Oil for the pressure-fed lubrication system was carried in the top frame tube and the kickstart lever drove through the primary, meaning the engine could be started in gear - a real boon in the dirt. Equally practical was the quick-detachable rear wheel for fast tire repairs. The swingarm used snail cam adjusters (a scheme pioneered by Rickman Motorcycles in England), making it easier to accurately set rear wheel alignment in the field. The ignition system was independent of the battery, so the engine could be started and run without one. Though conventional in most ways, the SX250 incorporated a number of useful features. Tires were 3.25 by 19 inches front and 4 by 18 inches rear. The engine fitted into a dual-cradle steel tube frame with a Ceriani-style front fork and swingarm rear controlled by a pair of spring/shock units with five adjustable preload settings. ![]() Drive to the wet multiplate clutch was by gears, and a 5-speed transmission and chain to the rear wheel completed the drivetrain. A 32mm Dell’Orto PHB32 carburetor fed the piston-ported, chrome-plated cylinder, while a capacitive-discharge ignition provided sparks. Like the DT, the SX250 was powered by an air-cooled, 2-stroke, single-cylinder engine with oil injection. The SX175 and SX250 were essentially identical apart from the 250’s larger cylinder bore. Aermacchi Harley-Davidson’s first real counter-offering to the DT-1 came five years later with the 1973 SX125, followed quickly by the 1974 SX175 and finally the SX250. For 1969, Harley offered a high-pipe version of the Aermacchi-built 125cc Rapido, but it was no offroad machine. market, so when Yamaha turned the dirt bike world upside down in 1968 with the 250cc DT-1 (selling as many as 50,000 a year by the early 1970s) other makers were bound to follow. Offroad bikes were quickly growing in popularity in the 1960s U.S. ![]() Based in their old seaplane factory on Lake Varese north of Milan, Aermacchi produced a sturdy but rather staid overhead valve 4-stroke single that became the H-D Sprint in the U.S. Parent Aeronautica Macchi had spun off its motorcycle division to focus on its core business: aircraft. In 1960, Harley bought a 50 percent stake in the cash-strapped Italian motorcycle company Aermacchi. But H-D’s dirt diggers didn’t hail from Milwaukee - or anywhere else in the U.S. in the late 1960s, Harley-Davidson was perfectly positioned to compete. When the lightweight offroad bike craze hit the U.S.
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