Turning 60 On Two Wheels – Part 3: 2025 Yamaha XT250 And Honda Trail 125, At The Kettle Valley Railway

There were a couple of things that became painfully apparent in my recent two wheeled trips across the province. The first was that my beloved Rocky Mountain Blizzard Fat Bike was a questionable touring choice (Part 1).  Coincidentally the second was that my beloved Honda Trail 125 was a questionable touring choice (Part 2) . Was it time to go in a different direction?

The sensible answer to this question was of course yes, maybe I need to make better choices with my two wheeled transportation. However, being 60 really was not imparting as much wisdom into me as I had been led to believe it would by the members of the local A&W morning coffee gathering.  Neither of these machines will be leaving my ownership anytime soon. So, against all that thinking, I was to make one more trip on the 125 to Kettle Valley, and this time alongside my wife on her Yamaha XT250.

I really cannot picture replacing my fat bike. I have a shed full of bikes and this is by far my favourite. I ride 12 months a year and a lot in snow. The extra effort required to pedal is good for my leg muscles. I have ordered up new tires and some miscellaneous parts to get it ready for winter and a second attempt at a gruelling fat bike race in February that darn near finished me off last year. I’ve been fixing flats on bikes for 50 years and I don’t picture stopping pedalling anytime soon but maybe an e-bike is in the very distant future.

Despite my fantasies of being able to regularly approach the speed limit on the highway, there is no way I am getting rid of the Honda. I am still not sure that I actually like motorcycles other than that one.   The whole genesis of the idea of me getting a bike was when I saw the first article about the return of the CT series bikes to North America and how I pictured my colleagues and I  delivering pizzas instead of doing our desk jobs.  Fetching pizza on the Honda does fill me with a sense of satisfaction. The giant rack is very useful for commuting and errands.

My wife, like most motorcyclists seem to do quite frequently though, was looking to change things up. Unlike me she is a long-time motorcyclist who knows how to properly ride a motorcycle.  She has been riding since 1989 or so, predating her and I dating.  She started on a Honda Shadow 500 a most excellent bike.

With the messed-up helmet hair and the leather motorcycle jacket she looked quite a lot like Ally Sheedy in The Breakfast Club.   And how the heck did that movie get to be 40 years old already? Which is the exact same question I ask about me and 60.

Anyways, we live in an area where there is really not much for highways or even paved back roads for that matter. She owns a huge touring bike which is too cumbersome for around town short trip duties and at 900 plus lbs would be a very poor choice on gravel.

She also owned an Iron 1200 Harley Sportster, which probably could do gravel but maybe should not with its limited suspension travel. She wants to ride with her ADV friend and have the ability to ride out a bit to local lakes and rivers, and the Harley wasn’t really up for it.

Riding with mismatched bikes is a bit tedious for all involved, other than the bigger bike can act as a traffic block for the 125 while it gets up to speed.

There is a bit of the ridiculous in the Trail 125, made even more apparent when it is accompanied by something bigger.

A bit unlike cars, motorcycles have to fit the rider. This is particularly so for the short of leg, as a rider has to put a foot down at every stop. The list of motorcycles, particularly dual sports and ADVs which are suitable for the short legged is not extensive.  The width of the seat also comes into play as the wider the seat, the more leg length it uses up.  After eliminating a few choices, even the Yamaha TW200 was a bit tall, the Yamaha XT250 was deemed to be the best fit once some suspension tinkering was done.  Surprisingly even the Trail 125 is set up for longer legs than the XT250.

There is a common theme in the motorcycles that are in my carport.  Entry level motorcycle designs evolve very slowly. The Sportster was a simple old design; there are some modern touches hidden in the Trail 125 but it’s an old design as well. The BMW has so many electronics on it that it’s not really retro at all, though the big oil cooled boxer has the look of something older.  The current Yamaha XT250, or Serow as it is known in some countries, dates to 2008 and has seen few updates other than a change to fuel injection in 2013.  It still has an old school headlight, and ABS is not even an option. And it is air cooled and has only 5 gears.  I may be wrong, not being a member of the all-knowing A&W coffee club yet, but I believe to get such an old school experience on a new 4 wheeled vehicle now requires the purchase of a Chevy Express Van.

A deal was struck with a dealership over in Kelowna who actually made a reasonable offer for the Harley. Which meant yet another trip over all the passes on Highway 3, the third in three weeks for me.  The Sportster was taken for a last ride and then put in the back of the pickup.

It had been on many adventures and other than going through two batteries was 100% reliable in its 6 years with her.

There was nothing exciting or dramatic about this trip unlike the last two. Although the world has gone down rapidly over the 40 odd years I have been driving, the ability of an Ecoboost F150 to flatten hills is certainly a positive development in highway travel.  The Grand Forks Drag Race Weekend was occurring and there were many fantastic automobiles around, including one very mean sounding Plymouth Super Bee lumpily idling in the Tim Horton’s drive through.  Alas, I was in a hurry and took pictures of exactly none of them, despite having no real excuse.   I will drop in these pictures of me channeling my inner Jesse Duke as a substitute for now.

Don’t seem many old school wrecks like this in the bush anymore. Or even these old cars for that matter.

Back to the story. We were on a very limited timeline.  The new bike just stayed on the truck for the return trip.  Of course we stopped at the bakeries in Rock Creek.  But other than that, this was just a trip to get there and get back. So much in contrast to the bicycle trip where the journey itself was the purpose.   An XT is pretty easy to load into a pickup at least.

Once we got home, we took out the XT for its maiden trip.   The new owner pronounced it fun, awesome and perfect. A concise 3-word review.

So we went for an off-road rip around some local trails while she got the feel of her new toy.

We looked a lot more evenly matched with this pair of bikes when we stopped for a snack and a hot chocolate.

The XT250 introduces a new wrinkle in that it is both faster on the road and off the road than the Honda.  I did try the Yamaha and it is a friendly enough thing with a great tractor like first gear.  I did find it to be cramped for my legs; it really is aimed at shorter riders.  I have read plenty of reviews that say the XT is pretty behind the times technology wise, but since getting righteous air and doing long wheelies isn’t part of the riding equation for the new owner this bike will suffice.

And one more plug for light weight bikes.  When the inevitable wipeouts occur, they are much easier to pick up.  And there is little to damage with no plastic to speak of.

Although the touring was quite a memorable experience, there is a practical reason for these little dual sports at my house for people who like to get out into nature. With the contraction of the forest industry over the last 30 years, former mainline logging roads are going back to nature.  Roads used to look like this, complete with a bear family, as seen through the window of a W100 Power Ram.  That was such a fantastic little Ram hood ornament they used to put on these.

Thirty some years and a bunch of ecologic succession later, roads can look like this and are paint unfriendly to a 4 wheeled vehicle.

Or better yet, are now slowly getting too narrow for a 4 wheeled vehicle.

A small motorcycle is really beneficial for getting out of situations where a husband makes a very poor navigational choice which could theoretically happen or so I have heard.

Quads are really good off road, but you need a truck to get them to the trailhead. It is a different experience. I feel a lot safer on a motorbike though as it is a lot less likely to fall on me and crush me.

I got over the whole turning 60 drama pretty quickly. Unlike the two wheeled machines which can be kept going forever, I know that my body can’t. I have already been through the injury, lose fitness, gain weight and then recover cycle which could easily happen again. I am determined to have as long a health span as possible.   Getting to the mountains is as important to me now as it was when I was young.

I know that I got to the starting point of this ascent in the new at the time 1988 Power Ram. Not to be a killjoy or contrarian to the ethos of this site but other than the fantastic little hood ornament on the Ram, the F150 is actually better in every way than the W100 and in fact the EcoBoost has more miles on it already than the 318 had before it blew up.  Truck technology has evolved a lot faster than small motorcycle tech.

I kept climbing mountains this summer, Mt. Bill Nye twice.  Not named after the science guy but from a mining stake which was named for a character, William Nye, in the famous 1870 Bret Harte anti-racism poem Plain Language From Truthful James.  The road is closed with a sign now so now a car can get to the trailhead.

The trailhead to the spectacular Torpy Mountain in Central BC was also reached by Subaru. It would have been a long trip on the 125.

Hiking aside, I envision more scenes like this in the future.  I have been packing a little drone to make my photos and videos less boring.  I am sure we take way too many pictures now, but anybody who has written a COAL series can relate to having almost no pictures of anything they did or owned, yet tons of ones of grainy mountains or landscapes that look exactly like they still do today.

Endless is a big word but where I live there are nearly endless riding routes available. Three kilometres from my house there are forest roads that could take me 200km without seeing a main highway.

We are spoiled enough we can even avoid tedious gravel to pick smooth dirt, my favourite surface.

I probably will bike and motorcycle tour again, maybe even redo parts of the Kettle Valley. For the most part, my nemesis the 100km/h two lane can be avoided with planning.  I toy with the idea of a Honda CRF300 so I can get further from home quicker. Only to supplant the Trail 125, not to replace it.  But that’s a problem for 2026.

For those on the fence about little retro trail bikes.  Neither of these bikes is suited to high-speed highway use.  The wind effects of a semi going by are not at all pleasant with the light weight and complete lack of wind defeating bodywork.  However, at lower speeds and on both paved and unpaved roads there may be no better way to get around on a dry day.  And they are very easy and simple to care for.

I do miss the old Power Ram.

That’s it for the 2025 motorcycle season as my insurance runs out today and it is time to haul out the Ski doo.  It was a great one though and I am already thinking of the exploring I will do in 2026.