One Trick 125

This bike is another genuine works Yamaha motocross bike from the 1983 AMA National Motocross series ridden by a then-16-year-old guy named Ron Lechien.
Looks pretty trick, even today, huh?
I remember seeing this very same pic in Motocross Action or Motocross magazine back then with my tongue hanging out.
If I think it still looks exotic today, imagine what I thought back in 1983.

Being a Yamaha factory works bike, it wasn't called a YZ-125K like the bike you could buy down at the local Yamaha dealer (and which I bought, myself, a year later).
No, they were designated OW, and riding this bike would probably make you say "Ow", too.
It just looks too cool not to.

Look at the engine, exhaust pipe, fuel tank, seat, and swingarm.
Look at that space-age kick start lever, for chrissake.
All special handmade stuff just for this bike and the Yamaha factory's 1983 racing effort, which saw Ron Lechien win some AMA Nationals that season on this very bike.
The bike looks feathery-light, and sports a big-buck Ohlins shock out back.
The shock linkage is the same style that the production YZs would start using in 1986 and do so for about a decade.
Yup, back then, it was common for the factory works bikes to use prototype ideas that would eventually wind-up on the production bikes the consumer could buy.
Now, that's cool.

Unfortunately, in 1986, the decision was made (I forget who really wanted it that way) that the factories like Yamaha would start using the production bikes as the basis for their riders to ride in the AMA races.
So, instead of trickery like Ron's OW, you saw him riding a bike that was a production bike off the showroom with modifications.
The argument was that it would save the factories money while improving the breed of the production bikes at the same time.
Motocross fans across the country sighed in disappointment at this, not being able to see the one-off equipment from the factories in the United States.
To this day, the factory riders are riding modified production bikes.

Off to jerk,
-John