It's a Century of Posts - 100

The 1983 Yamaha YZ-125K.
This pic is from the sales brochure from that year.
This was my 4th motorcycle, and my first brand-new one.

I bought this bike in June or July of 1984, and also had the bike I mentioned in my last post, the XT-200J, at the same time.
So, the XT was my street transportation and bike for when I mixed trail riding with street riding, and the YZ-125K was the bike that was not street-legal, but for serious off-road use.
It was a motocross bike, after all, so it was all about off-road performance.

And perform off-road it did.
I had this bike from the Summer of 1984 until the early part of 1986, and for those two riding years, I enjoyed it very much.
Not surprising that I did, since I was young and craved this kind of dirt bike to ride - a bike made for lots of hard riding over rough terrain and big jumps and whoops.
You know, the kind of terrain found on a motocross track, whether it be a real, bona-fide motocross track, or a makeshift one out at the local riding spot.

The bike was, compared to the three reviewed previously, lighter, better-suspended, faster in acceleration and deceleration, and, quite simply, a blast to ride.
It had hard-hitting power than came on with a decent burst in the midrange, and revved to a good top end.
I liked it.
It was, at the time, a thoroughly state-of-the-art dirt bike, and a bike that wasn't carrying around any silly shit like linked brakes, a luggage rack, or a home-made seat pad 6 inches thick and 12 inches wide.
That nonsense is for geeks who think they're really pushing it while sitting down 99.999% of the time while off-road.
Don't try kidding me, even though you do believe that's pretty rough stuff.
No, that YZ epitomizes what a dirt bike is to me - all business, and operating under the theory of if you expect good results while riding a dirt bike off-road, you must get your body in on it in a big way, which means being in good physical condition.
That's my kind of bike.
It was great, and a good time period for me.


Wow, 100 posts, already.
Amazing, when I think that all I've been writing about is what was on my mind at the time.

It is a Sunday morning, and I'm gonna' prepare my firebreathing WR-250FY for another afternoon-into-dusk ride in the Pachaug rock pile.
I drove there in my clammy Ford Ranger last evening just before sunset to walk a trail that I usually ride right past while in the rock pile on Sundays.
It simply is a shortcut, since I would ride past each end of it.
Even though it's a shortcut, the actual difficulty of the terrain is much higher since it's full of rocks and some tree roots stick out of the ground.
Not particularly any harder than the other rocks elsewhere that I've been riding, but since it's a new spot in the rock pile, if I decide to start adding it to my Sunday rides, I'll have to learn it and, basically, memorize it before I feel truly comfy with wicking it up.

-John