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First Ride Out - DT250A

First Ride Out - "The Outrider" DT250A

Sydney. NSW.

   

 


"THE OUTRIDER" - Apart from the fact I think it's a cool name, brothers Peter and Doug (whom I bought the bike from 5 years ago) suggested that while it was now my bike, and I had every right to do with it as I pleased, they thought it best if the original patina was kept.

See, Peter and Doug were selling the bike as part of their late brothers estate and felt a certain nostalgia for the bike to continue to look just as their brother had parked it up in the back shed of his unassuming Granville property 33 years prior.

After 38 years laid up off the road, 5 years of that under my ownership attempting a rebuild then chasing electrical gremlins, my DT250A is once again officially N.S.W. road registered and begging to be ridden.

My first ride had to be epic so I just went ahead and loosely planned a 300km big day out riding the backroads and dirt roads of the Blue Mountains, west of Sydney.

- No break down plan.
- No Spares.
- No worries mate! 


With gas and oil tanks full to the brim, I jump on the bike, it starts first kick and I leave home just as the morning rush dies down. I live on the outer northern side of Sydney; In no time I was away on quite country back roads on route to my first fuel stop via the fun twisty roads into and out of Berowra Creek. 

 
Stopped waiting for the ferry a couple cyclists made some nice comments about my bike…has me smiling. 
 
     
 
Not knowing how far I could travel on a tank of gas I planned to not risk that one thing I could control which was knowing where the gas stations were within 120km of each other on route.

“Hey mate, cool bike” count = 3

Pulling into the gas station, a car that had followed me for some time pulls up right behind me and straight away telling me his cool stories of the same bike he had back in the day, plus other bikes still in his shed and stories of adventure and mis-adventure. Then Dave jumps out of his truck and joins in on the conversation lamenting of his past wild off road adventures. Both of em reminiscing and that makes me smile!
 
 
I thought I had seen a café or 2 at a place called Spencer mid-way along this awesome narrow snaking tarmac road called Wiseman’s Ferry Road though was a little missing my much anticipated caffeine fix with none open. Cool water side sculpture there though and another bystander shouting out “Hey mate, cool bike” count now at 4.
 
 
I had heard all about this most delicious of Aussie meat pies to be had at the remote small town of St Albans. Added bonus was the 20km’s of twisty dirt roads to get there and what a blast that was! The bike handled the gravel with ease and even managed a little rear drifting out of a few tight downhill corners. So much Fun!
 
       
 
Rocking up to the Settlers Arms for a quite beer and their famous Wagyu beef pie, old mate on the table next to me says he had a 360 back in the day. Oh really, what colour I ask. Silver he says but don’t remember it looking as cool as your orange beauty. He tells me a few bike stories while I check out some rusty relics and a beautiful bird wanting to impress my DT.
 
Headed to Wiseman’s Ferry town for gas only to find I had lost or left my credit card back at that old pub 20km’s away. Lucky I had cash to pay the operator and only slight panicked…frantic calls to pub not taken had me rushing back there a little stressed though happy to find it exactly where I had left it on the seat beside where I had lunched and the added bonus of 40 unplanned Km’s of wonderful twisty river roads there and back.

 The road to my next fill up destination was nearly all classic Aussie bush tracks of twisty, steep, dirt ridge riding and I had an absolute blast of a ride! Not another vehicle in sight the whole way and happy to have made the next fuel stop without the need for reserve even with that unplanned extra 40km’s.

   

 

If you made it this far along my epic ride and even longer story then well done!

From Colo to home was another adventure in itself and I’ll leave that 3-hour segment of the day long journey with my first ride impressions of this wonderful 47-year-old machine called the Yamaha DT250A.

Total trip distance 337k’m over 8hrs. bike seat and rider comfort level was way better than I expected. Had a little “2 stroke vibration” hand tingling akin to operating a chainsaw at the end of the day, but apart from that, seat and riding position was super comfy.

 

     

 

Cool fun factor, OMG!

This bike is slow but soooo much fun. I used all 26 of those horse powers all the time and fully pinned and bike struggling to so the speed limit I quickly learned that if I went into a full tracker style chin on the tank tuck, the bike would instantly pick up another 10kph in speed.

Needless to say I spent a lot of time fully aero tucked and had so much fun riding this way.

Top speed on a massively long downhill - private road ;-) - was 122kph/76mph … that’s it, it would need a massive tail wind to go any faster though bike was confidently stable at that speed.

Brakes? it has brakes? Rear works so much better than the front which is like the line needs to be bled but it isn’t hydraulic. I’d hate to be in commuter traffic and need to emergency brake at any time on this, but the route I took was virtually traffic free and at the pace I was riding, braking wasn’t a worry.

The motor performed flawlessly, gained a little bit of a power above 4500 and revved out nicely to the 7k redline.

 

This story first published in the Sydney section of the VJMC Forum available to VJMC members on this website.