[TWBigBlake]

Not on this particular deployment. I was temporarily attached to an MI unit in the 1st Cav Div in the early 1990s out of Ft. Hood. I even have a "CAV Coin" awarded to me somewhere in my memorabilia collection in a box somewhere in the shop. Of all the coins I had been given (awarded) over the years, I did carry the Cav Coin in my wallet for many many years.

Just figured I'd ask because of the timing, I was in 2nd Brigade (Black Jack) on that rotation with 1st Cav. Hit all the cool vacation spots that year, Baghdad, fallujah, and the triangle. Much respect to you, sir... as it was still kind of the Wild West in Iraq during that time.

How did you carry that coin? Most of the coins I got in Cav were huge, everything they did was over the top!

 

[JJBSilvia]

The only real thing you did miss out on was the chance to take a drink from yummy water carried in the Rokon wheels, hard to pass on something like that but you chose wisely, welcome to the crazy. Chris

I read somewhere that you could use them as aux fuel tanks... Ummm....

If you like the idea of aging whiskey, try Jefferson Ocean. Aged on a boat to accelerate the flavor exchange based on the rocking of the waves. It's excellent. Don't drink and drive... drive then drink.

 

[socalbubba]

Back in 2013 went to the dealership to buy a wr250. Saw a tw200 in the showroom and ask my friend how much he was the finance manager. He said if your really interested I have 5 2013's in the warehouse and 3 2014's and so they could sell the 2013 real cheap. I got it for 2999.00 but had to wait for the Mechanic to put it together.

 

[PlacerLode]

Back in 2013 went to the dealership to buy a wr250. Saw a tw200 in the showroom and ask my friend how much he was the finance manager. He said if your really interested I have 5 2013's in the warehouse and 3 2014's and so they could sell the 2013 real cheap. I got it for 2999.00 but had to wait for the Mechanic to put it together. View attachment 223640

Back in the day it was not uncommon for dealers to treat TWs as the red headed step child of their showrooms I recall 2 year old TWs sitting dusty in many Yamaha shops over the years

 

[SpeedyTide]

Several new owners lately.....if y'all see this let's hear it!

 

[SpeedyTide]

Enjoy reading these, anyone else.....new guys & gals? Y'all gotta have them, let's hear'em.

 

[Smoke]

My late wife and I used to ride around on a 1991 Kawasaki Vulcan 750. I still consider that to be one of the best turnkey street bikes ever made. Her two brothers and sister used to ride dirtbikes at family picnics at the one brother's house, which backed up to about 2000 acres of woods with trails and fire roads. I tried some of their bikes (both brothers had 6 to 8 bikes in their stables, street and dirt). I got bit by the bug and wanted a dualsport. A friend of the brothers owned a dealership in the next town, and all of us would head over there Saturday mornings to hang out. He had two 1993 TW200 leftovers on the floor, and I decided that was what I wanted. I talked to a salesman, and we agreed on $2400 plus taxes and fees. I went back to purchase it and he told me a higher price by several hundred dollars. When asked about our agreement he just said that he couldn't sell it for that low a price. I walked away. The next week one brother and I went to talk to the owner (his friend) and made the same offer. He said, "out the door?" I said no. He said "deal". I got it for $2650 total, which my wife's brother loaned me the money for.
Fast forward to 2002, and my wife bought me a 1993 Harley ElectraGlide Sport FLHS I had been wanting for a retirement gift. She had a chronic illness her entire life, so if she felt well enough to ride we took the Harley. The TW was just sitting, so we decided to give it to her one brother for his birthday. He used to find junk bikes, fix them up for fun, and give them to friends who wanted to ride but couldn't afford a bike. Then he would move on to the next project. Nobody had ever given him a bike so we figured he was due. He loved it!
Fast forward again to three years ago. After my wife passed in 2006 I had told him if he ever wanted to sell it, I would buy it back. He was now in his 70's and physical concerns limited his riding. One day he asked if I wanted the bike back. I asked how much? He said, "you gave it to me, I'll give it back to you". I now had a 20 plus years old TW with 1500 original miles. It had a problem with running rough and then dying a couple minutes after starting, but it was easily cured with generous applications of Seafoam and Startron. I am now the first and third owner, and the bike has over 5000 miles now. Needless to say, I'm thoroughly enjoying it!

 

[ISLAND TDUB]

Traded an AR9 for a 2015 TW w/9000 street miles.

 

[rcbif]

Found mine on Facebook marketplace for a steal after becoming interested in the TW via an online friend, and then doing my BRS course on one.

The XT250 was my first choice, but this one was a good price, so I figured I'd snag it. Was the first caller within 30min of it being posted, and the guy was kind enough to hold it for me for a few hours.

Drove 1.5 hours south to check it out. Was sluggish getting started due to some older gas and sitting, but test rode fine. Use the mentioned issue to knock some more off the price along with needing new tires.

Told him I'd have to come back later in the week once I could get a truck or trailer (drove the car) and he said "no problem, lets finish this tonight, I'll deliver it". So the seller actually ended up doing the 3hr round trip to drop it off at my place! In a massive truck that probaly got 10mpg none the less! He even invited me to dinner with his family while we were taking care of paperwork, lol. (I passed, had to get home). He followed shortly after, and 10pm that night I had the bike in my hangar.

 

[PlacerLode]

AR9 those are blessed thank goodness you didn’t have the evil AR14 Mr bYeDone warns us about

 

[David61]

Saw it on Craigslist last week and jumped all over it before it was gone . 2021 with 40 miles on it. The guy said he had calls from over a thousand miles away. People not wanting to give him full asking price or help pay for gas to come get it. . I told him hundred dollar bills at his door at 8:00 and he said ok.
cherry clean 2021 with only 40 miles with all the right add on's for $5,200. I had no problem with it. He was 6'2" 270 and needed more hwy speed. His off road buddy had health issues and backed out of getting his own TW so no one to trail ride now. He wants a road more than trail if he is going to ride solo. I have seen this before on this forum but the bike was in Saskatchewan. This time it was less than 100 miles from me !
I called the dealership to see about getting a new one. They said good luck, call the dealship in moble. I called them and told them i would give a $1000 deposit to get me one ordered. They said they would call me back. They haven't yet.

 

[SportsterDoc]

$4703.49 out the door, no trade-in, from Yamaha of Las Vegas 27 Dec 2016.

I went in looking for a XT250 (not in stock), saw the TW200 on sale and bought it for the advertised price, plus shipping, setup, doc fees and 8.1 % sales tax

Off the showroom, it required choke (enrichener actually, on the TeiKei MV28 carb) for warm starts and it had idling issues (deceleration diaphragm seemed to affect fast idle...when it dropped to "normal" it would die on the 18 mile ride home. Drilled the plug and adjusted from factory 1 1/4 turns out to 2 3/4 allows restarts, even after 2 hours sitting in ~65 F ambient...and ended idle issues. Pilot, needle and main jets seem OK up to 5,000 feet elevation (home is 2,200)

Added a tailbag (actually a Bilt tank bag from CycleGear on close-out for $14.95). Punched holes in bottom to match rubber rear fender pad and installed with pad inside the bag. Used longer 6mm stainless steel button head screws with fender washers through the fender, with locknuts and fender washers underneath. Good for running to auto parts/hardward store or for trips into the mountains, carrying tire sealant, extra fuel, water, etc.

Changed oil (Castrol 20/50 4T) at 249 miles. Moderate debris on oil filter screen. Replaced with KN143.

I traded a 45 day old, 800+ miles on the clock, 2017 TW200 on a new2016 Moto Guzzi V7II, which later was traded for a new2018 XT250, which was later traded for a new 2014 Honda CB1100…sold due to eye issue (later corrected.

 

[hudt0330260]

I'll always remember mine, and wonder how many others have a little story behind theirs? So, let's hear them!

I'll start with mine....below is some of my very first post in June 2018 (I've edited it some) after purchasing the tractor .

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
New to the forum 👶, and was bitten by the TW200 bug! Started looking at'em, and reading up on them (here & Youtube, etc.) over the last 2 months, and am now a TW owner!!

Guess I'll always have a little story behind it. I'd left Jax, FL., early on a Friday morning to Moorsville, NC. to look at an '04 w/4k+ miles. I'd felt good about it, so I had rented an enclosed 4x8 U-haul trailer - hooked up behind my torque monster of a ride (Prius .... don't laugh.... they pull quite well ).

Well, it wasn't quite what I was expecting..... the bike, not the Prius . So, I pull up bikefinds.com on my phone hoping I find something on the way back home to FL..... negative! The closest 2 for sale were Pennsylvania & Indiana. I call the guy in Indiana, and he still has it. I explain that I'd just looked at one in NC, but it didn't pan out, and that I was from FL, and currently in NC, and what cash I had (which was $3k*), and asked if would he take it.......he said yes! So, me and the Prius, w/trailer in tow, head over and through the mountains of NC, TN, and KY for Indiana. After a looong day I'd stayed the night just outside L'ville KY. Got up early, and headed to small town Indiana and purchased the TW that Satty morning. Loaded the tractor up, then drove back to FL. It was a looong, unexpected "detour", but well worth the purchase!!

2009 w/2,800 miles for $2,994* < that is correct, I'd forgotten that I'd bought b'fast that Friday morning out of my bike funds )!
Luckily, the fella didn't fret over $6! Only took 1,700+ miles, and 27 driving hours to get it, but I'd finally got one !
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Post up your stories!!! View attachment 206838 View attachment 206839

Ohh wow!!!
Thanks for posting this !!
I feel much better now !!!
Tim

 

[SpeedyTide]

Ohh wow!!!
Thanks for posting this !!
I feel much better now !!!
Tim

It definitely became a mission, after the first bike I looked at didn't work out. Wasn't going back home empty.

 

[PlayDirt]

I decided I needed a "Mail Box" bike, my mail box is a short way down a county road (gravel), down hill from me. Saw a TW and thought what cool looking little bike, perfect for the mail run, that was early in 2020, checked with the local Yamaha dealer, none in stock. So I put my name on a list for a 21. This was about when the supply chain started getting weird. So for about 5 months of waiting and lurking on this website learning the Hot Setup on TW's, I started buying parts, skid plates, pegs, ect. I kept stopping by the Yamaha shop checking in, I was 3rd on the list. I kept stopping by and became the squeaky wheel so to speak. I stopped in around September (2020) one day and they had just got 2 21's in, they come 2 to a crate, I bought both of them, consecutive serial numbers even. Got them for the 2020 msrp with a $100 off each one for buying two! I think I really lucked out considering how hard they were to get from reading posts here at that time. I was going to leave one alone, stock. That lasted about 20 miles when I put a Skinko 241 on #3, so much better than stock I had to order another one for #4. So down the TW rabbit hole I went, so far that now I'm looking up to see down! And I don't regret a thing!

Friendliest Motorcycle on the Planet...

 

[snoble029]

I have a thing for self-reliance and old cars. Whenever I work on cars or bikes I'm constantly bitching about the computers, cramped engineering and proprietary tools that make modern vehicles a nightmare to work on in your driveway with simple tools. I was talking to my friend about this one day, bitching about new bikes with EFI and liquid cooling and all those bells and whistles (I always just call them "points of failure"), and told him I wanted basically an apocalypse bike, absolutely barebones, easy to work on and able to survive any amount of abuse. He immediately said what I needed was a TW200. I was new to riding at the time, just had an old Suzuki 550 which was a fine beginner bike but not what I wanted long term.

Fast forward a couple months, that same friend found one for sale for $650 in supposedly running condition. It had been sitting behind a shed for we think about four years. Tires were awful, wheel bearings were shot, tons of electrical issues, obviously the battery was gone. It didn't just look like a bike that could survive a nuclear blast, it looked like it already had. But it started well with a jump, ran smoothly and had good compression, so I jumped on it. I assumed it would be very easy to fix since it was such a simple design.

That was before I knew anything about TWs. This bike was a 1987. If it had been just one year later I would have been in better shape, but as we all know the '87 had a bunch of unique issues that they fixed in '88 and afterwards. The two years since I bought that bike have been a shitshow of replacing difficult to source parts and basically rebuilding the entire electrical system. I even had to send the stator to a shop in NH and pay an arm and a leg to have it rebuilt because I literally could not source a new one anywhere. For the past couple months it has been carburetor frustration, I rebuilt it and could not get it to run right afterwards, only to discover that the Chinese kit I had bought had the wrong main jet and main jet holder. But it's slowly but surely coming together, and I am learning this stupid bike inside and out in the process. I still don't regret buying it, even though it may be one of the most ratted out TWs on this entire website.

 

[Snow Fox]

I have a thing for self-reliance and old cars. Whenever I work on cars or bikes I'm constantly bitching about the computers, cramped engineering and proprietary tools that make modern vehicles a nightmare to work on in your driveway with simple tools. I was talking to my friend about this one day, bitching about new bikes with EFI and liquid cooling and all those bells and whistles (I always just call them "points of failure"), and told him I wanted basically an apocalypse bike, absolutely barebones, easy to work on and able to survive any amount of abuse. He immediately said what I needed was a TW200. I was new to riding at the time, just had an old Suzuki 550 which was a fine beginner bike but not what I wanted long term.

Fast forward a couple months, that same friend found one for sale for $650 in supposedly running condition. It had been sitting behind a shed for we think about four years. Tires were awful, wheel bearings were shot, tons of electrical issues, obviously the battery was gone. It didn't just look like a bike that could survive a nuclear blast, it looked like it already had. But it started well with a jump, ran smoothly and had good compression, so I jumped on it. I assumed it would be very easy to fix since it was such a simple design.

That was before I knew anything about TWs. This bike was a 1987. If it had been just one year later I would have been in better shape, but as we all know the '87 had a bunch of unique issues that they fixed in '88 and afterwards. The two years since I bought that bike have been a shitshow of replacing difficult to source parts and basically rebuilding the entire electrical system. I even had to send the stator to a shop in NH and pay an arm and a leg to have it rebuilt because I literally could not source a new one anywhere. For the past couple months it has been carburetor frustration, I rebuilt it and could not get it to run right afterwards, only to discover that the Chinese kit I had bought had the wrong main jet and main jet holder. But it's slowly but surely coming together, and I am learning this stupid bike inside and out in the process. I still don't regret buying it, even though it may be one of the most ratted out TWs on this entire website.

What part of New Hampsha do you hail from?

 

[snoble029]

What part of New Hampsha do you hail from?

I'm not, I'm from Maine actually. I shipped it to the shop, it was the only place I could find on the Internet who would do it. It was Rick's Motorsport Electrics

 

[Snow Fox]

I'm not, I'm from Maine actually. I shipped it to the shop, it was the only place I could find on the Internet who would do it. It was Rick's Motorsport Electrics

You're a Mainiac! I love the northeast, particularly during the foliage season.

 

[snoble029]

You're a Mainiac! I love the northeast, particularly during the foliage season.

Yeah, I can't decide whether I love or hate it here as far as riding goes... It's beautiful country and riding a TW I don't care how shitty the roads are, but you can't ride for many months because of snow. I live near Acadia National Park which is an amazing place to ride in the fall... but you always get stuck behind some friggin tourists doing 35 the whole way.