YAMAHA XT500
It can be a long road to getting a project just right. After three rebirths, this XT500 finally arrived at its happy place – after being ridden to Australia
Me and my XT have gone through a lot together. I’ve bought it twice over, and after three very different attempts, I’ve finally got this long-term on/off project in the place I want it. That place tends to be old International Six Day Trials tracks in Wales and Yorkshire these days.
In previous incarnations it has taken me past the Pyramids on the way from the UK to Australia, in one of the most incredible adventures of my life. But now it looks great as well as running beatifully – it can cut it through the madness of metropolitan motoring and look cool.
So fittingly, the story of my life with the bike starts and has ended up in the city. Rewind to the Thatcher years in Loadsamoney London and I’m working as a despatch rider – but I really want to get away on a voyage of exploration. I hatch a plot with a South African fellow courier and his wife to ride from London to their new life in Australia – with all of us on Yamaha XT500s.
The internet does not exist. Post Office strikes and the construction of Canary Wharf mean it’s boom time for London couriers – and my rock-solid Yamaha XJ650 shaftie is working 15-hour days or more to fund my share of the planned adventure. So why have we picked the older, slower XT with its reputation for an ankle-bruising kickstart when the Honda NX650 Dominator, Transalp, and BMW R100 GS are viable options? Toughness – the decade since the XT’s launch had seen it earn its spurs for rugged reliability. Winning the first two Paris-Dakar rallies on near-standard motors was the machine’s brilliant calling card.
Project phase one: preparation for UK to Australia adventure
That reputation led Don, Cathy and I to conclude that each of us riding the XT overland would mean fewer spares to carry and quicker roadside fixes. Oh, plus they were a lot cheaper than these newer machines.
How to behave on your first date
Finding an XT in the pages of Motor Cycle News was a different matter. A chance meeting changed all that. It is mid-1987 during a visit my childhood home on the Isle of Wight when I spot a guy on a really clean ’77-plate XT. I ask him if he will sell me the bike, explaining my plans to ride it to the other side of the world. The owner, aerospace fitter Russ Jones, said he’d bought it from his friend Ken Oately, w
