Classic Steel on the 1988 Yamaha YZ125 is up for your reading enjoyment

My brother had this bike back in 88', and I rode and raced it a few times. Pretty spot-on article Tony!

I had this bike back in 88, I had a blast on it! Fun bike thanks for the memories

I seem to recall Larry Ward saying in an interview that that was one of his favorite bikes. I've always wanted to do a restore on this year YZ. As your article points out, Bradshaw, Larocco, and Ward raced that bike.

Outstanding as always!

Cool write up. Forgot about that Race Tech shift linkage. Just out of curiosity wonder what that bike weighed?

rode an 89 a few years back, it was pretty dam good

No lie - I look forward to these Classic Steel articles more than the next issue of VMX. You do a great job and i have read every single one. I would love to see one on the 1993 YZ80 someday!

Or the 86 kx80

I had a new 85 cr80, and my cousin ought a new 86 kx80. That KX had zero low end, but it pulled like a missile on top end. We ended up going up one main jet and messing with timing and gave that KX a MONSTER upper low end hit. It would nearly flip me off the back. That KX was a cool little bike!

Mine would hit the midrange and just waaail. I've ridden several slower 125 that had nothing wrong with them, and my dad used to regularly drag race his buddy's with them on his 85 cr250, and he was undefeated. They hated that. I found out later they rev 15000 rpm haha I'm still a clutch abuser/rev ranger to this day. Will probably always prefer a top end focused setup on any engine because of that bike lol lap times( and my tongue in the spokes) be damned.

I keep waiting for the one on the '85 RM250, all the magazines said it was slow, but I holeshot probably 90% of my races that year, even the uphill start at Honda Hills. That was an awesome bike.

I was trying to show off, on my 12th birthday buddy there with 87 yz80( was so slow). Friends from school show up, I hit the 5 foot tall "jump " next the railroad tracks 3rd gear tapped . I was at least 12 feet maybe 15 in the air( head like 20 feet) I remember thinking this is going to hurt. Land, huge clank ( shocks and forks bottoming I know now) and I get the wind knocked out of me. Total Allessi from A1 fall over sideways still on bike. Thought back was broken, turned purple before I finally caught my wind. Great times lol

Heh

Now, I was a never-was novice for pretty much all of my time on 80s, so take this with a giant grain of salt...but I had several YZ80s of that (87-92) vintage and the only bike I remember being hopelessly faster (until the power valve RM80 came out) was the CR80. I was also only 5' 2" 105 lbs at 13 so the smaller size of the bike wasn't a big deal. It's not that we thought those YZ80s were any good...its that you could get a leftover model for stupid cheap and they never changed. I was on 125s by the time the 93 YZ80 came out, and was so envious.

Back to the thread - I also had several early 90s YZ125s and those wouldn't shift right either. Yamaha definitely did not figure out the problem until after I quit in 1994.

true story, my ex step dad Ed Longace, borrowed my 88 yz 125 for Larry Ward to race at southwick, and he got third overall on it