AllMoto's Motorcycle Investor mag

Early this year I had a sudden rush of blood to the wallet and bought a low-mile 1985 Ducati Mike Hailwood replica – a Mille. It's lovely.

It runs beautifully, though I need to sort out some issues with cold-starting on the battery and am very pleased there is a roller starter in the shed. The latter is a little awkward to use, but is an absolute fail-safe solution that's much more kind to the motorcycle.

What has been far more vexing is the big chrome cylindrical indicators on the thing, which always draw unkind comments from cogniscenti. It's usually something subtle like, "What are those fuggin' ugly things doing there?"

Anyone who is familiar with this series, and the equivalent S2, will know they had distinctive and very angular (and very eighties) indicators made of a material that rotted over time and literally fell apart. Someone, somewhere, made a new batch and they're largely gone. The result is you can no longer buy the correct part.

Sort of. I recently tripped over an Italian supplier who is 3D printing the bodies and matching them to the correct CEV lenses, which are still available. Of course I bought two sets, one of which I'll fit ASAP.

Here's the catch: the 3D-printed finish is different to the original. You can fix that, with time and patience. We'll see. Meanwhile I'm wondering what in hell went wrong with my life that I'm even discussing this weird minutiae!

Last week we mentioned picking up the second of our pair of flyweight dirt bikes, namely a 2000 Honda SL230 (above). It's now a partner to the 1999 Yamaha XT225 shown below.

I'm a couple of weeks away from putting new tyres on them – Pirelli Rallycross is the current favourite – doing a minor service and getting them registered.

Here's the thing: am sorely tempted to map out a backroads route for partner Ms M and I to take them touring for several days and see how they perform.

We won't be camping. However a seat bag with some spare clothes, basic tools and a little spare fuel should do the trick for a reasonable range. It will be a slow trip, but I suspect not much slower than many others we've tackled, and perhaps a lot easier.

Much of the appeal with these machines is they weigh a mere 110kg, have electric start and will hold something resembling normal highway speeds when required. Given who they're made by, they should also be bulletproof. We'll see.

To some extent I'm quietly hoping we just might recapture some of the magic from the several backroads rides we've done in Vietnam (such as our 2024 run, above) over the years on similar small and easy dirt bikes. That's asking a lot, but it's worth a try...

Nice to hear you you have recently acquired a Yamaha XT225 – or XT250 as Yamaha eventually rebadged them to avoid buyers' size anxiety with competitors' full-biscuit 250 engines.

Mine was the first Australian XT225 Serow, purchased in 1994. I ordered it sight-unseen and was shocked when it arrived, with its light-purple seat, flashy graphics and yellow gaiters, very much a 1990s styling exercise.

Being of slight build and low stature it suited me well, especially off-road, and was much more manageable than my previous 1988 XT600 Ténéré which I found a real handful on tighter trails.

The XT225 turned out to be one of my favourite bikes as it punched well above its weight. I even rode it from Bundanoon (NSW) to the Phillip Island superbikes following a route my mate came up with by ruling a straight line on the map between home and the track and taking all the dirt options. It got pretty hairy in the wilds of Victoria and I was glad I wasn't on the Ténéré! (Ed's note: that sounds like 800km-plus each way.)

Looking at the photo of the XT250 ordered in bulk by the Swedish Army (Ed's note: see above and our July 8, 2025, news story) it looks like the last series XT250 now discontinued in Australia. It's quite different to your (and my) bike, running a five-speed gearbox (unlike the six-speed on the Serow) and fuel injection in the final iteration.

Jim Clark, Bundanoon NSW

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