Give me a crash course on vintage enduro bikes

[oxford]

I think a vintage enduro type bike may be in my future, what should I be looking for?  Short lists of wants,
- 2 stroke
- 250cc or bigger
- some sort of parts availability( at very least for an engine rebuild)
- factory street legal/title would be a plus as I will want a tag for it.
- something from the 1970s

[pdxjim]

Lots of options.

My vote would go to the Yamaha DT250.

A good friend of mine @brokenbonepatch on here, has had an early DT1 for almost two decades.

He's ridden PNW woods singletrack, vintage MX raced it, thousands of street miles, roadraced it, and and shipped it over to Italy to do the Motogiro d'Italia multiple times.

Truly a do-all bike that can't be killed.

[irk_miller]

Honda MT250 Elsinore.

[m in sc]

either are good but would def lean to the dt250.

[SoCal250]

DT250 or DT400
DT250D in Balboa Blue

[pdxjim]

DT360 is no slouch either.

[irk_miller]

I have both a DT250 and the MR175 Elsinore.  Big fan of both engines and bikes.  Really can't go wrong with either.  But, if we're adding the DT360 to the mix, then I am all in on a 73-75.

[oxford]

Thanks for the replies.  Let's see what pops up.  From what I see Yamaha and Kawasaki seem to be the most popular.

I would be fine with a a DT250 but I would want an earlier version, something looks off to me on the later mono-shock bikes.

[m in sc]

IMHO any vintage 400 single is too much of a paint shaker to do any street riding, ive ridden a few and really didn't like any of them. (on pavement)

[RDnuTZ]

I had a 1975 DT250B. Lightweight & flickable with decent on pavement manners. Easy to work on and many parts exchange with DT400 B/C as well. IIRC, the 1976 DT250C had an early CDI ignition so no messing with points.

[Hawaii-Mike]

How about we call this an "Accelerated Course" instead of a "Crash Course"?

[busa1300]

73 TS400 with a TM400 motor is what I decided on.



Still in process....

[soonerbillz]

The 72 Yamaha DT2 250 is as good as you can get for twin shock vintage enduro that delivers on all types of riding.
 The plus is the aftermarket support is off the charts. There is not very many consumable parts on the model that are not currently available. Check our KDI enduro. Dave has been a Godsend for remanufacturing so many formerly unavailable parts for these bikes.

[teazer]

A few years ago (well, a lot more than a few) I had a short term need for a bike to ride on the street to commute on and a friend offered me his Ossa SDR.  Street legal, off road enduro. It was awesome. Nothing against the usual suspects but you might want to add a something Spanish to your list of possibilities.

[RDnuTZ]

The 72 Yamaha DT2 250 is as good as you can get for twin shock vintage enduro that delivers on all types of riding.
 The plus is the aftermarket support is off the charts. There is not very many consumable parts on the model that are not currently available. Check our KDI enduro. Dave has been a Godsend for remanufacturing so many formerly unavailable parts for these bikes.

Are you basing that on more than just parts availability? I've been primarily a Yamaha guy since lusting after and owning a 1972 LT2. We grew up in Southern CA riding many versions of Yamaha enduros (and "MX") from 1968 on to each successive generation. 1972 was a generational leap with introduction of torque induction reed valves ahead of everyone else. 1973 improved incrementally on that platform. To me, 1974-76 was another generational leap when they reconfigured the frame and ran the exhaust pipe through the frame to slim the design and better ergonomics, added "radial" finned heads standard and more. That was the peak of Yamaha twin shock enduro evolution to me. Then they ruined the enduro series with a half assed monoshock makeover trying to capitalize on being 1st to market on the MX/YZ side with single shock success. I had a 1977 DT175 that was pretty good, and a 77 DT250 and 78 DT400- and they were a step backwards to me- bloated, heavy ill-handling pigs that did nothing well on street or dirt. I later went backwards to a 1975 DT250B after a long time away from bikes and was shocked just how good it actually was as a playbike. I got sucked into VMX around 2002 and still have a stable of 1st generation monoshock MX & YZ and am able to street legal them with little trouble here in CO, so a lot of experience with those and still working on a conversion of 1975 MX400B for street title and that may surpass my regard for the 1975 twins shocks if I can get it to handle well enough on pavement, but for a stock enduro I think the 1975 B series is about perfect. YMMV.