Ian’s Yamaha XT500 special

This must be about the tenth XT500 through the workshop, but it’s the first one with an experimental frame, probably from the early 1980s.

Ian says it was built by Mick Mills, who worked at Mitsui (Yamaha UK) and wanted to show the factory in Japan a way to develop the ageing single.

It’s been raced a fair bit, including by Nick Holt, whose daughter Nicky used to work on various motorcycle magazines with me years ago. Nick’s also a mate of my engine builder Rupe Farnsworth. Small world.

Mick’s idea was really good: make it taller and lighter, with a longer swing arm and laid-down shocks. He’s kept the front brake, but the forks here are off a 250 Yamaha of some sort. Yamaha didn’t go for his idea. They made the single-shock XT600 instead.

Ian’s plan is to race it in twin-shock enduros, so he was happy to go with a capacitor instead of a battery, and just have basic lights and a brake light.

He’d fitted a Rex’s Speedshop CDI and 12V charging, and cobbled everything up himself because my waiting list had been months into the future. But really he wanted it doing neatly.

I had a look at cleaning up his loom but opted for a new layout – it only takes an hour on a bike like this. The main changes were extended wires to keep connectors away from the dirt and grit, and double earths to keep the CDI happy.

It started up nicely and feels great to ride – amazingly lively and light.