I will apologize in advance for the length of this post, whereas it will be quite lengthy.

Ever since I was a small boy, I've always been fascinated by motorcycles. I would ride my bicycle around wishing it was motorized, and would sometimes pretend that it was. Sometimes, like most young boys, I would even go so far as to attach something to the forks and frame that would stick into the spokes, like playing cards, so that it would make a motorcycle sound while I was riding. At one point, my brother and I had a little mini-bike frame that we always wanted to build a mini-bike out of. This never happened, but it didn't stop us from pushing each other around on it.

When I was about 11, I moved to the other side of town and there was a neighborhood kid there that owned a small Honda 50CC motorcycle. This was my first real experience with motorcycle riding, and it was awesome! It was exactly like a bicycle except you did not have to pedal. You could do wheelies, jump, jam the back brake and slide the back wheel around, just like on a bike. A couple of other kids in the neighborhood also later obtained ATVs in the form of a 3-wheeler and 4-wheeler, but I was always drawn to the motorcycle. The kid who owned it was quite gracious in letting me ride it all the time. I loved it. I would even dream about motorcycle riding, sometimes on a nightly basis.

One time I discovered that another friend had a much larger motorcycle off in the corner of an old shed behind his house. It was always just sort of a pile of unused junk. It didn't work, so they just basically discarded it. One day I convinced him that we should bust it out and see what we could do with it. Worst case scenario, we could take turns coasting it down a nearby hill, just for fun. We took the bike out of the shed and give it a decent cleaning, as good as two 11 year old boys could. We then proceeded to pushing each other around on it as fast as humanly possible at 11 years of age. At one point, as I was being pushed around on it, I wondered what would happen if I popped it in gear. Now, I should say that when I rode the little 50cc bike, there was no clutch, you just switched gears by only moving the lever, and when you are 11, the hand-eye coordination for advanced motorcycle operation maybe be a little bit out of your league, if you have no past experience. So as I as being pushed as fast as my friend could push me, I kicked the thing into first gear and gave the throttle a twist. The damn thing started up and took off, with me hanging on for dear life. At that time, it was one of the scariest things I had ever experienced. Once I let off the throttle, I had the piece of mind to push on the foot brake pedal, so I was able to stop, but once I stopped the thing just kinda fell over. When you are 11, you cannot reach the ground on a early 1980s Honda CR80. Once we realized the motorcycle did work, we took a few turns riding it around a nearby pasture for a few days, then it stopped working again. In hindsight, we probably could have gotten the thing running again, but our attention spans were not good enough back then so we moved on to something else.

As I grew up and away, the desire to ride never really subsided. I got into cars, and girls, and other unmentionable things that teenagers do, but in the back of my mind, I still wished I had my own motorcycle. I saved up some money one time and purchased a bike. It was around 250 dollars. It was a 1982 Honda XR80. It purred like a kitten, and I rode it all over the place, since I had access to a dirt road 1/4 block from my house. Where I grew up, if you could get to any dirt road, you could pretty much get to anywhere else in the county without ever getting on a real street. Eventually I moved onward and upward, and the bike just didn't really fit into my lifestyle, and I didn't have a truck to transport the bike around with, so it was more or less useless. I gave the bike to my dad, who lived on a farm, and could use it and take good care of it. After many years of use and enjoyment, it went belly up, and I think he ended up giving it away since it was not working.

Then as a young adult, in my mid 20s in, I found myself in a position where I had quite a bit of expendable cash, and one day it just hit me that I should finally achieve my goal of once again owning my own motorcycle. I am not exactly sure what spurred the thought that day. I was living in a Dallas suburb and was just getting my career into full swing. Maybe I realized that I was losing touch with my childhood, having grown up in a rural area, away from the big cities. So that day, I began looking for a used dirt bike. I searched high and low for one, but never really found anything that was new enough to have modern technology, yet old enough or used enough to be cost effective. Like just about everything else I do, I let the concept grow in my mind, each day justifying buying a more expensive bike, until eventually caving and going nearly three times my allotted budget to get a good bike. It was a 1999 Yamaha Yz400F. At the time, it was the largest 4 stroke motocross bike that Yamaha made. It was 2001 at the time, so the bike was only a couple of years old. Perfect. I rode the bike quite a bit, and it was always a blast, but I soon realized that it was kind of a pain in the ass, because it was a rather lengthy process, to load the thing up into the truck, drive to a place to ride, etc... I had plenty of time, though, so no big deal.

Pretty soon after that, they closed down the government land where I always went to ride. I found another place, but it was an hour's drive away, one way, so it became an even larger pain in the ass. In 2003 I bought a house, and since then, my bike has just sat in the garage, taunting me. It was just too much trouble to try and get to the riding area after work, because it would be nearly dark by the time I got there, and on the weekends, I play hockey and do other stuff, so I just really didn't have time for it. Every time I would walk into the garage, I would feel pain because I really wanted to ride it every single day, and I just couldn't. It really hurt because I finally got what I always wanted and now it just sat there. How could I let this happen?

I decided one day that I would finally do something about it. I would part ways with my beloved dirt bike, and learn to ride a street bike instead. This way I get the thrill of riding, without the hassle of having to go somewhere far away to get it. I ordered a helmet and some gloves off the intertubes, and signed up for a motorcycle riders safety class. The class was fun, and I passed with flying colors. I was the only person in the class to get a perfect score on the final riding test. The next day, I went over to the DMV for the written part of the test. It was a snap. It took all of 15 minutes, I got a perfect score, and just like that, I was a licensed motorcycle operator.

Now all I had to do was obtain a new machine. I put my bike in an ad on cycle-trader.com with plenty of pictures and information. I only had one interested buyer and he ended up not buying the bike. I had not really planned a contingency for not being able to sell it. I guess the only option was to trade it in. I contacted my local Yamaha dealer to inquire about trading in for a new street bike. I got a quote and prepared to take my bike in for the trade. Yay.

Well, I went on vacation and got lazy and lost my motivation, so I just kinda dropped the ball for a few months. During this time, I decided that maybe I should not get a street bike, because almost every single person on the road is either on drugs, on the phone, or a complete fucking moron, and from what I gather, getting run over is really not all that cool, certainly not as cool as they make it look on TV. So there I was again with my precious dirt bike sitting right in front of the garage door, ready to go, looking all sad.

Then, out of the blue a few weeks back, a friend called saying he was buying a bike, and suddenly I was excited about it again. Only he was not getting a street bike, or a dirt bike, he was getting a dual-purpose machine. I had not really spent much time considering this option, but it seems like it might be a perfect fit. You can ride on the streets, then if you see something cool off the beaten path, you can just turn and go there. Turns out Yamaha makes a specific bike that has oversized tires that is reminiscent of the old school Yamaha Big Wheel or the Honda Fat Cat. The bike is the TW200. It sounds perfect.

So I email my guy at the Yamaha shop, and he says he can hook it up, no problem. My credit app was approved instantly, and they could take my trade in. I took my bike in the next day for trade in assessment, and they provided me with an even better option. I leave my bike there and they sell it on consignment. This way, they can sell it for a hell of a lot more than I could, and they take 10% of the proceeds, which is a great deal, assuming that they sell it. If not, I could just tell them I want the blue book value of it, and apply it toward paying off the new bike.

I picked up the new bike the next day.

Here are a couple of pictures of what the motorcycle looks like. Mine is brand new, so the stock photos are exactly how mines looks, so no need for me to take pictures of mine.


The TW200 is an amazing machine. Yamaha got this build exactly right, so they have not changed the design for over two decades. I have ridden around 150 miles on it so far, and its fantastic. I have gotten it up to 70 MPH with the wind at my back, which is about its top speed, but I have also taken it across a freshly plowed Texas pasture, which is quite a feat. It is the best of both worlds. It is a perfect mix of mean dirt bike, and decent road performance. I can ride the bike to work, or go jump hills. I think I have finally found a keeper.

There are a few upgrades I have made, or plan to make. I installed new footpegs, whereas the stock ones were pretty small. I also installed a tail light modulator so the brake light flashes when I use the brakes, to help make me more visible to other drivers. I added a tank bag to carry my junk. Tomorrow I will be adding handguards to protect my hands from rocks, or other misadventures. I have a magnetic drain plug being shipped, and I will also be adding a 12v DC power outlet so I can use a GPS, a portable air pump, or whatever. Additionally, I will be installing a rear rack so that I can carry more stuff when I go on a journey, and I may add a smaller rear sprocket, so that I can achieve higher cruising speeds at lower RPMs. I will probably have a few posts in the future pertaining to some of these upgrades. I think we are going to put up a TW200 web page for customization articles, so I may just put them there instead, but I will put a link to them here. I will post a picture of my bike after I add all these mods.

Anyway, onward and upward!