Rough rider!
“Is that a Fizzy?” asks the woman out walking her dog as we take some riding shots of Chris Brealey’s Yamaha L5T.
It’s a reasonable question to be honest; it says Yamaha on the tank, it’s candy golden in colour and features an inclined single cylinder two-stroke engine running a disc-valve, so that query is not too far from the truth. The high pipe Yam we’re blatting about on is related to the ubiquitous FS1-E and is genealogically the 70s moped’s third cousin twice removed, or something like that.
If all roads supposedly lead to Rome then all disc-valve Yamaha singles trace their ancestry back to 1965 and Yamaha’s crucially successful YG1 which, according to some sources, was the bike that rescued the firm from potential financial disaster. The tuning fork brand had watched Honda’s steamroller sales with the 50cc Cub and obviously wanted a slice of the action. They’d also witnessed the success of both
