• Hi everyone,

    As you all know, Coffee (Dean) passed away a couple of years ago. I am Dean's ex-wife's husband and happen to have spent my career in tech. Over the years, I occasionally helped Dean with various tech issues.

    When he passed, I worked with his kids to gather the necessary credentials to keep this site running. Since then (and for however long they worked with Coffee), Woodschick and Dirtdame have been maintaining the site and covering the costs. Without their hard work and financial support, CafeHusky would have been lost.

    Over the past couple of weeks, I’ve been working to migrate the site to a free cloud compute instance so that Woodschick and Dirtdame no longer have to fund it. At the same time, I’ve updated the site to a current version of XenForo (the discussion software it runs on). The previous version was outdated and no longer supported.

    Unfortunately, the new software version doesn’t support importing the old site’s styles, so for now, you’ll see the XenForo default style. This may change over time.

    Coffee didn’t document the work he did on the site, so I’ve been digging through the old setup to understand how everything was running. There may still be things I’ve missed. One known issue is that email functionality is not yet working on the new site, but I hope to resolve this over time.

    Thanks for your patience and support!

First real dirtbike

my first "real motorcycle" (IOW, not a bonanza or taco) was my dad's Yamaha Big Bear twin 250 in '68. I thought that thing was huge. (major props to my dad for riding it TO the Rubicon, switching sprockets, riding THE Rubicon, switching sprockets- and then riding back home to the bay area. wow. just wow.)

Yamaha Big Bear.jpg

I raced Honda CL90s (and a trail 70), my dads 250, and the like...
...but my first real dirt bike that I owned was a '71 CT1 175 ($525 OTD) when I was 14. I wanted a 125MX, but my dad got a good deal on this thing. Somehow I ended up loving it.

And it taught me a lot- I raced the 200 class (which was less competitive than the 125s) and won a lot of races. I pointed-out to expert pretty fast... less than a year.

x-up 72 cropped.jpg

Unfortunately (or maybe not) I had to race with the 250 experts after that; and I never won again. OTOH, I did okay (lotsa top-10s with 20+ riders; occasional 4th place trophy) and it made me understand that horsepower was not everything... or even anything (the 175 had less power than the 125MX- maybe 15hp; 250s at the time were 25+).

I was the cockiest 15yo pulling down top-10s around; a bit too big for my britches ('cause I loved passing CZs, pursangs, huskys, et al... going downhill). BTW, for you official old pharts out there: that's a buffalo breath jersey (slightly outta style by this time) and a Bell Star with a duckbill (and way ahead of it's time). This is 1972. and thats the Pacific Ocean (Pacifica, CA) in the background.
 
oh man, i had a 67 180 Twin, really close match to that Big Bear. chrome "lima bean" tank n all. no way would i have taken anything in the dirt like that. i know some did. not me! yikes! col scooters.

that's a sick whip btw! i recall riding near the PO. calif coast was still pretty open in spots before all the scum and liberals moved in. Japs Cove Enduro. there's one ya won't find much about online. Catalina GP? I missed that one. i was making plans to move back out here- always wanted to ferry my scooter to the island and shred it..so cal used to be moto heaven, THE place to go if you rode. now its a welfare state gone mad and there's literally no where to ride there anymore. mreeeep!
 
My son got me riding in my mid 40’s. We rode 71/72 suzuki ts185. We thought we were hot stuff doing 60mph. Most were barn finds. We bought fixed and sold them. Most were dirty carbs. My first real dirtbike was a 83/250 husky Wr.

We had so many 70’s bikes I could of started a museum. I regret not doing just that.
 
My first real dirt bike, Suzuki RV125 1974 aged 14. Same engine as the TM's. OK it was a sand bike but a first for me with a real clutch and gearbox.
My mother bought it as a bribe, if I went to boarding school. It worked.

Had a couple prior with lawnmower engines, torque converters & centrifugals.

Has anyone ever experience a 2 stroke rotating backwards? The RV could! Thats 5 gears in reverse! I never got out of first!
It happened a few times, if you stalled on a steep hill climb and then used the clutch as a brake while rolling backwards.
No I'm not pulling your leg, It happened, no bs
 
reveille said:
Yamaha DT175.
Click to expand...
My wife got into riding a few years ago and she purchased a near new DT175, year model 2006 I think. Whichever year model it was the last year Yamaha produced them in Australia. She sold it in mint condition for more than what she bought it for.
I took it into the bush a couple of times and rang it's neck and it took it without complaining. Great bike, regrets the sale but needed some cash at the time for dental work :$
 
PaulC said:
My first real dirt bike, Suzuki RV125 1974 aged 14. Same motor as the TM's. OK it was a sand bike but a first for me with a real clutch and gearbox.
My mother bought it as a bribe, if I went to boarding school. It worked.

Had a couple prior with lawnmower engines, torque converters & centrifugals.

Has anyone ever experience a 2 stroke rotating backwards? The RV could! Thats 5 gears in reverse! I never got out of first!
It happened a few times, if you stalled on a steep hill climb and then used the clutch as a brake while rolling backwards.
No I'm not pulling your leg, It happened, no bs
Click to expand...

Yep. Little Yamaha GT80MX. Could fire it up backwards and ride around.....and same as you, only in first. Second would have been deadly lol.
If 2t's don't have enough spark advance they can run backwards.
 
duggoey said:
My wife got into riding a few years ago and she purchased a near new DT175, year model 2006 I think. Whichever year model it was the last year Yamaha produced them in Australia. She sold it in mint condition for more than what she bought it for.
I took it into the bush a couple of times and rang it's neck and it took it without complaining. Great bike, regrets the sale but needed some cash at the time for dental work :$
Click to expand...

Yeah pretty bullet proof bike. I bought mine new in 81.
 
PaulC said:
My first real dirt bike, Suzuki RV125 1974 aged 14. Same motor as the TM's. OK it was a sand bike but a first for me with a real clutch and gearbox.
My mother bought it as a bribe, if I went to boarding school. It worked.

Had a couple prior with lawnmower engines, torque converters & centrifugals.

Has anyone ever experience a 2 stroke rotating backwards? The RV could! Thats 5 gears in reverse! I never got out of first!
It happened a few times, if you stalled on a steep hill climb and then used the clutch as a brake while rolling backwards.
No I'm not pulling your leg, It happened, no bs
Click to expand...

Had a 1976 Merc inline 6 outboard on a Hydrostream 16ft v bottom. Every once and a while when you turned the key to run it would start without the starter cranking and usuallly when this occured it was running backwards! You would shift into fwd only to go backwards! This was a trait of the old Thunderbolt CD distributir ignition. It would fire 1 cylinder when key was turned on. If conditions were just right she would run backwards
 
Has anyone ever experience a 2 stroke rotating backwards?
Click to expand...
The Bombardier/Garelli on the previous page would kick back on the kickstarter an fire backwards. Caught me by surprise the first time it happened!
 
When I first seen the ‘83/250wr husky I was wondeing how could that little engine pull the big frame. Well after putting a new piston in it I found out that little 250 pulled great for its size.

I had the neighborhood kids riding suzuki ts bikes and a few huskys too.
 
going back to a different time
my first real bike was a Yamaha 1971 125M
the "M" model was actually a factory (for it's time) 125 motocross model, it shared very little with the enduro engine
i picked it up with about 7 hours on it and had a ball
 
Funny, when I put the 83/250 back together I didn’t adjust the rear brake. I took it for a test drive, wicked it the front wheel is up with no way to bring it down. I backed off on the throttle and she went down. I guess we learn as we go. Lol
 
I remember seeing DKW's at the desert races. I remember thinking how unique that leading link frontend was and the radial head on the Sachs engine. Nostalgic stuff.
 
I had a few small motorcycles before my first real dirt bike, which was an early 70's Carabela 200 like the one pictured below. At the time I thought the fiberglass fenders and side panels looked pretty cool but after racing a borrowed 72 Suzuki 400 Cyclone I figured my neighbors riding lawnmower was probably faster than the Carabela. So I set my sights on owning a big bore bike and soon ended up with a 450 Husky. After racing the Suzuki the Husky was a dream ride. Been a Husky fan ever since.

1972 Carabela 200.jpg
 
my neighbor had one, sold it and bought a Puch
he was into some interesting bikes
another neighbor had Husky's
I rode a Yamaha in the day
 
Dirtdame said:
My first REAL dirt bike (not a Japanese "enduro") was a 1973 DKW RT159 Super.
Click to expand...

leading link! man, those DKW/Sachs (I've never figured out the relationship) were a hot MX setup in 1970.

I still have a pair of those gloves somewhere (semi-unworn). the white or brown tanning would color your hand in a long race... but you could hit a wall with them on.
 
didn't notice those gloves had a few pairs lol
my first real boots were Thorsten Hallmans, man before I got used to them I was doing a wheelie and went too far, went for the brake pedal and missed it, didn't work out real well
 
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