I just spent the weekend riding fireroads on the 490 Maico.
You can call it torque or you can call it horsepower, all I know is there are great gobs of sheer power available at any time.
Ive never ridden any four stroke bike that can produce the brute acceleration of the big Maico. The 450 ktm is nice, but just doesnt do it.
And unlike the Japanese 2 stroke mxers, the Maico has a broad spread of power and a duplex chrome moly frame that is the mx equivalent of a featherbed.
Dirt bike Magazine recently declared the 81 490 to be the best open class mxer of all time. The 82 has even more midrange grunt than the 81.
There is nothing that compares to the thrill of cracking the throttle on a big bore hyper two stroke!
Glen