I've owned two Yamaha motorcycles, both with two-stroke motors.  On the Early Motorcycles page you can see that three of my first four motorcycles had two-stroke motors.  So, even though I currently prefer big four-stroke singles, I've thoroughly enjoyed all the two-strokes I've owned.  Please see the Big Singles page for an explanation of two-stroke and four-stroke motors.  Early Yamahas were all two-strokes.

    In 1970 the Yamaha 350 cc twin was very popular among middleweight road bikes.  Prices were coming down because Yamaha had just come out with the XS-1 650 cc four-stroke twin.  I jumped on an opportunity to get a good used 350 so I could retire the Honda Super Hawk, which by then had about 90,000 miles.  I enjoyed the Yamaha 350 very much.  It was light, responsive, and reliable, and had plenty of power for solo riding in all conditions except heavy headwinds.  Light is not always a blessing.  One time coming home from work along I-25 in Colorado Springs just after a typical mountain thunderstorm I hit a quarter-mile long puddle about 3/8 inch deep at 70 miles per hour with a slightly too worn front tire.  The front wheel floated (hydroplaned), and I had visions of me sliding along the Interstate in that nearly freezing water.  Fortunately, backing off the gas restored enough weight to the front wheel for it to get a grip with nothing more exciting than a fifteen-foot bow wave of water into the adjacent lanes.  I ran the 350 year-round for three years.  It started reliably even during a cold spell at fifteen degrees below zero.

    After trail riding the little Honda 90 for three years I was ready to move up to a bigger dirt bike.  The Honda XL-250 had just come out and that was what I really wanted but the Honda dealer wouldn't take the Yamaha 350 in trade.  So I went to the Yamaha dealer and traded it in on a Yamaha 250 cc DT-1, one of the most popular dirt bikes.  It was a good move, just enough bigger and more powerful to be a challenge, and absolutely trouble free.  As is my custom, I commuted to work on it, and often as not rode it to trail riding areas instead of hauling it in the back of a truck.

    The DT-1 was so popular, in fact, that someone stole it right out of the Government parking lot at Headquarters North American Air Defense Command (NORAD) in broad daylight.  The police said recovery was highly unlikely, so my insurance company paid me within two weeks.  This led to Honda #4.
 
 

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