There are many interesting Japanese motorcycles that the official importers ignore. They then rant and rave when the grey importers create a market in them. The TT250R has been largely ignored by both. I was pleasantly surprised when I came across a 1995 example. It certainly looked, with 2500 miles on the clock, like it had never dirtied its wheels. The owner was a friend of a friend whose wife was pregnant and nagging. The Yamaha came into my life for a reasonable £2600.
The 34.5 inch seat height was the first thing that I noticed. It's not as bad as it sounds because the seat, and indeed the whole bike, was very narrow. At 5'9" I was able to get enough of my feet down to feel secure at a standstill, helped along by the way the first couple of inches of suspension travel sagged under my 15 stone. I'm quite short of arm, found the minimal distance to the bars okay - lanky louts will end up sitting on the back of the seat to accommodate their upper bodies!
On our ruined town roads I soon found myself taking a trail stance - standing up on the pegs so that the pot-holes flowed straight up my legs rather than my spine. For sure, the long travel suspension did a lot to absorb the craters, but some of them were right out of an earthquake. And it was quite nice to stretch my legs from time to time.
At 280lbs it's a very light bike, and a very flighty one. It takes hardly any effort to get it to go where you want. At times I seemed to be just thinking about it rather than exerting any muscle; almost mind over matter.
Incredibly, for a small thumper, the wheelbase is over 55 inches. This negates its sheer narrowness in heavy traffic. Where a shorter bike would skip through right hand turns between stalled cars, the TT needed a bit of hefty foot work and shuffling to make the turn. A couple of times, in the early days, I managed to wedge the Yamaha into unlikely gaps. The drivers were not amused and I almost came to blows once when I left a micro-scratch on someone's bumper.
The extravagant length comes from an extra long swinging arm, which I soon found did for the chain. It wasn't just the swinging arm, also the thumper engine pulses that tried to pull the final drive apart. Adjustment needed every 250 miles, or so, and an overall life of less than 6000 miles.
The only other likely major expense, but one that didn't inflict itself on me, was the fitment of a pair of discs. One at each end, that is. On a trailster! You can just imagine what half an hour off road would do to the back end - crud encasing everything. What's needed is gentle, soft braking that's unaffected by conditions - ie a drum rear brake. Come on! Talk about posing.
On the road, the front disc had ample power and was progressive enough to avoid twisting up the relatively soft forks. The rear was a touch too fierce, causing the back wheel to lock up and squeal loudly. Not bad for waking oneself up in the early hours of the morning, but it tended to make pedestrians leap out of their clothes.
The bike remained controllable under heavy braking, could even be flicked on to a new line with a manly tug on the bars. The worst aspect was braking hard, letting off the brakes once the obstacle was avoided and finding that the sudden shuffle of weight kicked the back of the tank into my groin. True, there was some protection from the shape of the seat but the sheer violence of the reaction overcame the minimal amount of padding. Brought tears to my eyes.
After a couple of weeks I was up to a pretty fierce pace through the cars. Helped along by the useful engine. A 249cc thumper with a bore and stroke of 73x60mm. Though aircooled it used DOHC's and four valves - a potential weak spot there, as aircooled four valvers have a tendency to overheat around the exhaust valves but no doubt modern engineering materials and lubrication keep the Yamaha up to spec.
The TT makes thirty horses at 8000rpm, with the torque peaking out at a thousand revs below that. In reality, the mill's most useable between 5000 and 9000 revs; a useful range of power given the slickness of the six speed gearbox and light as a feather clutch. Gearing was set up for trail riding, even in sixth the bike would peak out easily giving a top speed of only 90mph where the mill felt capable of pulling taller gearing and doing at least the ton. Of course, trying to buy a bigger gearbox sprocket was impossible - you what, mate, never heard of it, piss off. Etc!
Both throttle and gearbox work were needed to get anywhere fast. The bike would potter along in the taller gears but it wasn't a very exciting experience. Also, trying to run along at low revs would occasionally cut the engine out but it would come back to life straight away. No, much more fun to use the throttle and go a little mad.
The combination of gearing, throttle abuse and nonexistent aerodynamics meant that fuel economy wasn't very good. The best I ever got was 60mpg but most of the time it was nearer 40mpg. The 60mpg turned up from a 50mph cruise when I was carrying relatively fragile computer equipment on the back of the saddle. On the other hand, a flat out motorway trawl turned in 33mpg!
With little more than three and half gallons of capacity, I had to start looking for a gas station after a hundred miles. Comfort would've been poor - from a combination of naff saddle and inappropriate riding position - had not it been easy to get up on the pegs for a minute, or so, every 20 miles. I got a few odd looks when I thus indulged on the open road, but what the hell. As it was, the range matched the need to leap off for a proper stretch.
As most of my riding was done in London this wasn't of much consequence. Much more annoying was the front mudguard mounted under the fork yoke. Perfectly shaped for taking out low flying sea-gulls it did nothing to stop all the road crud and water hitting both the bike and rider. Another silly trail affectation. Unfortunately, there aren't any lugs on the forks to take a proper mudguard but a couple of jubilee clips, Araldite and plastic guard solved that problem. It improved wet weather riding by a factor of ten. Minor shit like this is quite unbelievable.
The knobbly tyres weren't so extreme that they were all over the place on damp roads, although the ease with which the back brake would snap on - you know, just when you needed a bit of gentle braking in nasty conditions - provided some frightening skids. The bike surprising me with the ease with which it would snap back into line.
It was dead easy to convince myself that I was an ace pilot; more and more extravagant riding was indulged until the limits of physics were reached. Or in this case a rather solid old Merc. It was like hitting a brick wall. Both the front wheel and the forks were mangled, whilst the bloody cage only suffered minor dents. He'd crossed my path without looking but I'd been doing twice the limit, knocking some of the speed off with the brakes before the collision. We agreed to repair our machines without resorting to the insurance companies.
So now I'm wandering around breakers, trying to find something that will fit. Don't know what world these breakers are living in, I've been quoted £300 for a new front end. Come off it. Still, by the time you read this I will be back on the road.
George Chissom