On the track, a 250 may be faster than a 500 some of the time. As a play bike, I don't think it'll come close. As my dad said last night when we were in his garage of 11 bikes, "the problem with those [pointing at pair of Maico 250s] is that you can't hold a slide. With that, [pointing to 440 Maico] you can get whatever you want just by using the throttle, like in the old Ghia." The 500s are great bikes to ride around in because you can go fast without really having to work at it. People say they're tiring and hard to ride and this and that, but that just means that they're trying to ride it like a 125. I'll admit, when you claw after every possible rev then bang a few gears on full power, it's going to be scary.
I've told this story a lot recently, but whatever. Toward the end of the last riding season, I was riding my 250 Husky and my dad took out his 390 Husky ('79). The difference was unbelievable! As we'd come out of a corner on some dirt road, I would down-shift once, and sometimes even twice, while he stayed in 5th and 6th gear the whole time. He never revved the bike up the whole day except once, and when he did that it was like watching the DeLorean in Back to the Future take off. Every single turn, he'd just roll on the throttle and I'd hear this little "ddeeerrrrt" sound off to the side as he kept up with me. When we got off maybe 15 miles later, he calmly said, "that was fun" while I clawed madly at my backpack to find something, anything to drink! I was bloody exhausted! Then, later in the day, we're going up this big rocky sort of mountain and the trail ended a little short of the top, so we had to lump along the rocks. I couldn't stay behind him. He had so much low-end that he could putt along at 5mph while I slipped the clutch until I thought it would catch fire.
That's why I want a 400 or 440 Maico now. I need that kind of power in my life. Besides, I think the '78 models are the prettiest bikes ever made.
