Floribama Riders

Several years ago, my wife bought a Yamaha XT225 to learn to ride dirt on. The XT is a good beginner bike, relatively low to the ground and light weight, and most importantly, electric start. We have been through several batteries, because the bike doesn't get ridden nearly enough.

We are planning to make a weeklong dirt and dual sport trip to Colorado this summer. We're taking the XT to do some simple sightseeing on. The trails we plan to ride each day are great, but a bit beyond her comfort zone. Some of the group are bringing 4 wheelers, and on days when the guys are riding the trails, the wives may take the 4 wheelers and explore some of the small towns in the area. The dirt roads to these areas are not challenging, and Ruthie should be able to do them on the XT with no problem. I just don't want her to get stuck somewhere if the battery or electric starter decides to give up the ghost.

Yamaha makes a kick start kit for this bike. I bought the kit, and installed it last night. The kit is very complete, however, the instructions in the kit were in Japanese. The illustrations were almost good enough, but a few sentences in English would have been a big help, sort of like "remove this spacer and discard", and be sure this tab ends up in this slot.

Anyway, with a few trial fittings, I got the kickstarter installed and it works perfectly, and tucks away nicely when not in use. I had to pull the clutch to install it, and had to struggle a bit with a couple of circlips that my circlip pliers didn't fit well. All in all, a nice kit, and if she can actually kick start it, a little extra peace of mind when she is riding on her own.