Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to tell Filthie to “DO IT!”
In the middle of the lingering snowpack I dragged Honey Badger (my Yamaha TW200 dirtbike) into my shop. I meant to get it ready for the riding season. I need to change the oil and I want to wire in some farkles.
I got plans y’all!
I spent all winter thinking of cool shit to do this summer! Me and Honey Badger will have all the fun I can survive.
Who knows if I’ll do all the cool stuff I dreamed? At least it’s a start. You must dream before you can do. I’m optimistic because I know that Honey Badger is up for it. That little bike is always ready to go for anything on the trail.
Here’s a picture of my trusty steed. (The photo is a couple years old, the bike has more survival shit bolted to it now.)
Unfortunately, it snowed and my plans for mechanical tinkering were delayed. Then it snowed more. Delays compounded. I wasted a whole tank of propane heating the shop while I was busy plowing snow.
I implore y’all to go to Filthie’s site and comment. Tell the man “DO IT!”
If there’s anything a cranky woodsman needs it’s a little wheeled mule! It’s amazing the old carbureted thumper is still in production. Anyone with an itch of a molecule of curiosity should embrace the opportunity!
Filthie needs one!
The plucky TW is unlike any other motorcycle on the market today. It’s a slow, obscure, obsolete farm bike from a simpler time. It’s fun, unbreakable, street legal, trail ready, and relentlessly upbeat. It absolutely loves abuse. It has plenty of balls to ride in/through/over/across anything in its path. It’s crude and cheap. It’s cheap to buy (though it does have a cult following in the used market). It’s cheap to insure. It’s cheap to register. It’s cheap to fix what you break and it only needs repair if you did something that you knew was utterly stupid to break it. (Or like me you want to tinker on a dirt simple machine until it’s the ultimate bug out toy.) They’re said to last forever. They get great MPG.
I treat mine like a hammer. I’ve sunk it, hit things, got lost, flogged it, babied it, idled it, used a tree stump to adjust the chain, chased a bear, buried it in mud, run it hot, run it in snow, hammered the skid plate (aftermarket), and it has never skipped a beat.
Despite all that firebreathing bravado, the best part is that it’s silly fun. It’s a hoot even if you’re just sightseeing. I’ll spend all day puttering along forest service roads with a big grin on my face.
I load it with a ton of gear and it never bitches. It’s easy to ride and adapts to most terrain. It’s happy on a forest road, it’s happy when you flog it through a swamp, it’s happy when you wind it through trees, it’s happy when crash through brush, it simply doesn’t care what you do.
It’s (probably) EMP proof. When Putin has had enough of our shit and nukes us back to the stone age, the TW will still run perfectly well.
It’ll go anywhere I’m brave enough to steer. If the terrain is too tough for a TW you’ve made bad decisions in life. You don’t need an off road machine so much as you need a helicopter.
TWs are so uncool they’re cool by accident. A total lack of style and technology lets it cross over and come out the other side. Instead of regular cool, it’s beyond cool. Compared to everything in the market, there’s no bike that simply doesn’t give a shit about appearances like the TW.
When you ride a TW like you ought to, you aren’t a motorcyclist, you’re a moose trapping lost cowboy wolf-being fishing camp-beast that just came off the endless trail. A full dress Harley Road Glide may give an anemic soyboy dentist the aura of cool but it’s just an aura. When I park my muddy TW, even if it’s next to machines that cost five times as much, it’s the TW that gets noticed. It’s simply the cooler object because it’s molecularly incapable of pretention. People think: “What kind of lunatic rides a potato like that? Is the fender covered in moose shit? Is that a shotgun strapped to the back? Why is it loaded with MREs and a hatchet?” There’s only one conclusion; “That dude is bad ass!”
Dentists tremble before my tiny death bike!
The beast horrifies young hip speed demons who rove in packs on single track. (But it can still do single track and I had the bruises to prove it.) A TW will never impress the owner of a BWM R 1250 GS Adventure bike (or rather the owner of the payment plan that comes with a BMW). That’s because the only time I’ve seen a BWM R 1250 GS Adventure bike on a trail is on YouTube. If I encountered a one of those space technology super machines on the trail, the BMW rider would see a geezer like me pick up my fallen TW with one hand. That single easy lift would make the owner of twenty grand in very heavy and expensive ABS enabled fuel injection sorcery weep in envy.
It’s easily as good as any ATV yet it’s street legal in a way ATVs never quite attain. It’s the smallest thing that’s not too small. Women call it cute, kids like the cartoon-sized tires, deer don’t overly mind its sputtering engine, and I’ve used it to drag firewood to camp.
Before the TW, I had (still have) a cruiser. That limited me to half the motorcycle picture. The Sturgis and chrome crowd has a good thing going on but it’s not the only thing. The TW taught me other activities. I coined the term mechanical hiking. Think of a TW as a backpack that carries itself. It’s a mule that never needs hay. It’s a hunting rig and camping toy. It doesn’t mind if to strap fishing poles and chainsaws to it. The lawnmower sized power plant will never let you down. The fat goofy tires will hold traction for anything you’re willing to try.
The only place a TW doesn’t belong is the interstate. Keep your cruiser for the slab where it’s happiest. Get a TW as a little wheeled beast for different things. Its a friendly dog that can’t wait to go camping with you.
If wonder if you want a TW, you do!
Do it!
You sir are a bad influence, and I like the cut of your jib.
I am making plans (dreaming) of a Versys 300 or a Desert Sled.
Carry on good sir.
Glad I could help lead you astray. A Versys 300 is cool. Never heard of a Desert Sled. Honestly, if it’s got two wheels and it makes you smile, it’s perfect no matter what it is. I like my 1100cc cruiser but I’ve found out how much fun one can have with little engines. If I didn’t have the unstoppable TW200 I might be sniffing around the smaller Honda CT120 or even the Honda ADV150.
I totally agree sir. I’ve got a pair of TW’s up here in Montana and friggen love em. If you don’t mind, I’m going to appropriate your “mechanical hiking” term. Keep up the good work.
Happy hiking!
I really ought to put the KLR 650 back together, and get rid of it.
Yamaha should hire you as an Ambassador of Woods Puttering.
You certainly do make a good case for owning one of these. I can imagine driving the beach shore line would be a piece of cake for this. I guess being street legal, driving one of these on the streets requires an official motorcycle license ?
I’d love to be Ambassador of Woods Puttering!
Yes, it’s a real motorcycle so you need a motorcycle endorsement on your license. You really ought to have that minimal training anyway. It’s easy, just sign up for a course. You won’t “fail” and it’ll include your driving test which saves a lot of effort. Incidentally, the MSF courses provide beginners a bike to do the training (usually riding around a big empty parking lot) and one of the most common “trainer bikes” is the TW200. With a little investigation you could take the class and get to try a TW200 to see if you like it. You’ll even find used TWs that have done a few seasons as trainer bikes for sale. Nearly zero miles but a million n00b users have dropped them. Could be a good deal or not, depending on price. They usually look brand new.
A beach shore would be a good place to ride. A TW200 would love it. But be aware that sand is it’s own special challenge for any vehicle until the rider gets the hang of it.
I don’t ever want to hear you call a Steel Horse a wheeled mule again.
Ha ha ha… have you seen a TW? Some folks call ’em goats and I call it a mule, but it’s nothing like a tall, handsome, skittish, fast horse.
It certainly doesn’t look “steel-ish”; unlike a gorgeous chromed out cruiser. The first thing you see when you look at a TW are huge rubber tires. Maybe “rubber horse” would work? 🙂
Now that I think about it, I have a big red Milwaukee Packout mounted on the cargo rack. Into this I snap down other Packouts (works very well). On the sides where saddlebags would hang, I’ve got Rotopax containers of water and gas. The gas Rotopax is bright red, just like the Packout. It’s all bright colored blocks that lock together. Therefore… wait for it…
I propose “Death Lego” as an alternate name for the TW200!