[Snow Fox]

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.

I was born and raised in New England and I hear ya regarding snow and snail driving leaf-peepers. The former is why I moved away years ago. It was minus 60 below for weeks every winter. Nope. Not for me. This time of year is great for riding in Maine, you lucky duck!

 

[JustPassinThru]

I liked the process so much, I went through it twice! THREE times, if you count my brief XT experience.

First time, I was getting another ride, a Suzuki Burgman 650, out of storage at the dealer. I had arrived in town for a new job in February; I loaded all my crap up in a U-Haul trailer, and the cycle, I didn't want to fool with. There wasn't room in the 10x10 storage unit I'd rented. The dealer had a reasonable storage rate, for the tail end of the season.

I was about done with the Burgman, which I'd bought used and ridden a lot. I had a weight issue when buying it, wanting the automatic transmission and chairlike seating; but I'd addressed that. I'd put 18,000 miles on it, touring from Wisconsin to Colorado to the Pacific Coast Highway, Seattle to California. And there was the spectre of the "Stopper Bolt" issue. That's part of the CVT, and if the stopper bolt fails, the Burgman became scrap. Repair was as expensive as a used one on the market.

So. Getting it out, two decisions were made: I'd put the Burgman on the floor as a consignment (it later did sell, and for a fair price) and, here was this bike I'd never heard of. A MSF rider-training unit; oddly, being sold in spring. Something called a TW200.

I had never seen one before - they're not popular in the East, and unobtainium in Cleveland, where I'm originally from (Wisconsin was a three-year detour). Pleasing proportions; a little engine...old-school, and seemingly rugged. I sat on it and it fit me fine.

Salesman invited me to take it for a ride - it wasn't a 00000-mile model; it was clearly ridden before. So, I took it along the industrial side-street test route they liked buyers to use, and it was light, responsive, more power than I'd have thought with that little mill.

I bought it.

I used it a season.

I had bought another bike...another BMW (I'm a slow learner; two years after selling my GS, I had to re-discover what I didn't like about the Germans). A used one. THEN, got a deal on a used Zero. I had three bikes...and no garage, just a storage unit...so I sold the TW. Out of season, so I took about a $500 hit for it.

The used Zero showed me the folly of electric motorcycles - which are tremendous performers, but complex, and with a lot of failure points. I lost money on that one; and I'm not gonna try it again. Between range, charging time, overheating drive motors, and Zero's decision to stop supporting a three-year-old bike...just left me with a sour taste.

MUCH later, after having gone through a veritable fleet of bikes, a few new, many used...I sold a Versys X-300 as too light-duty for the job. A year-old used XT250. Yeah, it was pokey. Not sure if it's faster than a TW or not. Probably not. But the suspension was far better; the bike was a hundred pounds lighter than the Versys, and I liked the simplicity.

But the 2021 Everything shortage hit. Bikes were selling for ungodly prices. The XT price, USED, online, was MORE than what I paid for the very-low mileage one.

Greed set in. I advertised it on the Liste of Craig, and sold it in two days. Had the bike for 5 months, and it cost me nothing.

Except of course, now I had nothing. Just one road bike...not so much fun to go get the Sunday paper with.

That fall, the usual Yamaha MSF trainers arrived...they had a TW there for a few dollars less than I sold the XT for, and more XTs for $1000 more. I sat on both, and remembered the TW was more comfortable. So I bought.

And here we are. Except for the spectre of 20-percent ethanol in gas, it's all I want. I like the simplicity - which is not so much there with the XT, with its fuel-injection and pump setup. It may survive any chaos, other than bad fuel, thrown at us.

And for the heavy corn squeezin's, I have the Honda NC. At least for now...time will tell. When it becomes troublesome, with age, it's gone. That's how I roll.

But it's unlikely I'll be riding anything, in ten years. Don't know, but physical issues are settling in. The TW is a good transition into what reality comes up.

 

[ihcrazy]

I've been riding dirt bikes since I was 7 , mostly thumpers . Last bike was a Husky 610(wish I had that when I was young . Kinda...)sold it 5 years ago for health reasons(it was gunna kill me) . My Brother in Law passed un expectedly in July 2020 . So I was helping Sis clean up the mess(don't get me started ! Make a will . Now !)and we found this lonely '87 TW200 , last licensed in 2011 with 5,995 miles and in quite nice shape . And I fell for it . Now I've tried smaller bikes(less than 500cc)before with no luck , but this time I have been mature enough to slow down and have had a ball . Thanks to the great bunch here I plan to ride this old tractor for all it's worth .

Have put about 600 miles on it since and having a ball !

 

[snoble029]

I've been riding dirt bikes since I was 7 , mostly thumpers . Last bike was a Husky 610(wish I had that when I was young . Kinda...)sold it 5 years ago for health reasons(it was gunna kill me) . My Brother in Law passed un expectedly in July 2020 . So I was helping Sis clean up the mess(don't get me started ! Make a will . Now !)and we found this lonely '87 TW200 , last licensed in 2011 with 5,995 miles and in quite nice shape . And I fell for it . Now I've tried smaller bikes(less than 500cc)before with no luck , but this time I have been mature enough to slow down and have had a ball . Thanks to the great bunch here I plan to ride this old tractor for all it's worth . View attachment 229452
Have put about 600 miles on it since and having a ball !

Good luck. At least I'm not the only one with a beat up old '87 that was sitting for years. My advice is, start keeping an eye out for unobtainable parts now. If the stator, the voltage regulator, or the CDI goes out on you you're in for a really bad time and a lot of expense. And if your experience is anything like mine, have fun untangling all the electrical fixes done by Bubba over the past 35 years of abuse.

Just remember... '87 was the fastest year they ever made... At least that's what we can tell our friends who make fun of us for our bike being out of action for a month because we are waiting for some friggin special snowflake part to be shipped from halfway across the world only to find it didn't fit right anyway. And the '87 was the first (maybe still only?) bike to ever make it to the North Pole, so we have that going for us too.

 

[ihcrazy]

Thanks for the heads up , electric seems untouched . Fast is a relative term I wouldn't associate with a TW but does corner well on pavement(almost dragging the pegs) . Very interesting about the North Pole .

 

[snoble029]

Thanks for the heads up , electric seems untouched . Fast is a relative term I wouldn't associate with a TW but does corner well on pavement(almost dragging the pegs) . Very interesting about the North Pole .

Yeah, look up Shinji Kazama. Really interesting story

 

[SpeedyTide]

Many of you new folks on here....what's your TW purchase story? Lets hear'em.

 

[YZ250 too]

Looked around for awhile back in Sept of 22. Local Yam dealer tried to sell me a CT when I went to see them after they "supposedly" had one. Ended up calling around for a few days and just happened on a dealer within the state who had a box (2) coming in. One was sold; I gave him a phone deposit for the other. The bottom line was a serious $$$ gut punch, but I wanted a BW or FatCat back in the day, so I just considered it 30+ years of delayed gratification. I picked it up 2 days later. The bike was fraught with pre-delivery mistakes and omissions, but nothing that I didn't thoroughly enjoy taking care of. It will be the last new bike I ever buy, in fact, the last bike ever. At 64, I think it'll last until I'm in Glory.

 

[Workingman]

Looked around for awhile back in Sept of 22. Local Yam dealer tried to sell me a CT when I went to see them after they "supposedly" had one. Ended up calling around for a few days and just happened on a dealer within the state who had a box (2) coming in. One was sold; I gave him a phone deposit for the other. The bottom line was a serious $$$ gut punch, but I wanted a BW or FatCat back in the day, so I just considered it 30+ years of delayed gratification. I picked it up 2 days later. The bike was fraught with pre-delivery mistakes and omissions, but nothing that I didn't thoroughly enjoy taking care of. It will be the last new bike I ever buy, in fact, the last bike ever. At 64, I think it'll last until I'm in Glory.

You may be surprised .
I have bought my last bike several times ....
I just picked up my next last bike. LOL
mike from N.C.

 

[YZ250 too]

Yeah I hear you loud and clear. My previous 2 last bikes, a DR650 and a YZ250, I just sold. I guess your last bike is the one(s) you own when they put you in the ground.

 

[PlacerLode]

I'll never be afraid to sell a bike nor will I regret sending a bike to a new happy home after all they still make bikes and I'l still on the top side of dirt and locating and acquiring a "new" (to me) bike is half the fun ;-)

 

[jb882]

Both of my TW's have a little bit of a story behind them. Back in around 2012 a friend of mine who had owned a TW back in the 80's bought one and then got himself a second one. I was not looking for a bike at the time but one trail ride on his spare bike and i was hooked and had to have one.

I started looking for one and it took me months and months of searching Craigslist before i found one i could even look at. Every TW that would pop up would be sold within hours, sometimes minutes. I had three sold from underneath me while i was driving to go look at them. Then this 06 popped up in rural Vermont, about 3 hours north of where i live and it was priced very cheap. I had just gotten back from a camping vacation and was off work so i called. The guy said he had it and i told him i was on my way and asked him to not sell it while i was in transit. He had the bike priced really cheap so i would not have been shocked to see it go quickly. When i arrived and in talking with him it was apparent why he priced it so cheap. The motor was smoked. The rings were gone, it burned oil like crazy and it had very low compression, it barely ran. He also mentioned that he had burned two exhaust valves as well in the time he owned it and it also had a massive base gasket leak. The bike had ~12k on it and was otherwise in fantastic condition he just killed the motor trying to commute daily on the freeway. I was not worried about the engine since i knew i could fix it easily enough. I offered him $900 for it, he accepted and i took it home.

Here is the bike on its way home.

From there i tore into the motor a little to fix the base gasket. While i was in there i gave the bore a quick hone and slapped a new set of rings in it so that i could ride it for the remainder of the fall with the intent to rebuild the top end over the winter.

That brings us to bike #2. At the time my girlfriend had never ridden a motorcycle but was a very willing passenger. She also had expressed some interest in riding but was always intimidated by the thought. After seeing the TW i just bought she asked if she could ride it so off we went into the back yard ot teach her how to ride it. Well one ride was all it took and she was hooked too. Over the remainder of that fall she took the MSF class and got her license. At that point i knew my winter involved not only rebuilding a motor but finding another TW to buy.

Just like the first time it took a lot of CL searching and missed opportunities before i finally scored again. This time was kind of a strange set of circumstances. I was at work when CL app on my phone alerted me to two TW's for sale in Connecticut. I immediately called and when the guy answered we both almost at the same time said your voice sounds really familiar. Well come to find out i was just on the phone with him about 15 min prior to that. He worked at EMC corp on their Vmax support team and i had just called to schedule service for a failed disc on our Vmax and he was the rep i had spoken to. Its a small world. He had two of them he was selling and we made an arrangement for me to stop by on sat and he gave me first dibs on whichever of the two i wanted or both if i wanted both. So i swung over to his house on Sat and he had an 06 with 200 miles on it or an 08 with about 1000. I ended up buying the 06 simply because of the super low miles. I should have bought them both so i could have 3

Here is TW#2 on its way home and both of them getting reacquainted in my garage. Funny thing about these two bikes is the serial numbers are only a few apart, i suspect they were both produced on the same day.

Here is a more modern shot of the two of them. There have been lots of mods and lots of smiles since.

 

[SpeedyTide]

Both of my TW's have a little bit of a story behind them. Back in around 2012 a friend of mine who had owned a TW back in the 80's bought one and then got himself a second one. I was not looking for a bike at the time but one trail ride on his spare bike and i was hooked and had to have one.

I started looking for one and it took me months and months of searching Craigslist before i found one i could even look at. Every TW that would pop up would be sold within hours, sometimes minutes. I had three sold from underneath me while i was driving to go look at them. Then this 06 popped up in rural Vermont, about 3 hours north of where i live and it was priced very cheap. I had just gotten back from a camping vacation and was off work so i called. The guy said he had it and i told him i was on my way and asked him to not sell it while i was in transit. He had the bike priced really cheap so i would not have been shocked to see it go quickly. When i arrived and in talking with him it was apparent why he priced it so cheap. The motor was smoked. The rings were gone, it burned oil like crazy and it had very low compression, it barely ran. He also mentioned that he had burned two exhaust valves as well in the time he owned it and it also had a massive base gasket leak. The bike had ~12k on it and was otherwise in fantastic condition he just killed the motor trying to commute daily on the freeway. I was not worried about the engine since i knew i could fix it easily enough. I offered him $900 for it, he accepted and i took it home.

Here is the bike on its way home.

From there i tore into the motor a little to fix the base gasket. While i was in there i gave the bore a quick hone and slapped a new set of rings in it so that i could ride it for the remainder of the fall with the intent to rebuild the top end over the winter.

That brings us to bike #2. At the time my girlfriend had never ridden a motorcycle but was a very willing passenger. She also had expressed some interest in riding but was always intimidated by the thought. After seeing the TW i just bought she asked if she could ride it so off we went into the back yard ot teach her how to ride it. Well one ride was all it took and she was hooked too. Over the remainder of that fall she took the MSF class and got her license. At that point i knew my winter involved not only rebuilding a motor but finding another TW to buy.

Just like the first time it took a lot of CL searching and missed opportunities before i finally scored again. This time was kind of a strange set of circumstances. I was at work when CL app on my phone alerted me to two TW's for sale in Connecticut. I immediately called and when the guy answered we both almost at the same time said your voice sounds really familiar. Well come to find out i was just on the phone with him about 15 min prior to that. He worked at EMC corp on their Vmax support team and i had just called to schedule service for a failed disc on our Vmax and he was the rep i had spoken to. Its a small world. He had two of them he was selling and we made an arrangement for me to stop by on sat and he gave me first dibs on whichever of the two i wanted or both if i wanted both. So i swung over to his house on Sat and he had an 06 with 200 miles on it or an 08 with about 1000. I ended up buying the 06 simply because of the super low miles. I should have bought them both so i could have 3

Here is TW#2 on its way home and both of them getting reacquainted in my garage. Funny thing about these two bikes is the serial numbers are only a few apart, i suspect they were both produced on the same day.

Here is a more modern shot of the two of them. There have been lots of mods and lots of smiles since.

Very cool purchase stories jb!!! Especially, that 2nd purchase!

Thanks for sharing!

 

[PlacerLode]

My first TW purchases were a pair of 1989 TWs sold at a WA.State DNR sale around 1997 the two bikes had aprx 2k miles and were dirty ugly and abused cosmetically common with state goobermint vehicles but after new batteries they both ran and rode perfectly! I paid just shy of $1000 each and I still recall the auction crowd murmuring that I had paid too much but at a $500 bid every hand in the crowd was up lol. I rode them around my newly acquired 5 acres out near Mt St Helen’s and realized TWs were in fact a blast to ride and decided I’d sell the ugly pair and look for something prettier! I listed the pair for $2k exactly what I had paid just hoping to get my money back and a father and son drive 200 miles to see them and they were thrilled I still had them and they said they had missed many TWs that sold before they could get there. They said they wanted to buy them and asked me to verify I wanted $2k per bike and I said no it was $2k for both and they about flipped out and gleefully paid and loaded them up! It was my first experience with how popular TWs were in Washington State!
These were truly ugly bikes I don’t think there was a single perfect part on either bike and yet these guys were very happy to buy them and would have paid twice what I was asking! In all my TWs I have had 3 other super ugly beater TWs I got in package deals where I had to buy the ugly ducklings in order to get something pristine but all those ugly bikes sold faster and easier than the super mint TWs I prefer so it showed me there’s a demand for any running and riding TW regardless of cosmetics

 

[Hoot Gibson]

9 Years ago on this very day, I drove to Maumee, just outside Toledo, and picked up "Ol Blue" March 20, 2014...and it does indeed seem like only yesterday, more or less...

After 25 years without street riding, and nearly 35 without dual sport riding, Hoot, at the ripe old age of 64, approaching 65, thought, with the kids long gone to the journey on their own lives, and me retired from Environmental Health work, it was time to get back into dual sport/off road riding so I started looking around to see what kind of bike was, in this new age of 4 strokes, should I purchase...I started following Mark "Big Dog" Sampson's stories and rides, and also found this site. I had a Yamaha 650 for the street/road, but Kawasaki and Suzuki were the only dual sports I had in the past...however the size, tires, and cost of the TW200 interested me, so in December 2013 I joined this group and started looking around for a TW...New or Used?

Well I figured perhaps since I had been out of the bike world for a quarter century maybe a newer used model might be the ticket...but after a month or two of looking, I finally decided to "pull the trigger" on a newer TW...Hell the cost were about the same, and I might as well bitch about the dealer screwing me as opposed to some guy who would sell me a used bike, with "Issues"...

I looked around for a dealer, and finally found one about 100 miles north of Grand Lake in the Toledo area called "Honda East" ...after a couple of calls and getting the sales guy to toss in a Helmet and stock rack for free, and dropping all of the "Add On" Charges {it was a different world in 2014, where you could actually "deal" with a dealer} I sent the deposit in, and a week later, Montezuma {who would get his own TW from the same place in January of 2015} and I borrowed a trailer from a Harley owning friend {RIP Dale}...and headed north up I-75...

Later that afternoon Ol Blue was in the garage, and Hoot was thinking "What the Hell did I just do"? But I did, 'do it' and a couple of days later when the cold had eased, I took my first ride since 1988, more or less, I had ridden a Harley and other street bikes, but not often...9 years ago, that changed.

8500 street and mostly off road miles, and another 8500 more or less, miles hauled to such places as Moab and Big Bend, among others...Ol Blue is still running good...1 battery, 3 front and 2 rear tires later, just one spark plug and one new chain, in those years, and Blue might not look pristine, but I can honestly say, it still runs like the day I first jump on it...Moab, Big Bend, West Virginia Mountains, around the Upper Great Lakes, the Hills of Southeast Ohio, and this year, the Ozarks and South Dakota are planned, the just turned 74 year old Hoot and his soon to be 73 year old life long friend, Montezuma, still have a few rides left in us. 🧓 🙀

 

[PlacerLode]

9 Years ago on this very day, I drove to Maumee, just outside Toledo, and picked up "Ol Blue" March 20, 2014...and it does indeed seem like only yesterday, more or less...

After 25 years without street riding, and nearly 35 without dual sport riding, Hoot, at the ripe old age of 64, approaching 65, I thought, with the kids long gone to the journey on their own lives, and me retired from Environmental Health work, it was time to get back into dual sport/off road riding. So I started looking around to see what kind of bike was, in this new age of 4 strokes should I purchase...I started following Mart "Big Dog" Sampson's stories and rides, and found this site...I had a Yamaha 650 for the road, but Kawasaki and Suzuki were the only dual sports I had in the past...but the size, tires, and cost of the TW200 interested me, so in December 2013 I joined this group and started looking around for a TW...New or Used?

Well I figured perhaps since I had been out of the bike world for a quarter century perhaps a newer used model might be the ticket...but after a month or two or looking, I finally decided to "pull the trigger" on a newer TW...Hell the cost were about the same, and I might as well bitch about the dealer screwing me as opposed to some guy who would sell me a used bike, with "Issues"...

I looked around for a dealer, and finally found one about 100 miles north of Grand Lake in the Toledo area called "Honda East" ...after a couple of calls and getting the sales guy to toss in a Helmet and stock rack for free, and dropping all of the "Add On" Charges {it was a different world in 2014, where you could actually "deal" with a dealer} I sent the deposit in, and a week later, Montezuma {who would get his own TW from the same place in January of 2015} and I borrowed a trailer from a Harley owning friend {RIP Dale}...and headed north up I-75...

Later that afternoon Ol Blue was in the garage, and Hoot was thinking "What the Hell did I just do"? But I did, 'do it' and a couple of days later when the cold had eased, I took my first ride since 1988, more or less, I had ridden a Harley and other street bikes, but not often...9 years ago, that changed.

8500 street and mostly off road miles, and another 8500 more or less, miles hauled to such places as Moab and Big Bend, among others...Ol Blue is still running good...1 battery, 3 front and 2 rear tires later, just one spark plug and one new chain, in those years, and Blue might not look pristine, but I can honestly say, it still runs like the day I first jump on it...Moab, Big Bend, West Virginia Mountains, Around the Upper Great Lakes, the Hills of Southeast Ohio, and this year, the Ozarks and South Dakota are planned, the just turned 74 year old Hoot and his soon to be 73 year old life long friend, Montezuma, still have a few rides left in us. 🧓 🙀

View attachment 235095 View attachment 235096 View attachment 235097 View attachment 235099 View attachment 235100

if that TW could talk I bet it's the happiest little TW on the planet it has led the literal perfect life for a TW
For some reason I always thought Hoot was younger than me and Ive just flipped to 62 so he's doing something right !!!

 

[Snow Fox]

Hoot and his ride are ageless!