Yamaha RD250LC. I bought this bike back in 2001, and it went through quite of transformation on my hands during the year. It also almost killed me, but lot of that was my fault. It is funny how you just forget where and from who you bought all your bikes after two decades. I have had 26 bikes, but when i try to remember, i recall like eight bikes where i bought them. With rest of them i have no idea anymore. Faces, places, travels by bus or train to pick them up...pretty much gone from my head.

I loved this bike as it was right from the start. It was 100% original and very cheap considering how their value has improved now. I think i paid something like 800 euros, in 2001. I opened up the engine but there was pretty much nothing to repair. It was nicely sporty bike for it's size, did 140 km/h on flat pretty easily. Simple and reliable engine without the YPVS. I adjusted the oil pump to the max, as i always did these two stroke Yamahas. During the summer i did one 800km trip with it, almost all the time riding it WOT. No problems.

After riding it few months i got this brilliant idea of giving it a new look:) I bought that fairing from one motorcycle scrapyard, it was aftermarket fairing for Yamaha RD125LC YPVS. Clip-ons i found too, as you can see. That fine seatcover i made myself:) You can see also that there is silencers hanging from it, but that was just a quick idea that did not work. This look did not last long, before the bike became full-blown experimental build, as the picture shows below.

That tank is from RD125LC. Ducktail is from some scrapyard if i remember correctly. The engine is RD350LC YPVS, which i bought in pieces very cheaply from some bloke and rebuild it.  That double bubble i made myself heating the piece of plastics in kitchen oven and then forming it very quickly. RD350LC engine did not work very well with those RD250LC pipes. It accelerated well though.
From that RD350LC YPVS-engine i removed them YPVS valves totally and we welded their places over on cylinders, and it worked well. I also built a special tool to keep the clutch drum in place when tightening the primary drive sprocket nut on the crankshaft.

On 25 of May in 2003, i decided to make a wheelie. It did wheelies just with a throttle on first and second. Middle of that wheelie i noticed that i was drifting to the left badly, i kicked the rear brake to pull the front down. Front came down but it was too late, i was heading straight to the sidewalk edge on angle. I managed to steer bike straight before it, but by then both rear and front wheels were touching the sidewalk edge, so i could not steer and i lost the balance and i fell on the sidewalk. That was not a bad fall at all, quite soft landing but then my both knees hit the steel light pole middle of the sidewalk when i was rolling. That was it. Both kneejoints broke in pieces, so i have titanium knees now partly. Loved the bike anyway.

Honda CB250N. I bought this last summer, because i have always kind of liked these small Honda twins from the eighties. This particular bike was museum registered and pretty cheap considering how cheap the insurance gets when bike has a museum status. Bike was originally brought to Finland from Sweden, which is logical because these bikes were never sold in Finland. We have something like 3-4 of these bikes here in Finland. Our Honda importer Otto Brandt chose CB250RS instead of this model part of their catalog back in the eighties.

I travelled to see the bike by train, and it was bit rough. Rusty spots here and there, etc despite it's museum registration. It was owned by the old man living on the Finnish archipelargo, and it was pretty neglected aesthetically. I did quite a bit of work to make it look like in the picture. Lots of elbow grease. I liked the bike when i rode it as it was though. A nice little buzzer.

Average fuel consumption was 5 litres per 100km. Around one liter less than CBR1000F example.
It was great bike to ride around the town. Very agile. There's definitely something i love on these little twins. I could buy one again if i would see a really nice running one. Economically there's not a lot of idea to ride these because they guzzle almost as much gas as the bigger ones do. Possibly partly because most of the time you ride them flat out. You can tour with them too, if you are not in a hurry. I did one 700km small tour with this bike, and it was nice. I sold the bike after two months of riding.