1968 Yamaha DT-1

I was twelve in 1960 when my best friend got a Harley-Davidson Super 10, and before the year was out, he had introduced me ever so briefly to what would later become known as trail riding. We rode down to the levee next to the Yazoo River in Greenwood MS, where the kids had created a small maze of trails they named The Bicycle Chute. It was a simple little area down near the river where the trees grew tall and thick enough to create challenging trails for bicycles and small motorcycles. The Chute itself got its name from a group of little up-and-down, roller coaster hills and jumps that the kids rode, surrounded by dense forest. This obviously was a pioneering event not only for motorized tiddlers, but what would later be developed and called BMX and Mountain Bikes. Yes, George, I said 1960, and I have generally been ahead of my time in most of my endeavors.

I loved trail riding right from the beginning. Boys in Mississippi have always been of the outdoorsy type. After all, it's not exactly an area famous for its big cities. Not only was it fun to explore the countryside, but you could learn new riding skills and enjoy new challenges in an environment that was safer than the street in front of your own house. My off-road riding was as limited as my street time for the next three years, until I got a Yamaha Rotary Jet 80 in the summer of '63. In 1967 I bought a Honda CA-100, removed the leg shields and front fender, changed the rear tire to a full knobby, the handlebars to a low-rise chrome set, and lowered the gearing, and off through the mud and trees I went, albeit slowly.

I put all the standard equipment back on the little Honda 50 and traded it in on a Kawasaki G3-TR at the end of '69, getting $5 more in trade on the little step-through than I had paid for it! The little Kaw was the first bike I had that was actually designed for trail riding, so it was naturally a huge improvement. I had this habit of befriending young men a couple of years older than me who had better toys, and in 1969, my best riding buddy was a true-blue Honda fan. Are you ready for the funny part? I met him out on the trails where he was riding a Super Hawk, with tall, apehanger bars, no less! I soon got to know him as a particularly strong fan of the CL-160, of which he owned several immediately after the Super Hawk. No trail riding memory will ever replace the one when he showed me what a CL-160 could really do. He took a CL-160 of the type that had been shipped to the dealer as a CB, removed the electric starter, changed the gearing and carburetor jets, and replaced the ugly, stifling muffler with a pair of upswept megaphones that howled like a banshee! Man, was that one mean trail-riding machine!

At about the same time that I bought the G3-TR, he bought one of the early SL-350's with the heavy, single-downtube frame and the fat front tire. Together we made a huge system of trails in a wooded area just off campus at Mississippi State University. He made the big whomping, climbing dips that he so loved with the enormous torque of his 350-pound beast, and I made the little cheater trails that went around them. Together, it was a delight to riders of everything from tiddlers to Honda 350's for many years to come. I actually owned the G3-TR for only nine months before I traded it for a new CL-350 K2, which believe it or not, I wound up riding through our little trail maze far more times than I had the G3. He didn't keep the SL-350 that long, either, before he discovered the machine that was really the hot ticket for our little maze of tight turns, dips, and hills full of trees and mud: a 1971 AT-1CMX with lowered gearing, high front fender, and a 21-inch front wheel. A little later mine would have the lowered gearing, a high, plastic Preston Petty front fender, and a Skyway silencer that made it just quiet enough to stop the splitting of my own ears. They were both red. They were both 1971 125cc Yamaha motocrossers slightly modified for tight, muddy trail riding. Mine is still in my garage. It still runs and looks just like it did thirty-five years ago. That's how much I like the Yamaha DT-1 and what it did for the sport of trail riding.

There were many American and European trail models long before the DT-1 reached America in early '68. Greeves, Bultaco, BSA, Ducati, Harley-Davidson, Triumph, Allstate, and many others built scrambler models in the late '50's and early '60's. They ranged from the seriously off-road competitive models of Bultaco and Greeves to the much less serious H-D Scat, Sprint H, and Ranger. Cushman made the putt-putt Trailster. Rokon stole a couple of tires from a Massey-Ferguson (or John Deere, if you prefer your fantasies green) and created the Trail-Breaker. Honda and Yamaha brought their tiddliest little Trail 50's to the USA in the very early Sixties. Trail riding in America was a rapidly growing hobby.

After Honda shook up the motorcyle world with the underwater-howl of its CL-72 in 1962, most of the Japanese brands jumped onto the Scrambler bandwagon as fast as their upswept pipes and crossbrace handlebars could carry them. Although I personally rode the trails with the CL-72's greatly improved descendant, the CL-350 K2, it was of course a compromise (some would say compromised) street machine. This is why the company had to develop the Enduro models. Of course Yamaha forced Honda to do this with the extreme success of its own Enduro line. The DT-1 launched itself right off the showroom floor onto the trails of 1968 better than any machine ever had. What about the Bultacos? You mean those finicky, expensive, not so durable things for which spare parts were hard to come by? What about the BSA's and Triumphs? Did they not look and sound wonderful? Yes, they did, between the electrical outages, starting difficulties, and drips on the floor.

The DT-l was released in Japan in 1967. The first one I actually encountered had been brought back to MSU by an ex-serviceman stationed you-know-where. Of course I knew exactly what it was the first time I saw it because Cycle World had been my favorite reading material since 1962. Yamaha extended its Enduro lineup in '69 with the 125cc AT-1. As most of you know, the company chose to do something weird: the AT-1 featured an electric starter to try to interest girls and other foo-foo riders in the new trail riding hobby. The original DT-1 was officially sold only as the Enduro. An optional, aftermarket GYT Kit turned the Enduro into a motocrosser. I am not sure in exactly which model year it happened, but by 1971, the AT-1CMX like my friend and I bought was a separate model. The C stands for third year or third generation. The '69 was simply called the AT-1; the '70 was the AT-1B; and the '71 was the AT-1C. The 1972 models began the first major changes which brought the AT-2 designation instead of an AT-1DMX. The machine I have is the last year of the original design. That's part of why I'm so attached to it.

As the years progressed after the 1968 DT-l, Yamaha expanded the line into other displacements. The RT-1 was the 360cc model; the CT-1 was the 175cc model; and the HT-1 was the 90cc model. I have never personally ridden an HT-1, but I have ridden the other two. Surprisingly, I have never ridden any of the 250cc models, either! One has never seemed to come my way. I really liked the torque of the RT-1, and I might have bought one if friends had not talked me out of it. They always said that starting the beast could be a real pain in the leg or shin, and with lowered gearing and well developed riding skills, the 125cc-250cc models were more satisfying. Since I never rode an RT-l except briefly, I am going to assume that my friends were right. Obviously if the little 125 sweetheart had not been so lovable, I would never have kept it all these years.

See Also: Honda Scramblers
Kawasaki G3-TR Bushmaster
Harley-Davidson Scat & Pacer