Yamaha Mx250

Yamaha MX250

The Desert Sled ain't dead

OLD-TIME DIRTBIKIN', EH COACH?" I PARAPHRASED THE Hansen Brothers' line from Slapshot for our ride, and kept repeating it inside my helmet. When I wasn't humming the theme from On Any Sunday, that is.

I borrowed my bike, a 1973 YamahaMX250, from my cousin Jim, an original desert rat with a shed full of old dirtbikes and dune buggies. Back in the day, these sand toys provided family entertainment on SoCal desert outings. But today, Jim’s children have children of their own, so the vehicles see little use.

The MX250 emerged from the shed covered in dust and cobwebs, so the first order of business was to give it a good cleaning. Then, I did all the usual things you would do to a mothballed dirtbike. I flushed out the gas tank and carburetor, installed a new fuel line and filter, and rinsed and oiled the K&N air filter. I removed the head and barrel, sanded the carbon build-up off the piston crown and combustion chamber, and installed a new ring. I also drained and refilled the tranny and forks. And what dirtbike would be complete without a new set of handgrips?

Unfortunately, when it came time to start the engine, there was no spark. Jimmy Lewis helped me trace the problem to a bad coil, which we replaced with a Honda XR100 unit he had lying around. That fixed, the Yamaha routinely started on the first kick.

Lewis also dredged up an old Kawasaki KDX200 muffler, which

I adapted to the Yamaha’s unmuffled stinger with a homemade bracket. The muffler stuck out so far, though, that I dubbed my bike “The Tail-Gunner.”

Finally, it was time to ride. The MX250 made plenty of power when it got on the pipe; trouble was, it would only get on the pipe going downhill! A trailside jetting change cured that, and from then on it was all fun.

Fireroads were a blast, as the low, short-travel machine slid controllably through smooth comers. But whoops were another story: Hit them too fast and both ends would bottom hard; too slow and the bike would wallow. It gave me an even deeper appreciation for the men who raced these sleds across the desert and on the rough, natural-terrain motocross tracks of the day.

One of the MX250’s biggest assets is its low seat height. When tackling steep, technical climbs, the ability to dab, paddle or even hop off and run alongside proved essential.

But if going uphill took skill, going downhill took nerve. Let’s just say that apart from suspension, brakes have made the most progress over the last quartercentury. A spill on one especially steep drop-off broke the throttle housing, the only “mechanical” the MX250 suffered. Not bad for a 27-year-old dirtbike that cost just $150 to restore to running order. Come to think of it, even the stylin’ vintage JT Dalmatian gear I wore on our ride was free. Guess that makes me dirt cheap, too!

Brad Zerbel