VOL. 53 ISSUE 17 MAY 3, 2016 P89
STORY AND PHOTOGRAPHY
BY KIT PALMER
M
otocross used to be so
simple. Okay, maybe
saving up your hard-
earned dollars to buy a moto-
cross bike didn't used to be so
simple but keeping and maintain-
ing it certainly was, at least it
was for me in my much younger
days when all competitive moto-
cross bikes on the market were
two-strokes. You could race
'em every weekend, sometimes
twice a week like I did, and do
all of your own maintenance, like
I did. I'd race my bike, bring it
home, wash it, clean the air fil-
ter, adjust the chain, tighten the
spokes and repeat, weekend af-
ter weekend. And when it came
time to freshen up the top-end,
no sweat! A couple hundred
bucks, a few basic tools and a
few hours in the garage with the
stereo belting out Led Zeppelin
were all it took to have a fresh
bike again. For me, it was a fun
way of spending the night, and I
actually looked forward to it. Life
was good…no, it was awesome!
It still is, really. Four-strokes
are just as awesome, they're
just different and a lot more
mechanically complicated, but
I'm still a big two-stroke fan, and
a big fan of the Yamaha YZ250,
one of the few remaining 250cc
two-stroke motocrossers that
is still being offered in the U.S.
(KTM's 250 SX and Husqvar-
na's TC 250 are the other two.)
Just because two-strokes are
simple to work on isn't the only
reason why I like them so much,
though, they're also extremely
fun to ride—when it gets down to
it, really, that's the real reason.
The YZ250 hasn't changed
much since the early 2000's.
It's basically the same bike but it
has seen some worthy updates
in the last 15 years, probably
the most notable when it got an
aluminum frame in 2005. Ten
years later, it got another decent
update. Yamaha gave it more
modern styling, bringing it up to
date with Yamaha's current line
S I M P L E ,
L I G H T, F U N
A N D F A S T. I N
S O M E WAY S ,
YA M A H A
Y Z 2 5 0 T W O -
S T R O K E C A N ' T
B E B E AT
The YZ250 two-
stroke might
be old-school
in design but it
never gets old
riding it.
