1965 Yamaha Street/Trail 80

I found this add while trying to find info on my first bike a Yamaha Trail 80, bought new for $350.00. We brought it home in the back of my Grandmothers car from a dealer in Elk City, Ok. What an exciting day that was! My brother and I went in together to buy it, me working as a soda jerk at a local drug store and my brother changing tires at a gas station. The reason we just had to have one was because our friend Fred got one for his birthday and it was to cool! Ours was black and we took our M.C. tests on it, ( in Oklahoma you could get your M.C. license at 14 as long as the bike was under 5 hp). Another friend of mines Twin Jet 100 was under 5hp too I believe.

The coolest thing about it was that it had 2 back sprockets, one for street and one for trail riding. You just got out your tool kit and an extra lenth of chain that came with it and set up the big trail sprocket. I once rode, knobby tires and all, 14 miles to a dirt track race, reset rear sprocket for the race, got really muddy, set the street sprocket back up and rode back. Can’t remember my finishing position as I was totally hammered by all the 125 enduros and all out dirt bikes but it was still fun. With the trail sprocket on it was also the best hill climming bike I’ve ever had. Straight up in first gear, lean way forward and keep the front wheel down till you got to the top, my 125 wouldn’t even do that! That little 80 blew smoke and got really loud after the baffle burned out. We rode it through 3 sets of tires, chains & sprockets until a hole burned through the piston.

When my Grandmother passed a few years ago we were going through her stuff and I found the black Yamaha scarf that the dealer had given us when we bought the bike. We had no idea that she had kept it all these years. It had the white Yamaha logo on it just like the one at the bottom of the add. My daughter wears it sometimes when she rides…

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