in 1989: the first RGV25O and the most intoxicating motorcycle to happen to me. It blew away my yardstick of excellence, the Yamaha TZR25O, and instantly became the best handling, best value performance bike in the universe. During the next half decade the Kawasaki KR-1S came and went, the 250 class died (again) and the screaming four-stroke 400s emerged as the new hooligans. The RGV though, has survived and thrived. They are raced, Box Hill'd, tuned and nicked and selling at about 900 a year filling absolutely the cultish void

May 1993, and there I was again. The latestRGV gurgling through Bank Holiday traffic

with the odds still stacked against slow.My Bank Holiday sport would not involve Des Lynham. Boring had nochance. Speed was still inevitable. Records from Here toThere tumbled, then fell again. Roads I hadn't ridden for ages - since the last RGV in fact - were rediscovered in a fizz and warble of over-and-under spannies. Long lost apexes suddenly reappeared, and new attacking lines rejuvenated the dreary ride to work.
I was permanently sharp and much too flippant about the whole business of riding fast.

Such is the RGV25OP the fifth RGV (to the UK) and, over decent roads, the fastest two-stroke road bike so far. It has all the essential RGV ingredients (60-ish crankshaft horsepower from a mere 139kg), and now a mature, fully developed feel too. Who knows how much of John Kocinski's grand prix RGV25O has trickled down to the P - part for part probably not much more than a brochure of hype - but, Italian 125s aside, it's the closest a road bike gets to GP performance. By a country mile.

Both are RGVs after all - there is no grand prix 888 or YZF7SO. Both are two-stroke V-twins (liquid-cooled, reed valve induction, with the same bore and stroke). Both are light, stiff, aerodynamic and dedicated to getting into and out of corners fast. Some GP racers pour scorn on four-strokes - "diesels" - and deride Superbikes as heavy and clumsy and slow, which is how most road-going fourstrokes feel compared to the RGV25OP

The competition comes from bikes like the ZXR4OO: also 60-something bhp and, at 140mph, ten mph faster in a straight line. It's a stunning effort but, being 26kg heavier, with less torque, and needing thousands of revs, is harder to hustle over a tankful of twists and potholes. The RGV meanwhile, has developed that cultured edge - what oiky stinkwheels famously are not supposed to have. This year I noticed its supple (uprated) suspension and the 90 degree V-twin's inherent and unhurried smoothness.

This culture bit is relative, of course. While the '93-style RGV seems to be leaving behind the manic attack plan of its great rival, the KR-1S (obsolete as from this new-model year), it's hardly a marvel of sophistication or 900SS-charm either. It's more miscellaneous than that.

Acronym-mad sophistication is everywhere: SAPC (Suzuki Advanced Power Control) electronically manages the intake, ignition and exhaust systems. It controls AETC II (Automatic Exhaust Timing Control), a three-stage guillotine exhaust valve which creates a miraculously broad midrange and smoothes the jump to warp mode at 8000rpm; MDIS (Multiple Digital Ignition System), which monitors throttle position and rpm then maps an ignition curve to suit; and also by rpm and throttle position, regulates air intake to the 34mm Mikuni carbs. SAPC electronically overcomes the would-be side-efiects of what, for the road, is a fairly radical tune and seems to maximise throttle response everywhere - having your two-stroke and eating it so to speak. But it doesn't stop a pall of fragrant Castrol dimming the sun of a morning, and it doesn't stop most people grouping RGVs with Trabants.

Fair enough; RGVs are a bit naff at times. There's enough torque below 6000rpm to keep the RGV gurgling menacingly through the streets all those aforementioned flight recorders and micro-chips making it a tough engine to bog down. What it does instead is respond half an hour after the (extremely non-linear) throttle's been opened. If I pottered around inattentively for long,we'd end up travelling at different speeds. There's no engine braking on a backed throttle - brain slows to 30mph, RGV maintains 45, squad car hides in tingling mirrors. Trabants have electric starters. Fingertips numb. That sort of thing.

At 6000rpm it emerges from mediocrity and moves into a midrange stunning for a 250 two-stroke tuned to over 240bhp per litre. The vitally wide mirrors clear and the throttle comes alive. The engine takes on a smooth, elastic quality which, if you can bare 6000rpm+ at an urban crawl, whistles the RGV (adequate steering lock, light steering, soft slowspeed suspension, both feet flat on the road) around town more efficiently than any specialists I can think of. At about 8000, as the AETC opens to mid-position, the engine hunts unstably on part throttle (ruling out sub-90mph top gear cruising speeds, unfortunately officer). On full-throttle it becomes a race - foot to the gear lever versus tacho needle to the 12,200rpm rev limiter.
The limiter often wins, and not just because the RGV revs so hard. The gearbox (with its ineffective clutch) is as ever an inconsistent dog. The middle gears are nice and close; first is short enough to lend interest at traffic lights and sixth struggles in headwinds. The shifts themselves are incongrously slow and clonky. Suzuki sets great store by its "coaxially mounted" gear lever yet seems oblivious to the fact that the gearbox feels like it's junking itself when you use it.
All the other controls encourage speed. Carefully positioned levers and pedals take no attention from the road; the wide seat sits you on the bike, the high rear rests tipping you forward onto wide bars, which seem to be in direct touch with the front wheel. There's no stretching or neck strain and plenty of room even for six footers. The short screen leaves your head exposed, lifts weight off wrist at 70, and somehow still works at 100. There is very little turbulence and, until my bum reached its agony threshold (at about 100 miles), I always wanted to go fast.

Patent-citing Honda got shirty about the RGV/N's gull-arm, so this year it's replaced by a small bridge.

It's not a compulsory ten tenths fast. More like nine twelfs. Contrary to popular myth, you don't have constantly to carve at the throttle or fold yourself under the screen just to make half decent progress through the rush hour. Shortshifts at 9000rpm (100 mph in top) don't, over the distance, make the RGV any slower. It's so light, accurate, slippery - fast - that it breezes along when you're not even trying.
The biggest change this year is to the now non-gull-arm swing-arm. Honda has patents on curved swing-arms so Suzuki had either to manafacture its swing-arms outside Japan or revert to a more conventional design. The new design is an immense structure of box section and cast alumimium and looks like a bridge. Suzuki now claims that the  gull-arm, or CAL-BOX, wasn't such a good idea anyway, that the new design (which seems to accommodate the dual spannies just as well as the gull-arm) is stiffer. Until next year.
I couldn't detect any effect on the handling. The speed with which the RGV steers, and the stability and precision that accompany it - even on its very predictable OE Bridgestone Cyrox radials are still what makes this bike such value for money and so different from the non GP racer replicas. It has a stubby rigidity I've only experienced on rare birds like the RC3O. It flicks faster and with more accuracy than an Aprilia 125 Sport Pro but for the most part feels as planted as a 750 - and no other road bike does that. The confidence it lends under braking is exceptional too: the forks are controlled and demon-stiff, feel at the long-travel lever is inspiring even if the final full-stop on the old four-pot Tokico calipers is mushy. The bars fluttered when I accelerate hard over catseyes but on the road the RGV has no serious faults. It's neutral, abusable, has too much ground clearance for most proddie racers.
The 4lmm Showa u-d forks are softly sprung and calmly but marginally under-damped. Wrists have an easy time, but without any rebound adjusters to twiddle, the front end can judder prematurely in fast or nose-heavy turns, like the entry to Gerrards at Mallory Park. The rear suspension now has a stepless compresssion damping adjustment (a slotted screw on the remote reservoir), which I turned up at the track to sharpen further its flick speed, and down on the road to take out a slight high speed harshness. Perfect.
It's the grim reality of filling up with two-stroke oil, or even with petrol, that blows the RGV's legend. I eked 92 miles from one tank of unleaded but 76 miles came just as easily from the next. The oil light flickers on too late to leave a decent comfort zone; even when it does the tank won't accept a litre, and about 300cc of expensive lube has to be donated to a passing FSlE. Actually, most of it goes onto the back Cyrox - the tank, stashed in a corner under the lockable pillion perch, is impossible to fill without a funnel. Pillions are funny for about ten miles, then you ditch them.
The finish on this (still to be wintered) one is good, and the black paint has interesting blue speckles lost in the photos. As usual, the front plug and AETC mechanicals were covered in crud from the front wheel, and the huge unguarded radiator took a pasting from road debris. I didn't have to adjust the chain in 750 miles (50 of which were on the track).
I thought I'd gone off RGVs: too adolescent, too fast for my proddie KR-1S too. I was wrong: £ per unit of all-round performance, the RGV25O is still the real value motorcycle.