dilemna

My "commute", taken at various times of day and night, is between two
locations joined by 14 miles of country road, fast dual carriageway,
and rough track. Steep gradients and loose surfaces figure in the
latter. The warm weather has brought out a latent desire for biking
it. I don't have a working MC just now, if you exclude the Quickly. At
some little expense, I could a) revive the CD175 b) acquire a "trials"
Bantam c) ditto a small MZ. Any comments? OK, any helpful comments?
R

 

Acquire a Yamaha XT350 or similar?. Ace bike, good road manners too.

MZ probably the best of the ones listed[1] as dual carriageway work on a
bantam may not be good for either its or your longevity. The CD would be
'interesting' off road.

HTH, even if only a little bit.

[1]I do have something of a soft spot for MZs

 

CD175 has such shocking suspension and ground clearance it might not
like unmade tracks. I'd go for the MZ - I chased hot air balloons
across country on one (a Saxon Tour 250) once, and was startled at
just how well it coped with rough unmade and dirt roads.

And then I considered those were the sort of Commie roads it was
originally designed for.

 

More lame than a very lame thing at a meeting of gelded cripples. Vastly
overpriced too.
A cheap old TS185/250 or XL185 would do.

The CD would be excellent for this. You can put both feet down easy enough
too!

JB

 

Conceded. IMHO the XT350 ( full power, not neutered ) is an ace bike. I
often get called a wierdo though.

Love your description of it, quite made me chuckle that did. The TS250 is
an order of magnitude more fun both on and off road.

There was a chap on here who got really lucky on a DT175MX. I'm sure I read
he was contemplating selling it. That'd be perfect.

Yebbut the CD needs that coz it gets stuck on large bits of gravel.

 

<snip guff>

Eeek!, I've just realised how disjointed my reply was. I do humbly
apologise for once again being a donk.

 

Yup, 125s too. ISTR they were called Pathfinders. An MZ with the header pipe
rotated through about 165deg, a shorter rod to hold the silencer on, 18"
wheels and a high rise front mudguard. Not much better off road than a
stock MZ, but then a stock MZ with cheapo knobbly tyres is a real hoot off
road until the rigid foot rest or the supergun silencer wedge on the side
of a rut, then rut surfing becomes your new past time.

MZs are ace, and I'll disagree with anyone who says different. Not strongly
disagree, or throw a paddy, just disagree.

 

MZ also made a fairly serious enduro bike in the late 1970s/early 1980s.
It had a double monoshock rear - that is, a cantilever rear end, but
two, not one, shocks sitting side by side , controlling it. Quite a
tool. They never put it into volume production, the fools. Special order
for competition riders only.

I've always liked them, too, for their pure honesty.

 

Some pictures of their competition machines in action (in the GDR) from a
1983 event (I think the ISDE).
http://www.sweller.co.uk/isde-83/

 

Yes, that's *exactly* the model I was thinking of. The top pic. Look
very closely and you can see the second shock, in parallel with the
first.

I remember asking Wilf Green why the *hell* MZ didn't put it into volume
production, because they'd have sold every single one. It seems that
production of road machinery was ordained by the Commie Plan, so that
was what they had to build.

Look at that top pic again - you can see the TS/ETZ ancestry in the
engine, and it's even got the superb enclosed chain. It looks amazingly
modern and businesslike, even now.

 

The Older Gentleman was seen penning the following ode to ... whatever:

Everything I read about JAWA/CZ/MZ suggests that all the 'real'
development work happened after management had buggered off to get
drunk. As you said, sticking to the plan was more important than
producing something that would sell in the West, simply because they
never produced enough to satisfy demand anyway. What we in the "West"
regarded as bikes for cheapskates (MZs were sold in Germany by
Neckermann[1] at one point, and the only people buying them were those
who either wanted a cheap outfit or students who couldn't afford a
'better' bike), they were the only mode of transport for a lot of
people in the GDR.

Plus of course, CZ was the manufacturer of choice for off-road
competition machines in the Comecon area (and Pannonia in Hungary
AFAIR).

[1] Big mail-order company in Germany, selling everything from mopeds
to clothes to holidays. Bit like Sears in the States, just a lot
smaller.

 

The Older Gentleman was seen penning the following ode to ... whatever:

IMHO it was the 'Commie bike' that was at least part of the problem -
basically everything that was imported from the GDR was being look
down on as cheap and nasty, no matter how good it was. Praktica
cameras are another example. They were incredible VFM but were
obviously 'no good'.

And interestingly enough, in the classic car & bike press (they're one
and the same in Germany, most of the magazines for 'poor people' like
us are running bike & car articles side by side) they're beginning to
appreciate MZs for exactly this reason. That, and the fact that
they're easy to work on so they make superb beginner's classic bikes.

Can't comment on that, but a quick trawl of a German mag suggests that
most spares suppliers reside in the East. I think spares supply and
servicing were a sore point back in the 70s/80s but I wasn't
interested in bikes back then.

 

I suspect Wilf Green was seen as too connected with the 'old Stalinist'
MZ (I'm not suggesting WG was a Stalinist) by the new private MuZ and
they dropped him. Unfortunately they dropped his excellent network and
UK market expertise, as TOG described.

In 1995 (IIRC) he had a massive sale at his warehouses everything at real
giveaway prices, engines at pennies, ISDT machines and parts, dealer
service tools etc. Died not long after.

Five or six years ago I met a chap who had an old bike shop in Brighton
(Rottingdean Bikes), long since closed. He had a garage *full* of new
and some used MZ spares, mainly 6v vintage.

IIRC, 2 or 3 SAAB 900 car loads later and a very full shed I was the
proud owner of all his NOS.

I sold it through the MZRC, pricing was based on his old 1983 trade price
books which were stupidly cheap. £2-£3 for armature windings, full ES
Trophy toolkits £5, Trophy indicators £2, TS 250/1 pistons £3 etc. etc.

I've still got boxes of Venhill cables for ES, TS, TS/1, and ETZ.

 

Thus spake The Older Gentleman unto the assembled multitudes:

My affection for MZ's was tested for a little while back in the 70's when a
mate of mine with a TS250 and who had dropped it, kept asking me to help
him realign the wheels because the frame was slightly bent. This
consisted of me sitting on the bike holding the bars straight while he
fiddled around with a spanner at the back wheel trying to find the best
alignment to suit the bent frame. This procedure, oft repeated, generally
took place in pub car parks on cold winter evenings and delayed my getting
my laughing gear around my nightly 3 pints of Young's Winter Warmer.

He never did manage to get the wheel alignment quite right, so sold the
bike and bought another new one which he managed to avoid dropping and
bending.

Apart from the apparently vulnerable frames ;-) they seemed like nice solid
(and honest as TOG says) bikes. Rrrrinnnnggg-dinggg-dngg-dng-dng!

 

On Wed, 20 Aug 2003 20:18:27 +0100, Timo Geusch

.......

....but we don't encounter much enthusiasm for the CZ marque? Another
forgotten jewel, or are they really sh*te?
R

 

Shite. Decent enduro bikes, though.

 

R Strong was seen penning the following ode to ... whatever:

I *think* their off-road bikes were pretty good. The roadbikes
probably weren't.

 

I've worked on them. I can think of no redeeming features. Not even
being cheap.

 

I don't have a working MC just now, if you exclude the Quickly.

Why not the Quickly?

I do 20 miles a day on an old Raleigh Runabout. Great fun with £37 for
insurance, about £3 a week to run and free TAX. I've tuned it a little to
ease the stress and i'll really happy with the results.

Great if you like a lot of fiddling to keep you bike going.

Steve.

 

They made good offroad/competition things, but the road bikes were
pretty crap.


--

Dave

GS 850 x2 / SE 6a
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