5 1970s Big Trail Bikes

Why did this video make me cry? Maybe because all these bikes were my dream ones when I was a kid!! Specifically the Yamaha. Bellissime 🤩

Yamaha DT360 and 400 of the 1970s?

The XL500 with a lot of weight saver parts, modern flat slide carb, 21 inch front wheel from a late drum motocrosser and longer shocks and forks makes for a hell of a trail bike with a vintage 4S MX vibe. Worth about 5 times more than stock too.

They have better technology and engineering in motorbikes now, but those old bikes had class.

I had the XL 500 S. watta engine never a problem. never, fun and fast.

why no mention of the suzuki sp-370 or the honda xr range?,only telling half the story!

Well, I've ridden the Japanese bikes in this video, at least, and in the 1970s too. I learned to ride on the farm at age12, on a pair of rotary value Kawasaki G4TR 100's. Pretty mean for 100cc and would keep up with most of the 175s and 185s. Dad later got TS185, TC185 (dual range and electric start), then TF185 "Mud Bug". One of our farm workers has a TS400, which he let me use -- yeah, it was fast and scary for a 13 or 14 year old! A friend had a silver XL250 which he brought out to the farm sometimes. I loved that thing! Once I had my license and some cash I bought a six year old silver 1974 XL350 as my first motorcycle. I late had an XR250, then XR600, and then (after a 20 year gap) got back into trail riding during COVID with a CRF250 Rally. I feel that here in NZ you saw more TTs and XRs than XTs and XLs. They were lighter, more powerful, maybe cheaper (?), and you could easily add a mirror and turn signals and use them on the road.

I grew up on mini bikes, and my first motorcycle was a Harley dual sport, with a ~90cc engine. At twelve my Dad brought me a Yamaha YZ 400. That bike was a beast, that loved to scream! I kept that bike a long time, and only had to replace fork oil seals. I wish I still had it. After that I got a Honda XR 350, and instead screaming it like putting around in the woods, but also could go like hell smoothly, and quietly.

My cousin had a 73’ XL350 Honda, Hooked me..

Bultaco and Husqvarna should absolutely be in your mix.. not sure why you stayed with boring underpowered big bikes🧐

My TS400 was a beast on the street, punishing on a rough trail.

Great list. Saw several of them in Palins in Derby where I bought my only new bike, a very classic blue CD175 - the first retro bike.

But Surely the Triumph Adventurer as used by the Royal Signals White Helmets Display Team deserves at least an honourable mention here. It was rather better than the BSA I believe.

Have got a CCM 604 frame that looks remarkably similar to the BSA frame. Thank you for sharing.

I own a '67 Ducati Scrambler 250 I had as a teen. The narrowcase engines were Italian made ( in my bikes case..) wereas the later Spanish made 1970's singles were known as the widecases. As a trailbike the old Scramblers were fair, a low standover like a heavy honda trail 90. Suspension on the1960's bikes was pretty mediocre, less than 3 inches front and rear. But with a trail sprocket they were pretty good for smooth trails and gravel tracks. For such a old 4 stroke they sure ran great, Honda levels of RPM and smoothness with a much hotter performance and that iconic Ducati exhaust snarl when on engine braking.

I love my Honda XL 500 it was really easy to kick over unlike Yamaha TT set would break your leg

The early 70's I had a Triumph Trailblazer 250 I loved that bike and it was my last one, now I'm 71 but having daft thoughts of wanting another bike,, the missus said I'd be better off with a trike as I'd fall off 2 wheels...loving the videos keep them coming

I owned 2 of the 441 Victors, great fun offroad but 30 min. of street ridin and your hands no longer worked. Great videos

I owned both a Yamaha XT500 and a 1981 Honda XL 500. I took the Honda on a 3,300 mile trip from Northern Ca to the Canadian border in 1986, way before the term Adventure Bike came to be. I currently own a Norden 901 Expedition. It's like comparing a Model T car to a Tesla.

Xt basically sucks. TT much better and more powerful

70s kawasakis

Had the Yamaha XT and TT 500 and later SR500 (would have front wobble over 140k/hr. This was followed by the Suzuki SP 360, DR 400 and 500 (400 was better). Also had the road going version of the XL500. Not too shabby. Wish I still had one of them.😢

I've had 2 XL 500 Hondas over many years. The first one was a 1982 silver tanked superseded twin shock they were selling brand new REALLY cheap as it was being replaced by the new single shock. It had some quirks, silly things, some I wouldn't expect from a usually thorough and quality brand like Honda. Eg: Put indicator on approaching a corner you need to make BUT, naturally braking comes almost immediately after and as soon as the brake light came on, too much power drain and the indicator would stop and the brake light would be dull. Mine also, while trying my hardest to run it in carefully decided to randomly cut out and leave me in awkward situations, on the side of the road pulling EVERYTHING apart trying to find the problem. I didn't, it would 'randomly' come back to life, never having actually found the problem. I did wind up GETTING it fixed, how the hell was I to guess they'd put a resistor in the plug cap? Why did they even do that? That was the source and once replaced, problem solved. They also had a throttle they probably thought was a good idea but, just made life harder if you wanted to go straight to full throttle as it was something like a 270 degree roll of the throttle from idle to full so, I developed a sort of sliding palm roll way of snapping straight to full.
They did have that weird and wacky 23 inch front wheel while everyone elses dirt bikes had 21 inch. It did make for some interesting rough terrain handling effects, quite good ones I thought once used to it. I've been on a lot of rough dirt roads and corrugated can be really hairy when both wheels being roughly the same overall diameter could at the right speed start skipping off the tops of the corrugated humps and effectively just start floating around. With that 23 inch front the XL 500s would float around at the rear BUT, the front would tack straight and true, making them, pretty fantastic for those kinds of roads.

The second one I picked up years later, feeling sorry I'd let the other one go when I did. I'd picked up a 25 Yamaha that'd been in a head on and had a fairly new engine but badly bent up frame. A guy I met had this old XL 500 (a 1981 model with the red tank) after the previous owner who apparently never did ANY sort of servicing at ALL! It had a locked up engine but, mechanical work I can handle and he wanted a moderate type bike engine for a go cart so, a perfect trade was made and I completely rebuilt and modified that engine from top to bottom, especially all the rocker gear and cams as due to him letting the timing chain get so slack it had sawn through a little brass tube that once the cover was on, fed oil up to the top. That one I worked the engine up a bit, fixed or replaced anything that needed it and swapped that silly three quarter rotation throttle for a quick action one that only took ONE quarter turn to full, all round, a much more fun bike to ride, quicker too.

Don’t forget the big bore Yamaha TT500 thumper. That bike was a beast.

Still got my 79 XL500s, which I've owned since new. While there are much better bikes out there, it's still my favourite bike to ride. So many memories on it.

I bought the XT new and over the next few years did lots of mods. Back then White Bros. was the place to go. First I did the high compression piston and replaced the troublesome carb with a Mikuni, and oil line kit. Replace header pipe and added a Supretrapp muffler, K& N air filter and re-jetted. I also added White Bros. aluminum swingarm and shocks. Changed gearing and a few other mods this things rode great. This thing loved twisty dirt roads here in NC to hang the back out.
One Saturday I had rode it to the nearest Bike shop which was a Honda dealership. The guy inspecting it like the bike and called his buddy over to look at it. He said I have something you might be interested in. We went upstairs to their storage room, he had a practically new XT motor in a wooden crate and wanted to know if I was interested in it. He was going to build a flat track bike around it but didnt have the time. He said he would let me have it for what he paid for it, $40 if I remember right. I could hardly believe this. A few years later, my next top end job I ported and used this head which ran even better. By design, these bikes respond very well to mods. Some bike do not. I Had this bike for about 20 years and sold it, still in excellent shape. I bought a New Honda XR 600 so the XT had to go.

I can’t believe you didn’t consider the Yamaha Dt400. I owned a XT500 and loved it other than the rubber mounted bars that were to soft.

One bike to consider is the 1970 Yamaha RT1 360cc Enduro. I had one in black and red pinstriping when I was teen in the mid seventies. It was advertised as the first stock bike to complete the Baja 500. Excellent bike then and now!

that XT500 , u could wheelie it so easily 😀

Suzuki 2 stroke for me 👍

I am looking for camshaft and rockers for Honda. Xl500 s 1981. Any help appreciated

XR600 forgotten?

I bought a 1979 Honda 500.
The tall 23 inch tire is terrible!
Was over 300 pounds but could speed up to 80 MPH Quick ! It cost me $2,200 new! Japan was pricing them cheeper than it costed them to produce & ship! To drive away other companies competing with Honda.

My first street bike was a 73' Kawasaki 350 bighorn enduro,a bit heavy but fun.

Owned an XT 500 for 30 years. Never done anything but change the oil. Still runs great.

The BSA B50 is one of the most beautiful bikes ever made. It's sad it was fragile on the bottom end. Beezer frames were always some of the very best for handling. I had a 650 A10 beeza twin and the handling was steady as a rock on bends. I'm glad they're back but it's sad it's not the original company but the old management made costly bad decisions and had reliability problems mainly due to the timing side bush. However if they had sorted it, the torque was big low down and CCM bought up the surplus BSA engines on their earliest bikes

I had the xt yamaha 500. They suck. Now the tt , look out !!

Awesome ! I had a 1976 Yamaha TT 500 with a white Bros pipe complete exhaust system. It was a fun thumper !

I love these 1970's trail/enduro bikes. Had an SP 600 Suzuki thumper & a DT 400 Yammi. I stay off bikes now because I've almost been killed twice. Who wants to live forever right?

TS400 was much more capable than the TM it derived from, my Dad had both. Being heavy was it's main problem since it was very reliable.

I bought a new XT500 in 1976, dealer I left deposit with was unable to find one, I tried 5 other Yamaha dealers, but no luck, my last try was a car dealer that dabbled with bikes, he found me one in France!! Could be a real pig to start, I would never have started it without a de-comp button, brakes were shite, 6 volt light were a joke, 6 months warranty wasnt long enough as it started to drinking engine oil at an alarming rate at 8 months old, it was serviced by a main Yamaha dealer when due. I ran the motor in correct, front fork seal's knackered up at 9 months, 10 months I sold it at a bloody loss.

I surely would like a article on phelon and Moore the makers of panther singles

The Yamaha XT was a bike I always wanted. but they were quite difficult to find. but maybe it worked out for the best. because waiting a while proved that there was an even better big bore bike to choose from. and that's the Suzuki DR 650, it's really the ultimate big bore dual sport bike.

I'm 68 years old and the best bike and most fun was in 1975 I bought a new Honda MT 250 Elsinore. Would not trade those years of fun for anything.

I use to have a 2000 Honda XE650R uncorked with stage 2 HRC motor kit >> anything on that monster 63 HP ...Thumpers owned 2000 XR650R ... !999 Honda XR650L with L.A. Sleave 720cc kit w/ white bros pipe also bike had HRC XR650R upgrade in 2000, ... 1976 Yamaha XT500C W/ Pro Tech 560 cc Kit all bells and whistles ... Yamaha 1977 XT500 stock ... 1982 Yamaha Red XT550 stock ... 1982 Yamaha white XT550 stock ... 1987 Honda XR600R w/pipe ... Those are my thumpers had others under 350cc range. I love my 4 strokes ,,List not included is all 2 strokes and street bikes

Xt 500 worth a fortune today..damm don't have one.

Get the kick wrong on xt & you're missing skin if you're lucky 😁

TT/XT's ate xl 500's alive! fact!

Proud owner of a 1980 XL 500. Took it to Moab, UT.
Rode it around Watkins Glen International Speedway and everywhere else you could imagine.

why wasnt the HONDA SL350 included? gee it only won BAJA 2 yrs in a row over these featured here

sold my sp 370 after i couldnt stay with a dt125 offroad,handled like a bucket of worms,great engine but shit frame+brakes!