The coolest road-registered dirt bikes when you were a kid

[David Lahey]

I'm a 1959 model so the road-registered dirt bikes that I was fired up about when I was young were all from the mid 1970s to 1980.

A YZ125C set up for enduros by distributors Annand and Thompson in Brisbane and ridden by Geoff Petler.
All the TT500Cs owned by lots of people who must have been a tiny bit older than me. Lots of people did wheelies on them, but the only individual I can remember is Brisbane rider Gary Jackson at a place we used to ride which became the Gateway Bridge southern approach in the 1980s.
The YZ400B set up by Eltham Dirt Cycles and featured in Trail and Track magazine.
The IT400C that Geoff Eldridge reviewed in ADB.
The first (360) Husqvarna Auto ridden by lots of people associated with Paul Rooney Motorcycles in Lismore and my favourite Husky Auto rider, Phil Eldridge.
My own IT175D.
A friend (Russell Duncan) had a MK11 370 Frontera that we shared in a Six Hour Pony Express and was fabulous to ride.
What I find a bit amazing is that the humble 1980 TT250 is in this category for me and I've never even ridden one!

How about you?

[PA]

I worked at the SA Kawasaki dealer as a 16 year old junior. The Yamaha Monoshock bikes were the ones to have so Boltons Kawasaki had sold exactly 0 of the KX450 motocross bikes. I had read an article how someone had put the lights etc onto a YZ motocrosser and registered it. I went through the parts books and found all the Kawasaki factory parts needed to make a KX450 registerable. After they consulted the head mechanic they gave it a go. It worked and they subsequently sold all of the stock as registered bikes.

These bikes didn't have so much of a throttle but a switch the way the power came on.

Good days before ADRs.

[tat ty]

I have a few TY250 A models, which in NSW are road registerable as they are pre 1975.

The later models are not, though I do have a mate that has a registered TY250 C model.

He lined it up with his mates registered A model and argued the toss that there was no difference.

Alastair

[Jools]

Ducati 450 R/T Desmo. No contest!

(du CAT i)

[tat ty]

Well I certainly wouldn't be contested that bike whilst the guard cat is sitting there.

[David Lahey]

Those Ducati 450 R/Ts sure looked the goods in brochures and magazines and I did have a hankering UNTIL one day in about 1976 at a local riding spot (the power lines area West of Capalaba), someone turned up on one and went for a bit of a ride-around.
From then on I understood why I never saw any ridden in off-road competitions.

[Jools]

Here's a bloke silly enough to try!