My particular DT was red, ironically the least popular colour and very rare today, it would seem. I had to have another, so now a black example sits in my garage.  The memories flood back, good and bad. I am 17 again. Ah, the smell of two-stroke oil, better than the most expensive perfume. The trail of blue-tinted smoke as you crack the throttle and accelerate away.  And then there's the bad. The frequent reluctance to start which highlights the weak kickstart, which snapped in 1980 and snapped on my "new" one, too. Six-volt electrics didn't seem so bad back in the day, but the headlight dimming on tickover when the brake light goes on is now plain irritating. Likewise the indicators, which don't so much flash as flicker dimly with a frequency dependant on engine revs. Whether fellow road users actually see my intention to change direction is questionable.  As for braking, cable-operated drums front and back, with a liberal amount of wishful thinking, are what attempt to bring the DT to a stop. I remember sitting on the tank on many occasions to get all the weight over the front when a hurried stop was required. Planning was, and remains, the key.  The sheer joy of riding something this raw and basic today is difficult to put into words, but it's the perfect antidote to our sanitised world where everything is computer-controlled, tamper-proof and comparitively bland. More people want to talk to me when on the Yamaha than when I'm on any of the modern bikes I have owned.  So here we are in 2013 and Bowie is number one again, a new Star Wars film is in the offing, and me and my DT175 rule the road. Some things stand the test of time.
Some motorcycles stand the test of time better than others. The Yamaha DT175MX   is one such bike, says Ian Marsden.