I've had this thing for a few months now and hardly ridden it,kinda frustrating...but had another 200km blat on it so thought I'd tell you my impressions so far.I haven't had it off road yet,just some short spins on greasy clay 4X4 tracks - but I'm a gravel road rider and I'll come to grips and learn about the bike on my favorite medium first.

This is Yamaha's advertising blurb for the DT230....

Like A Motocrosser You Can Ride On The Street.

The DT230 is as close as you can get to riding a
motocrosser on the street without getting into trouble.
That’s because this lightweight street-crosser is loaded with
engine and chassis technology developed on our YZ racers.


The race-developed, liquid-cooled, 2-stroke, crankcase
reed-valve induction engine with YPVS and YEIS pumps out
heaps of hard-hitting power. Traction control delivers solid
hook up on slippery surfaces. And for sharp handling, the
lightweight chassis runs a long-travel fork and a Monocross
rear suspension with aluminium swingarm. Stopping
performance is just as impressive, thanks to powerful front
and rear disc brakes.
Street-crossing. It’s the most fun you can have in the city

......If you've ever ridden a motocross bike you'll be rolling in the isle over that one,the DT230 is fat and heavy,with short,soft weak suspn,and a guttless engine - but if your experiance in street legal dirt bikes is late 80s,90s era 4 stroke 250s like an XR250,then yes,this thing will feel like it's an MX bike on the street.Lighter than those bikes with more power,lots more power - compared to it's same capacity street legal 4 stroke stablemate the XT225,the DT230 has double the HP,this bike is not a toy.

The ride out of Auckland to a riding area lets you know how biased your dual purpose bike is to street riding,and the DT230 is a pain in the arse here,it's a ''pinger'' and runs crappy at low throttle openings around town (I better pull the carb down) it want's to be on the throttle and you just can't stop it leaping ahead....neeyit,neeyit,neeyit,oops 70kph,it's harder to keep under control than a sports bike around town,silly fun if you hit the side streets - but you know you'll get caught sooner or later.On the motorway is out of that lowspeed range and runs sweet,but my unbalanced knobs shake the whole bike,it wasn't like this last time I rode it,but gets worse and worse as the tyre wears out of round.Being a 2 stroke it sounds like it's screaming at 100kph,it has no tacho so don't know what revs it is doing,but it will do 165kph with this gearing so can't be too bad.It goes up to 155kph pretty quick,but the last 10kph would take some time and a tail wind.

Out on the twisty sealed back roads we are getting into territory more suitable,my IRC tyres up to the task,I can lean a long way and nowhere near running off the edge,the bike is light and doesn't squirm or slide on it's tyres like a bigger dual sport.The bike just shoots out of corners,an instant hard snap,not what you expect from a small bike,but inline with the MX tag,on a bigger bike with this much acceleration out of corners I'd be worried about traction,but I don't seem to have any issues at this stage,maybe later when I'm more used to it.The light weight does show itself by not being in touch with the ground to the same degree as a bigger bike - I had a big lockup comming into an intersection and overshot crossed up onto the main road,dumping the clutch and going in the right direction at the right time,looking like I meant to do it that way,but the rear wheel just locked up and I couldn't get it to bite.

Onto the gravel and it's fun time! This has gotta be one of the best bikes I've had on gravel,and I don't usualy like 2 strokes for the task,they are just too snappy.Power to weight is just right,it's got impressive acceleration without uncontrolable wheelspin,although you can step it out at 100kph at the touch of the throttle,it'll pull a wheelie coming out of a 2nd gear corner,but there are no worries about what the front wheel is doing.Even with just a trail tyre the front end gives no trouble,tucks in on some thick stuff,but no worries,no fighting or footing,sorted with a touch of throttle,it goes where pointed.2 strokes are snappy with traction changes,they step out big time,then snap back in when they grab traction again,and sometimes a corner can be a series of big lurches where a 4 stroke will maintain a steady slide,you just get used to it and enjoy the experiance.For a smoker slides are easy to control,just feather throttle to keep it where you like,it'll zing away to hell and gone again if you peg it,but has enough power to maintain a slide in the loose controlling it by throttle.Typical smoker it bogs out too low in the rpm and down a cog to all hell breaks loose,you live with it - but the only bike to dump me in gravel was a 2 stroke bogging out.You can 2 finger the clutch for control coming out of turns,and the gears just flick through without the clutch up or down smooth as silk - just wave your boot around the lever and it's down a gear with some interesting corner entries.I seem to be able to carry much more front brake into corners than I've ever been able to on other bikes,the light weight is just such an asset in flicking a bike around.Of course I don't speed ,and everytime I have a breathing space to check my speedo I'm doing 100kph,although I was naughty and got up to 130kph...but man,this has got to be the fastest controlable bike I've ridden on these roads....the straights are a stones throw.....

My experiance with it off road is very limited - but I am worried about controling the power,it comes on so strong the trail tyres are just spinning up at a touch of the throttle on wet clay,I haven't even put a foot down,crossed up with a wheel in each wheeltrack,it's a breeze to get back under control..... it's more power than I've ever had to cope with off road,but a switch to my spare off road knobs will give me more idea when I get the time for a real off road trial.

Lotta blurb for a quick blat eh? This bike is gunna challenge me - and a bike's not worth having unless it stretches you to new experiances.....we'll do alright together.....