I've just been idly meandering around the internet where I discovered a very interesting bike: a 525cc Yamaha trials twinshock, built by a talented French engineer, Frédéric Fleury (?) - see link below.

Apparently it was based on a Yamaha XT500. Which reminded me of a photo I saw years ago in a Mick Andrews trials book (forgotten its title, but I remember the book was small which contrasted with the bigger books by Sammy Miller and Don Smith - I still have all three somewhere upstairs).

The photo was of a partly constructed 500 trials bike that Mick was building, based on an XT500. For years I wondered if that build was ever completed - apparently it wasn't due to Yamaha pulling the plug (as mentioned in Fred's article below), which was a shame.

Anyways, Fred invited Mick to have a test ride. Mick's very popular over here in France where he often attends trials gatherings. Apparently he gave it a thumbs up. It's probably not a very competitive bike but nevertheless it's an impressive bit of machinery.

Bravo Fred!

 http://www.loeil2fred.com/525-xty/#prettyPhoto[1]/4/

 

Edited December 9, 20205 yr by bigplonker

Shame there is no video, would be nice to hear it running

2 hours ago, teamferret said:

Shame there is no video, would be nice to hear it running

There is a video somewhere on YouTube, not sure if its an original conversation, or a replica.

 

Edited December 9, 20205 yr by b40rt

 

Merci beaucoup b40rt. Yes, well spotted, that's the Yam Mick was building that I mentioned (photo now attached).

Cheers, did think it would stall easily

Years ago Mick gave a talk at our TRF meeting and I asked him what happened to the bike. He said it was dropped because there was way too much backlash in the gearbox for trials use.