I and several other mates cut our teeth on a big old XL250.
It was owned by my best friend, and was my first proper introduction to motorbikes.
That bike suffered some horrendous abuse from 3 teenagers plus mates,
but like some old leviathan, would haul it's self out of every bomb crater, foxhole, river, or bog we could manage to drop it into
fully loaded with one or more teenagers hanging on for dear life.
We did eventually kill it
(The piston finally had enough) , and the subsequent rebuild using very non oe parts was short lived
but by that time we had seen KTM's, new Honda's, Yamaha's and road bikes were now legal