Good on ya

Right on man. Keep going strong!

That's truly great to hear! Greetings from the far north of Germany!

More power to you, keep it up my friend :))

I had a savage there good bikes..but they had timeing chain trouble for me .the idler pully would ware fast except fir the timeing chain they were good

They do have that reputation As long as you change the oil regularly your golden really

I had the 500XL..it was a beast but very heavy..the 500XR was purpose built for “scrambling” so was much lighter and more nimble.

@@bikerdood1100 This is how I can tell today, that this channel is not just another YT bot channel. You can actually have a conversation about specifics in reality. A AI bot does answer, but they can't quite converse with knowledge very well yet, and probably can't until none of us know what we are taking about. :)

Me too, a 1976...great ride !

72 tc 90 dual gear box was the high light of my childhood

Good to hear from an owner

I have a TC185 with the dual ratio gearbox and a TS 185 in the shed. They make great pit bikes, and we often take one with us when out camping or at race meets. The TC even has electric start. They make a great “catering vehicle” with an esky strapped to the rear rack. It’s easier than carrying an esky (cooler) full of beer. There’s millions of them out there sitting in sheds and they usually fire up with little effort even if they’ve been sitting for years.

I had a Suzuki PE 250 in my younger years, it had a wicked power band and was not a bike for the amateur rider. Twice it through me over backward when climbing a hill as it hit the power band close to the top of the hill 😮and well it was a race to which the bike or me would reach the bottom first. Both times the bike beat me to the bottom and avoided hitting me as it pasted me. I also had a Honda 250 Eleanor, a very rear beast these days and worth quite a bit these days. Wish I had kept it now.

Liked my 1977 TS250 except the 6V ignition. The lights suffered until 78 with 12v ignition.

Why did you switch from OSSA to Suz? I had a '70 Savage & a '71 Pioneer. Then in '73 switched to Bultacos.

Hodaka was not something we saw in the UK to my knowledge

I know that Hodaka built a 250 but I never got to see one let alone ride it.

Not a sound I hear too often these days Shame

Interesting idea

Hopefully the leg healed ok

@@bikerdood1100 yes I was back walking in 3 weeks and working again in about 10 weeks. Pretty good for a compound fracture of the tib and fib. A steel rod helped. I’ve since broken the other leg on my dirt bike, but that’s another story 😂

@@RealHooksy oh dear 😅

You bring back memories, I had a KL 250, it was in pristine condition when I bought it, I saved my money working after school. I raced my friend home through the forestry. After a party on the coast, totally unlicensed and unregistered, we went different routes home. I was draining every ounce of speed out the bike 140km plus LoL. I forget the track turned 90 deg LoL. I experienced weightlessness, the next thing I saw was a white light, man I thought this is so cool, I'm in the after life. Leaving a forestry track at that speed meant a head on with a 20 year-old pine trees. Man was I pissed of concussion for about 3 days. LoL. Kids today just have mobile phones, how sad, no wonder they're so messed up. Living in the forestry riding trail bikes was the best

@@colsmith7257 good times. I started on a hand me down ts100 and rode that thing all around my neighborhood before I got my license Col. I lived on the edge of suburbia and had a gully across the road which led to farm paddocks and wasteland. I would get home from school and ride it til it got dark, and sometimes after. It was my first work vehicle, as I used to ride it to babysit my younger cousins in the next suburb over. Great times. Every time I do something stupid nowadays like riding my bike where I shouldn’t it reminds me of those days. I’m glad I’ve never grown up 😎

Or two stroke oil

I love that smell . Bel Ray was my favorite .

I would like to see a video of those!

Difficult because there isn’t a lot of video around for some of these bikes I’ve looked

Little bit early to the retro party by the sounds of it

North America was robbed of 2 Kawasakis: the 250TR, and KLE500.

Simplicity is often best on trails Less to break

@@charlesharper6421 yawn 🥱

@@charlesharper6421 that’s nice Unfortunately the title is 250 so would seem odd to include a 125 now wouldn’t it ? The video is not about MX bikes either We ain’t talking competition here so why mention them, competition bikes are a different thing Road bike Moto GP Not the same but both run on road 🤔

@@bikerdood1100 bikerdoll you are a killjoy. Charles can mention his biķe if he wants, he's still talking motor bikes isn't he? What's your point or did you just need a grizzle.

@@bikerdood1100 My family and I moved to rural Michigan in the summer 1974 when I was 10 years old. We bought the place, (Good 2-bed house on 80 acres for 24 grand. Let that sink in.) 2 years before in 72, and just visited in the summer for those 2 years. I met all the local kids because they all had bikes, (Yamaha mini-enduro GT 60-80 being the most popular by far for 8-12 year old kids). My Dad did buy our first bike when we moved, (My brother and I, but I bought the rest of my own), and his judgment was effected by the $300.00 price tag for a 2nd year left over Honda CL100 (4-stroke totally street bike). Now, my story gets funny. Within the first summer, even though the bike never broke down and I never worked on the engine, I discovered I was a much better mechanic naturally than I was a rider, because in that summer for my first year trail riding and making my riding mistakes,---I removed the blinkers, mirrors, head light, speedometer, tail/brake light,------------------------------with no tools. :) Doug in Michgian

Good to hear the opinions of owners

Blimey Not in the UK you couldn’t Crazy

Honda used the same size front wheel on the XL 500. It really didn’t do anything good - except limit the tire choices. As far as I remember, only Bridgestone supplied tires in 23”.

It seems a strange choice, I assume they had their reasons but it is not good news for tyre choice

Honda claimed it helped going over pot holes and deep ruts where the smaller wheels would drop in, when they first came out several tyre manufacturers made 23" tyres for the Honda because they sold so many of them, here and in the USA. These days only Bridgestone make them and if you want to keep the value of your XL you have to keep the 23" front wheel, I've still got a spare wheel and tyre from when I had mine somewhere in my garage.👍

I had a 1980 Honda XL 500 S with that 23 inch front wheel. Never hindered me but I don’t feel like it was an advantage either. It lasted just those three years for the 500. I do remember in 1978 with an XL 250 S came out I thought it was absolutely stunning.

Recent years? I remember Sebastian Tortelli using the wider 20" front hoop on his Factory Honda in the USA about 25 years ago. Time flies,------------ when we are getting old, huh. :)

Only ever seen a couple myself which probably explains a lot

The essence of the bikes in the video Ride it anywhere, go anywhere useful machines

I had a Can Am MX6. Agree about the motor.

Dam those Austrians 😂

@@bikerdood1100 were they made thier?

A very different machine

They all had 4V heads The 23” tyre was a mysterious choice on reflection

Glad you enjoyed it

Good to hear, keep on riding

Nice 👍🏻

That’s what we like to hear, a family biking together

Nice hope they got a lot of fun out of them

Glad you liked it

Didn’t say they weren’t

Glad you enjoyed it

Thanks

Drums were used because as indicated in the video discs were useless in mud, 70s Japanese disc breaks couldn’t cope with a little rain. The power of breaks is dictated by the ability of the tyres to grip and Classic off road tyres were some way behind those offered today so having powerful breaks would have just caused lock ups. This is why pre war bikes in Europe had poor breaks Crap rubber on wet cobbles = lock up and slide

@@bikerdood1100 I bet that is a underestimated factor, the tire quality of the day. Another factor my be is what I heard Rick Johnson say when Honda started producing their MX bikes with disks for retail sale. Now I don't consider RJ a great communicator of technical information,but i do know the front was done before the rear. RJ stated that it was hard to find a nice modulation for the rear disk, but I say that is something we get used to. I was perfectly fine with a 2 finger disk brake in the 80's and 90's, and took 18 years off to get a new 2019 YZ250 2-stroke. It has much more power than I will ever need in one finger or 3lbs of foot pressure. That would have been rejected in the late 80's I bet, but we got used to it,--like tall bikes and ape hanger bar set-up's. Joking, but I am actually thinking about putting a small air bubble in the brake lines. :)

Similar story my dads Honda Think the Police would take a very dim view these days , pre crash helmet laws too

Just glad people enjoy them

Nice 😎

Well a road based engine would have been down on horses

Pretty solid things those XL

Need to a video on small trail bikes 🤔

Glad i5 stirred up memories

Long term relationship

Good to hear from someone who actually owned one

Yet not particularly fast but very easy to live with Which is bloody important

Excellent 👍🏻

Shame montessa went to the wall really

@@bikerdood1100 Agreed. This was my first step up from a 50cc. Super memories.

Nice 👌

Nice 👍

Not in Europe according to my research at least

Well only one bike per company so something has to give

@@bikerdood1100 . I agree. The mid 70s MT 250 was a great bike.

Same as a Starfire save the tank n badges

@@bikerdood1100 it was the exhaust that did it for me.

Sounds like lots of fun

There’s a lot of nostalgia for twin shocks these days

@@bikerdood1100 I’m finding that out whenever I take it out.

Bit extreme I’d have just brought another and given the military a miss

So a tough little beast then

Interesting that you remember how much you paid for each bike

@@bikerdood1100 I fell in love with motorcycles at an early age. I would stare at them in magazines for hours on end day after day for about a year before I got my '73 Yamaha 80. I paid for it myself at age 11. I worked a morning paper route, an evening paper route, I mowed lawns in between those paper routes, and I worked at sonic in the evenings saving up for it. Damn right I remember how much it cost. I spent my own money on it as I did for all the motorcycles I owned. 🙂

@@posterlion good for you you Like you I did not have a rich dad to pay my way, every bike I ever owned I paid for myself. You value you you things more that way

I have a few vids of the kaw klx650 on utube

Well the CR was a bit more than just a dirt or trail bike, that was a full on psychotic racer Crazy things

Ahh the bikes we sell and regret

Which is ironic because the bloody LC caused the 125 mess in the first place The 125 law was classic British knee jerk response to a 100 mph 250 Why they couldn’t just limit 250 performance and leave things otherwise be

X7

@@bikerdood1100 Ha ha... Although on reflection, the two-part test and the 125 limit were probably a good thing. I learned in the "250" era, but on an ancient Yamaha RS125. It was a nippy little f**ker and did all that it needed to do. Young motorcyclists today seem much better prepared and trained.

Why I wonder ?

Quite a difference I’d definitely plumb for the 250 off road over a BMWs truck

@@bikerdood1100 That's for certain. Fell off the GS in Spain off road, had a job picking it up with a dodgy knee!

@@bikerdood1100Another good video. Thanks for posting it. Halycon days! But, respectively my friend, and I don't want to sound condescending, none of these bikes in your video are proper "trail bikes". Call them "Enduro" bikes if you want to be kind, but realistically they are just "play" bikes for the family and kids on weekends. Where our club road trails in the mountains of Western Washington State in the USA, all these bikes would have been hopeless. Especially on those low-traction dual-sport tires. Off-road trail bikes need knobbie tires. And don't need turn signals.😵‍💫 It was not until 1977, after the success of the 1976 IT400C, that Yamaha expanded their line to include the IT250D. For the next two years of the 1978 (‘E’s) and 1979 (‘F’s) the Yamaha IT line earned an enviable reputation as proper "trail" bikes. The Yamaha IT250 was the gold standard of affordable 1970's 250 trail bikes. The Suzuki PE 250*, released in 1976, a close second. (The superb Kawasaki KDX175A1 did not come out until 1980. Honda's first capable "trails" bike, the XR250R, did not come out until 1981.) Along with the Suzuki PE's, the Yamaha IT's were the ONLY showroom stock 1970's "trail" bikes one could get a gold medal in the International 6-days ISDT trials. That is, if you were good enough.😁 *British Trophy Team riders Ted Thompson, Ernie Page and Brian Higgins all rode PE250B's to Gold in 1976 in Zeltweg, Austria.

Varied range of bikes but clearly your are has a crime problem, that’s terrible luck

Well really depends how well it’s set up But I know what you mean

@@bikerdood1100 My MT was not well set up as I was 14 and "maintaining" it with a hammer, crescent wrench, flat blade and phillips screwdrivers. JIS screws? What's that? 😆

😎

Maintenance is the word

Er is a motor cross competition bike so a very deferent machine. You could pop done to the shops on a wr Well not legally

I’ll assume it’s a cr250 wasn’t called the Elsinore outside of the US as the name would mean little to anyone who hasn’t seen On Any Sunday

I like to throw something non Japanese in Keeps things interesting

is that with the fat tire? how did it ride?

That’s what a bike does

That’s why the video is about trail bikes and not competitive machines

@@bikerdood1100 Yes but, in the 70's I don't think any of the Japanese manufactures made an actual racing bike for the woods. Guys would & still do buy a motocross bike & spend extra money setting them up for the woods but, many riders just raced a Dual Sport which were classified as "Enduros" back in the 70's & the DT 250 & TS 250 were commonly raced in Hare Scrambles & Enduros. I never rode the DT 250 or the TS 250 but, I'm sure the F-11 250 wasn't some fire breathing dragon that would have left each of them in its dust. I was impressed with the F-11 250 because I was 13 years old & it was the first 250 I had ever ridden. My bike was a KE 175 that didn't compare to the F-11 250 but, still had more power down low than the KL 250 & a top speed that was "probably" (I never topped out either one) equal. I'm not offended that you overlooked the F-11 250 in favor of the KL 250 & your video was enjoyable. I just wanted to point out that Kawaski did produce a machine that was comparable to the DT 250 & TS 250 because the KL 250 was an easily forgettable machine. I can remember riding on the back of my dad's F-11 250 as a 10- or 11-year-old kid, doing 65 mph for miles. The two of us were easily a 300lbs load. Yes, the motor was vibrating at that speed but, it felt like a battle cry coming from the bike & not like a scream for mercy that the KL 250 would have projected. I've owed SEVERAL different models from each of the Japanese manufacturers & one KTM. Every brand produced models that were Home Runs & each of them struck out as well. You had every right to include the KL 250 because it IS a legitimate part of Kawasaki's history & yes, it was an important step in the direction that became the KLR 250 & KLR 650 both of which were used by the US Marine Corps. It's just that as a man that remembers riding the KL-250, I don't have fond memories of riding it.... & I own a first gen. KLR 650 today that I actually like a lot, in spite of its many flaws.

@@harryballzaky2674 oh the Japanese were taking motorcross pretty seriously by the 70s in fact Suzuki had one the 250 title in 1970 making them the first Japanese factory to do so. Actual racing bikes, most definitely

CRs have a scary reputation Deserved I believe

Oh of course 😂

There’s only so much you can do after all

Bit of a beast then

@@bikerdood1100 it was a great trail bike however if I had it to do over I would have bought the Yamaha dt250 they were much lighter more nimble however I had bought several motorcycles from this Kawasaki dealership and one more what's the thing to do with the time

Bit lighter the 185

Shame they were killed off really

Nice 👌

I’m working on a video including the mighty CZ as a matter of fact

@@bikerdood1100 Nice one..

Sounds a very useful bit of kit

More than enough for another triple video there

@@bikerdood1100 thanks 🙏

They do have that reputation

Dam shame

All righty then

Ouch 🤕

Is quite a pretty thing Very rare now so can fetch high prices

Well I recently did one on smaller trail bikes which did include some of these bikes

To be honest here, after i sent this off to you i was looking through the videos on your home page and yea i seen those, MY BAD ! ... If i may i'd would like to see the Yamaha IT's and why they were such a hit in the 70's , ... were those yz's with a light kit , wondering same with the MR 1976 Hondas .Great Vids !! TY @@bikerdood1100

@@Ds-xi2sq no worries Will do something similar soon

I need to coverts smaller sub 250 bikes They were very popular

I do agree a 20 to 25 hp 250 wouldn’t be much faster but would ride much more like a full size machine than a screaming 125

Well I always like to drop a wild card in Don’t want wall to wall Japanese now do we 😂

Well I can’t review it as I don’t have access to one but a history of the bike is possible

All in good time

And montesa

@@bikerdood1100 Don’t forget the Frontera Gold Medal MK10. Went like a scalded cat! One of my favourite bikes. Should never have sold it. But needed a new driveway at the time.

No Montesa?

🤔

Should have put oil in it 😂

Good all rounder and one of the first bikes I rode on fields

Agreed. The 1972-73 was always my favorite. That paint scheme was beautiful.

Riding a variety of bikes will make you a better rider

Haven’t gotten to the 80s yet

Haven’t gotten to the 80s yet

All in good time Is Harley Japanese?

Maybe he will do a second video. No mention of the Can-Am T'NT 250 either.

Well it was light and had an engine tuned for torque

That’s a fair old change

Maintenance is something so often ignored by younger riders unfortunately Not so sure the RM ran points incidentally

@@bikerdood1100 The RM did not have points, that 1975 TS250 definitely had them.

The world has gone mad Wait a few years and with the number of younger riders in rapid decline I think the bubble will burst and no bad thing

One of those American only nomes that confuses the rest of us Strange name for a mud churning stroker when you think about it

@@bikerdood1100 This might help you understand the logic. kzfaq.info/get/bejne/it9hdciLlrvHj2w.html

Interesting 🤔

I do need to do a feature on Greeves

Shame really Which all explains to crap sales figures

Dirtbike magazine was always too harsh on the Enduro bikes of the era. That’s what we called dual sport in the 70s.