128 Goats: Part 1

[Y’all know I sorted through an elaborate decision matrix, bought a motorcycle, planned an awesome adventure, and (before the ink was dry on the purchase agreement) society shit itself. Oh well. No plan survives contact with the enemy and thank God I didn’t take on huge payments for an idle device. I couldn’t ride in 3′ of snow. Things is/are/will be delayed. I did however, “test her out a bit”. I’ve had the new critter out in bitter cold, sleet, snow, ice, mud, slush, forest, dirt, and fields. I’ve “learned” about it’s abilities as much as I could in the midst of the wrong season during a half-ass zombie Apocalypse. I tell myself to be patient but it ‘aint easy. So far the bike looks like a good call. I wrote this as a sort of “first impression”.]

Also, sorry about the following rant. I’m only human. Scroll past it if you’re trying to stay mellow. And if you are… I salute you!

[What the fuck?!? It could have been the Black Plague… it wasn’t. I’m happy about that. Why am I alone in my joy? So far it’s been pretty tame. Yeah sure, if you’re an overweight 89 year old asthmatic who lives in New York city it’s bad, but that’s called diversity. Nor is economic disturbance fun… though I’m not sure that can be blamed on the contagion itself. The point is that risk is not spread evenly across the globe and we should adapt. It’s clumpy; with wide swaths of not much to report and little miserable clots of bad shit. None of our societal response is based on actual data about what’s actually happening as we can measure it right fucking now. Now it’s a planetary Rorschach test that’s telling me we’re overrun with wimps. The last pandemic happened while hippies were getting stoned in in a great muddy stinkhole called Woodstock and now those same hippies have gone full Karen on people who might go fishing without a mask. This is “the Black Plague that didn’t happen”. Isn’t that great? Things didn’t go “asteroid and dinosaur”! Gratitude and relief should be the name of the day!

But we’re still collectively fretting. “Shit might get bad, so stay wired every day, until we tell you it’s OK; which we won’t.” It’s mostly a story told to fertilize the vote farms; those of us with eyes to see know that gas is cheap, beer is good, and the sky is blue. Whatever came from bat soup or biolabs didn’t interfere with me eating cake for breakfast so turn off the media and smile. Spit out their frustrating buzzkill of gas-lighting and defeatism. They want you cowering in the basement until you pull the lever for daddy government to wipe your ass with subsidized toilet paper.

The woke-scolds are in league with the Tide Pod eaters and none has a track record of correct predictions or wise counsel. When unaccomplished people are faced with a new situation, I’ll cut them slack. Two months later when they’re demonstrably wrong about damn near everything I expect them to see new information and correct course. Failing that basic task of sentience, I declare they’re useless and should be ignored. The best I can do is offer distraction; the following post(s) may be shallow but there’s not a single sentence which will try to boss you around or allocate your money. You’re welcome.]

Having considered soul death by debt, reflected on eccentricities of planetary rotation, endured the brutal loss of the best dog I ever had, and found solace in tales of sand dunes in far northern Canada… I purchased a Yamaha TW200. Then I made elaborate plans which collapsed and finally wrote this unfinished review:

Parked solidly on the tail end (you choose the side) of a bell curve, the TW encounters “average”, gears down and lurches over it like an irrelevant speed bump. A less likely candidate for “average” you’ll rarely find; for me or the bike. We seem to get along just fine.

[Warning: I’m painting here with a broad brush, if anyone wants to get pedantic and start mentioning that a 1978 Mazda RX-7’s Wankel engine disproves the notion that “gas engines have reciprocating pistons”, they’re missing the point.]

The TW200 is a cheap, crude, simple beast. It’s a single cylinder, air cooled, carburetor equipped relic from 1987. (With only minor caveats, a 2020 Yamaha TW200 and a 33 year old 1987 Yamaha TW200 are very similar; including a fair amount of parts interchangeability. Try that with a Subaru.) One selling point for me was the notion that there’s a vehicle from 1987 that the EPA hasn’t ruined yet. How long will it last? Better get one while I can.

The Awesome Rear Tire:

The TW was created before the rise of ATVs. You can tell by the monstrous rear tire. I love that tire!

Motorcycles with off road aspirations have a large tire in the rear and a smaller tire in the front. The big ass tire on the back is a major feature of off road motorcycles and everybody loves them. The TW200 uses the dimensions of an “average” large rear tire from an “average” off road bike and then non-ironically stuffs it into the front fork. On the rear, Yamaha installed an ATV sized monstrosity that has no equal among bikes of today. The design was intended to compete with ATVs of 1987 and it still functions exactly like it was built. It’s very much a “two wheeled ATV”. Other motorcycles moved on to greener pastures after ATVs won that long forgotten market share war; the TW200 never got the memo.

The epic tire is attractive to me; a big fat squishy rear tire just looks awesome and bad ass (as far as I’m concerned). It sings to me! I hear that song of low speed, high torque, sputtering through places that would be surprisingly rough under other conditions. FortNine said something like “it’ll get there slow but you’re damn sure going to get there” and that’s what I wanted. All other bikes have gone to smaller width tires and higher RPM operation… heck, even the ATVs are going that way. If you want that huge tire on a stock motorcycle, there’s only one game in town.

Ergonomics Pro And Con:

The TW is uniquely short. Off road bikes are surprisingly tall. They need room to manage elaborate suspension components with huge travel. I like aggressive suspension geometry; it can impressively soak up rough terrain at ground rocket speeds. Alas, the usual tall arrangement for rocketing around like a maniac didn’t suit me. Not only does it put your center of gravity higher (which concerns me) but it’s a hassle for a guy with a short inseam. I never thought I had a short inseam but climbing onto and off of several very tall off road bikes convinced me that many of them wouldn’t work for me; even if I could afford them, which I couldn’t.

Speaking of short, the TW seems chunky but it’s lighter than most bikes; which have larger displacement engines and all sorts of cool shit bolted everywhere. (Not sure about non-street legal dirt bikes, they might be light too?) The TW is not light due to titanium this and carbon fiber that. It’s light because it has damn near nothing extraneous present. If I removed everything from your car that’s unnecessary, from EPA mandated E-85 fuel gadgetry to stereos and cup holders, I’d make your car weigh half as much… I’d also have turned it into something more like a VW Beetle than a modern bloatwagon. That’s the TW’s design.

I hoped the small, light, short design was a good thing. I know that lifting up a fallen adventure tourer motorcycle is within my physical abilities but would be a PITA. How much harder would it be if I’d just pounded myself into a tree? Remember, I will always be riding alone. If I can’t lift it, I’ll have to stay right there forever; I’ll either bleed out or build a cabin depending on the fall I suppose. Luckily, lifting the little TW is easy. I got to test it in the real world. With only 140 miles on the odometer, I slipped the rear tire on a wet rotten log and dumped it. I stood it up without drama. Theory, tested. I’m happy to have faceplanted the little beast so soon in it’s life. I bought it to play in the forest and it’s getting broken in right proper.

The TW is squat and low; like you’d design a machine that might be hauling a bale of hay. It puts much less emphasis on gyroscopic balance(?) and more into slow, steady, motion. Think not of a quarterhorse but a Shetland pony.

Tall, pretty, and expensive.

Short and dragging a log.

It’s the right compromise for me. I’m not invested in flying down a single track at the speed of chiropractor visit. I’m more interested in finding a good squirrel hunting spot or pretty vista. I prefer the ability to crank along with drama free motion and the chance to “flat foot” in tight spots.

That said, on the road, it’s a bit small. There’s a cramped feeling to the ergonomics. I might fiddle with the handlebars and footpegs to ameliorate this. You don’t notice it if you’re riding in stupid places, which is my purpose.

The Wow Factor… There Isn’t Any:

I’ll be the first to admit, it looks a little bit dull. Here’s a photo from the Yamaha site:

That’s the site where Yamaha tries to pump you up to buy their product. Jesus Yamaha, show some balls! At least splash some mud or something. Maybe show some dude with a rifle slung over his back and an elk quarter on a cargo rack? It’s pathetic!

This is what an off road motorcycle photo ought to look like:

(Photo from here.)

Then again, when I back off on the testosterone and engage my brain, everything comes into focus. The guy in the awesome photo is perched on a tall, powerful (1300CC) KTM Super Adventure that clocks in at $18,000. He’s got a dragon to unleash in that throttle. He’s suited up like a Power Ranger and looks like a God. But it’s in a specialized environment and controlled conditions.

Notice he’s carrying no gear. No water, no first aid kid, no map, no nothing. He’s playing on a sand dune and it’s gorgeous but who’s got a sand dune in their backyard? He’s not going solo, he’s not equipped for a three day campout, he probably doesn’t even have a snack stuffed in the pocket of his suit (which might cost as much as my whole motorcycle).

The glorious spitting “roost” of sand is not for me. Meanwhile, the guy in the boring Yamaha photo is sitting placidly on the seat of a 200cc mule that clocks in at $4,500. He’s sputtering down a dirt trail, looks relaxed (he’s wearing a sweatshirt fer crissakes), and I know the little bike has a huge payload capacity. One guy is playing with fire and will be exhausted in an hour. The other guy might be cruising to a nice fishing spot.

The Curmudgeon needs chill. With the TW, I tried to buy chill.

Plates!

It also has the magic of plates.

Motorcycles (off road types) come in two flavors; dual sport (meaning it has a license plate) and dirt bike (meaning it doesn’t). The TW is basically the smallest, cheapest thing that passes the “street legal” threshold. Unlike, even the most expensive ATV / snowmobile / Argo / side by side, I can roll the little TW onto pavement and poof… like magic it’s officially a licensed vehicle. It can go anywhere, on any pavement, in any State, and do anything (legally) that a Goldwing or a minivan can do. McDonalds drive through, ATM lane, check into a hotel, parked at a laundromat… fine. Try that with an ATV! (That said, it’s slow-ish. Country roads are fine and it’s absolutely splendid on dirt roads, but if you take it on the Interstate, you deserve what happens to you.)

Turns out the “street legal effect” really opens up options. I guessed this but wasn’t sure.

Also, I discovered I really liked the transistion from road to dirt… there is none. I planned an ATV which meant ramps and trailers and trailheads. Not so for the little TW. I can amble down a dirt road, slow down at a likely spot, and then plunge right off the road, across the ditch and into the unknown. So far I’ve only done that a few times but every time I do it, I’m impressed.

So, given it the test I can. I’ve only got a couple hundred miles on it (about 40% off road, 40% dirt road, 20% paved country road). Initial results are good. It’s not a beacon of technology but it’s rather impressive. It’s built a bit cheap but “cheap” isn’t the right word. It’s built like a brick shithouse. Every component is rock solid but for $4500 I hope you’re not expecting Bluetooth linked stereos and heated cupholders.

If you’re wondering how capable a 200CC two wheeled ATV can be; in it’s proper environment it’s amazing. It was a good call.

Sooner or later I’ll explain about the 128 goats.

Bye for now.

A.C.