Classic bikes... Do you have an urge ?

[Le_Fromage_Grande]

There wasn't a YDS6, mostly because there wasn't a YR4.
From memory, the YDS7 is where the crankcases go from splitting vertically, to splitting horizontally (like an RD250), I don't think a YDS5 has the clutch on the end of the crank like a YDS3.

[mangocrazy]

A mate of mine had a YDS2 - all I can remember about that bike was that it spent a large part of its time back at the dealers. Eventually they found out what the root problem was with the engine, but by that time my mate had given up and bought another bike.

A Velocette Venom. No. I still can't figure it out either.

So were Yamaha a bit shy of even model numbered bikes at that time? Perhaps it was all down to the YDS2... I remember a YDS3, a YDS5 and a YDS7, but no 4, 6 or 8...

[Ian]

My girlfriend at college had a 175 Bantam, and the damn thing was forever breaking down whenever we went riding anywhere. I particularly remember spending a happy half hour in mid-winter p!ssing rain at midnight at the side of the road trying to hack her electrics back together so that at least the headlight worked and she could see roughly where she was going.

If looked after they weren't mechanically unreliable, after all there was very little to them but electrics were shocking (no pun intended) you couldn't see where you were going even when the headlights did work and the ignition timing was all wrong which made them a bastard to start ( I just used to bump start mine). They were built down to a low price I guess
The thing that stops me ever putting one back on the road is the brakes, modern bicycles have better brakes.

[JackyJoll]

My girlfriend at college had a 175 Bantam, and the damn thing was forever breaking down whenever we went riding anywhere. I particularly remember spending a happy half hour in mid-winter p!ssing rain at midnight at the side of the road trying to hack her electrics back together so that at least the headlight worked and she could see roughly where she was going.

If looked after they weren't mechanically unreliable, after all there was very little to them but electrics were shocking (no pun intended) you couldn't see where you were going even when the headlights did work and the ignition timing was all wrong which made them a bastard to start ( I just used to bump start mine). They were built down to a low price I guess
The thing that stops me ever putting one back on the road is the brakes, modern bicycles have better brakes.

If I remember right, 50+ years later, the forks and wheel of a 250 BSA fitted the D7 or D10 Bantam without too much trouble.

“Why not swap the whole bike?” I hear you say! Back in the “Ogri” days you could easily find yourself with a shed full of all that sort of junk, to pick bits from.

[Ian]

In that spirit I fitted the TLS from, I think, a 175 Honda. It was a horrific bodge but it got through an MOT with a torque arm held by a pipe clamp and a box spanners as an axle spacer.

It threw me over the handlebars once when I forgot to tighten the pipe clamp on the torque arm so it was a considerable improvement albeit borderline dangerous.

[ZRX61]

A Velocette Venom. No. I still can't figure it out either.

I would.... an uncle had a '65. It was responsible for my first motorcycle injury. I was 5yo & touched the exhaust.... *sizzle*

For some reason I have a small tin with parts of the Viper I owned/sold 43 years ago sitting in my main toolbox.

[mangocrazy]

A Velocette Venom. No. I still can't figure it out either.

I would.... an uncle had a '65. It was responsible for my first motorcycle injury. I was 5yo & touched the exhaust.... *sizzle*

For some reason I have a small tin with parts of the Viper I owned/sold 43 years ago sitting in my main toolbox.

Yebbut - going from a Japanese two-stroke twin to a big ole single cylinder Velo? There could scarcely be two more different motorcycles...

[JackyJoll]

A Velocette Venom. No. I still can't figure it out either.

I would.... an uncle had a '65. It was responsible for my first motorcycle injury. I was 5yo & touched the exhaust.... *sizzle*

For some reason I have a small tin with parts of the Viper I owned/sold 43 years ago sitting in my main toolbox.

Yebbut - going from a Japanese two-stroke twin to a big ole single cylinder Velo? There could scarcely be two more different motorcycles...

Lots of us like different motorcycles.

[mangocrazy]

Guess so - if it's got two wheels, an engine and a frame, it qualifies...

[ZRX61]

Lots of us like different motorcycles.

This is true, I like Kawasaki fours, triples, twins, sixes, singles....

...oh.