Faults:

Worn swinging arm bearings. Battery.

General Comments:

Rated as the underdog in comparison to the Kawasaki KRS-1 and Suzuki RGV 250s, late eighties road tests of the UK magazines were misleading. You'd think the TZR250 was from another age if you believed those group tests of the three.

Maybe it was a little old-fashioned to some buyer's minds?

The reality is, in practical ever-daily use, the Yam' wins hands-down.

You see, it's simply a perfected RD350.

And if only they'd made a 350cc version like they had with the earlier RD, it would've been a great world-beating bike.

The superb Suzuki & Kawasaki, are simply too fragile for daily use. Both have issues from their highly-strung 60bhp engine designs. They are simply 10-15% too highly tuned for real practicality. At a race meeting, both bikes will truly run rings around the Yamaha.

On the road, not so much so.

A decent rider - not me - can make up the difference in most situations. MB, a motor mechanic I used to work with was that rider. His wages were spent on his girlfriend, so his RD350 F2 was way down on the ATM's pecking-order.

But he was Barry Sheene on that clapped-out bike. Rear shock so tired the plastic mudguard was mostly scrubbed away by rear tyre contact...

He always bought top quality tyres and had a curious obsession with the exhaust system needing to be wholly free of any exhaust residue.

But boy, can that boy ride!

Poem:

The point is, MB on a TZee will beat you on your RGV or even your 888 Ducatee...

Buy the TZ and just ride?

I used to commute and ride for pleasure on a Yamaha Diversion. An accident repaired nearly new one. £1500.

I did over 600 miles/week.

I would fly along the country roads around Aberdeen on the 34 miles to work. Sunny days and the Ducati riders were slowing me down. This was early nineties, pre 916. But they simply could not ride. Straight road, blast right past me.

Curvy bits and they were stuffed.

I got to know the Diversion inside-out and that is the point!

Buy a bike you like and keep it.

Forever.

Learn all about it, love it, do at least 50k miles on it and show everyone up.

Back to the TZR250. Mine was the facelift model just before it was discontinued. A lovely, lovely bike, they are silly fast in comparison to any 250 predecessor.

This bike is as reliable as an anvil. Keep it in your living room, polish it with Mr Sheen every time the cat wants to be fed/go outside, one bit at a time and feed it with Shell or any top quality oil and it will run and run.

Even when hammering down the M6 at 120 mph, 40mpg.

Embarrassing seeing same caravans further down M6 owing to small tank size...

Lubricate the cables with Mr. Sheen too. Clean/repaint exhausts annually. Exhaust wrap them for longevity.

Service once/month if you are doing 1k miles/month as I was on my second example.

This Yamaha is a tank.

It will run to 40k miles on the original bores and 60k on the crankshaft.

And... That's it! Keep everything free from corrosion and they go on and on.

Handling: better than my riding skills.

Reliability: see above.

Brakes: easily maintained, but modern rubber shows them up.

And that really is that. Massively underrated, keep forever and ride rings around those Adventure Bikers...

Put 'TZR125' Stickers on?

Faults:

Excessive free-play in the swinging arm bearings which was rectified free under warranty. Nothing else, apart from a scary complete loss of gears coasting into the fuel station when brand new. There was a false neutral between third & second gear going down the six-speed transmission. A lot of gear to gear noise, then absolutely fine since.

The high quality of finish was at the time second only to a Honda. This is a 3MA model year with front-facing exhausts and the first Delta Box model; the later version with black rather than blue seat and slightly revised graphics. For a 50bhp engine reliability is truly phenomenal.

General Comments:

In April 1988, I bought a used 1985 Citroen BX car with a dead engine from the dealership where I worked. I rebuilt the very dead engine and sold it to finance a new business idea: selling parts from the Yamaha TZR250 I'd just bought with the cash from the car sale.

I left my job on the Friday. With my last £40 I placed an advert in The Motorcycle News. Straight away I was selling parts.

Then some guy bought most of the front end for a single-cylinder 4-stroke special he was building. Posting them in a very large TV box, disaster struck!

The post office lost the box. The buyer cancelled the order. I spent all of the profit on phone calls and petrol chasing the box around the country. By the time - four months later - I located the missing order, I was in bits. It showed up at a rail depot in Crewe being used as... BR Staff Table for their cups of tea!!

Losing my nerve, I reluctantly put the bike back together. Bought new bits for the sold parts and simply used the TZR250 myself...

And what a great bike it really is. The first of the later generation of liquid-cooled two-stroke 250cc twins from Japan. A huge leap in tech & performance compared to the X-7 based water-cooled RG250 of only a few years earlier.

A good one makes around 50bhp, does around 120mph, handles like a dream and if looked after will be as reliable as any four-stroke bike. Making close to 200bhp/litre, the engine will remarkably start first kick, idle straight from choke on even the coldest mornings as well as achieve over 50mpg, with mine doing 68mpg whilst running-in.

The 12-volt electrics with a decent sized battery allow a good headlight, indicators and tail light. Starting is easy and a dependable first try every time. Regular unleaded fuel, a coolant expansion bottle and large two-stroke oil reservoir makes for easy ownership. Cycle parts are all high quality, with the expansion chamber paint being the sole let down in terms of durability of finish.

The owner's manual is quite obsessive regarding running-in instructions which needs 600-1,000 miles. The first hour requires stopping each fifteen minutes to allow ten minutes of engine cooling. Then very sedate riding for the next 600 mile, with absolute lunacy still having to wait until four figures are on the odometer...

At 1,000 miles, having just been serviced using the free voucher, fun time!

I always used synthetic Shell two-stroke oil and only changed the piston rings at 20,000 miles as it was having a wholly unnecessary decoke. The end-gaps of the old rings showed a less than 10% widening of the gap in comparison to the new set from Yamaha.

I reckon the rings would easily have reached 35,000 miles, which shows the advantages of buying a bike which isn't tuned within an inch of death. The cylinder bores at 20k were like an FS1-E after 2k. Crankshaft bearings were clocked for the sake of it and all were like new. Avoid using anything not made in Japan on Yamaha 2-strokes is a good idea by the way.

Amazing longevity when the Suzuki PE175 needed new rings each 1,000 miles and in a lower state of tune than the TZR, but the PE is air-cooled and they are hammered without mercy during an enduro from start to finish. Another beautiful bike from Japan, which I sold mine with 990 miles from new to finance my garage business in 1996...

Although the Kawasaki KRS & Suzuki RGVs are both appreciably faster, better handling, braking and higher spec, they both cost £1,000 more than a new TZR which is the more sensible choice. This bike's handling was better than my abilities and is so much fun, I would still have it if it wasn't for an accident at work requiring me to have lower spine surgery and replacement discs. I paid £2700 for mine. An August 1st H-reg, I'd marvel at the servos whirring when 'cycling' upon switching the engine on in order to remove any build-up of carbon on the YPVS Power Valves. Even the YPVS decal looked so, so sexy. There's a true production TZ250 for sale on eBay UK for £9,000. I could seriously drive the 270 miles to simply look at it. Not sure if the business would allow me. I would, if it were my shop.

Even on the motorway this bike is fun. You can be flying along at 110mph and the bike will still zoom away upon opening the throttle. A real lightweight too and imagine if we'd been allowed to own one at 17, on L-plates in 1980?

I simply love the later version's graphics too. If you've ever ridden a TZR125, an unrestricted one, then the 250cc really is like two 125s engines bolted together. In a way it was lucky that they lost that parcel in 1990 :-)

If you ever come across one for sale, you should consider buying.

The engine has none of the competitors' fragility, it operates like a street bike should. They are in no respects finicky or quick-wear with every part being available or can easily be replaced by some uprated alternative. Stan Stevens still tunes them and quite cheaply too. His tuning and new pipes will put out 58bhp, very close to the Suzuki & Kawasaki. Buy, Buy, Buy!!