The very nice people at Real Classic magazine have a thingy on their website that isolates all the cheap classic motorcycles seen on ebay for your perusal.
Anyone wishing to relive their youth/get on the road cheaply would do well to bookmark it....
http://www.realclassic.co.uk/bargain.html
Wednesday, 29 December 2010
Tuesday, 28 December 2010
I've got no unfinished sympathy at all...
It was around about this time that the DHSS decided that the welfare safety net was not actually designed to allow wasters in their mid 20's to sit around on their backsides fiddling with motorcycles, pretending to be in the music business and failing to learn the guitar.
These days of course I'm prepared to accept that it was after all designed to support the poor and underprivileged, and prevent the scenes of degradation that the country had seen in the 1920s.
At the time however it was harder to take. I had got away with it for three years, however, so I didn't have a great deal to complain about.
Damn, you Maggie Thatcher, and I was having so much fun, too.
My penchant for terrible business decisions reared its ugly head again, this time on its most spectacular occasion.
I was firmly convinced that the music business was ready for radical white boy soul punk, but I was approached by a chap who told me that he had just got back from London, where he had been to a few events which involved taking over warehouses and playing funk and dance tunes till the early hours.
These events were called "Raves" or "Warehouse Parties". He asked me If I would help organise a few in Bristol, but I turned him down. There was clearly no future in it. Last thing I heard he was heading for Ibiza with a camper van full of used tenners.
I was also contacted by a band who reckoned they were on to something big - a form of electronic dance music, which they called Trip-Hop, and wanted help promoting gigs. I turned them down too. After all, what sort of stupid name is Massive Attack?
There are nights when I don't wake up in a cold sweat about those decisions.
Well, there was a sort of recession on, and all the DHSS could manage to do was a successful attempt to force me into some sort of training.
This turned out to be that of riding the Morini to the Fishponds Skillcentre - a redundant army base turned into a selection of workshops - where we reluctant types were trained to become shoddy plumbers, brickies, hairdressers and, in my case, semi-skilled motor mechanics. Frankly I wasn't much good at it, but then neither were any of the other idiots on the course.
I had become reasonably competent as a bike mechanic, but cars had all sorts of strange bits on them like distributors, track rod ends and universal couplings.
To give you an example of how inept we all were, consider that I came first in the electrical wiring test. And I'm colour blind.
Then there was the bloke who connected the heater hose on the lecturers Peugeot to the brake servo pipe on the carb manifold.
This filled his engine with water the first time he started it up, and snapped a conrod.
None of us were likely to make onto the McLaren pit crew.
After “qualifying” (and I use the term advisedly) I spent a week in a Lada dealership and I then managed to get a job servicing Renaults.
The job involved the following - change the plugs, change the oil, change the filters, change the brake pads – whether they needed it or not.
I also learned how to put on a driveshaft boot – a horrid job, and how to fix a starter motor by the addition of a £5 electrical component, then spray it blue, and tell the punter you'd fitted a new one and charge them £75.
The chief mechanic wisely kept me away from anything more complex.
While I was there I bought an old Wolseley 1300 automatic which had been traded in.
It wasn’t that great, but seeing as it had only done 20,000 miles from new, still had its original plastic seat covers on and was 20 years old was bit of a bargain at £50.
It should have come with a compulsory flat cap and pipe, a tissue box on the back shelf and a subscription to Peoples Friend.
The automatic gearbox had a two or three second delay before it kicked in, which meant plenty of angry toots from behind at traffic lights.
And it was fitted with sports radial tyres at the front and 20 year old crossply tyres at the rear. This made for some very interesting handling characteristics.
I drove around in it for a bit and added 10,000 miles to it. Its low mileage and simple construction meant it was incredibly reliable which also meant it was often pressed into service to transport people long distances, but it didn’t suit me at all.
So I sold it for a hefty profit - the first time that had ever happened.
At about the same time I gave up being a motor mechanic, which was just as well for all concerned.
Events culminated one day when I had got so bored with the job that I accidentally fitted a set of brake pads the wrong way round. The owner never got their hands on it, and the mistake was quickly rectified but it was clear that wielding spanners for a living was not for me, and before I killed someone by my cackhandedness, I left the motor trade to drive a van for a living instead.
These days of course I'm prepared to accept that it was after all designed to support the poor and underprivileged, and prevent the scenes of degradation that the country had seen in the 1920s.
At the time however it was harder to take. I had got away with it for three years, however, so I didn't have a great deal to complain about.
Damn, you Maggie Thatcher, and I was having so much fun, too.
My penchant for terrible business decisions reared its ugly head again, this time on its most spectacular occasion.
I was firmly convinced that the music business was ready for radical white boy soul punk, but I was approached by a chap who told me that he had just got back from London, where he had been to a few events which involved taking over warehouses and playing funk and dance tunes till the early hours.
These events were called "Raves" or "Warehouse Parties". He asked me If I would help organise a few in Bristol, but I turned him down. There was clearly no future in it. Last thing I heard he was heading for Ibiza with a camper van full of used tenners.
I was also contacted by a band who reckoned they were on to something big - a form of electronic dance music, which they called Trip-Hop, and wanted help promoting gigs. I turned them down too. After all, what sort of stupid name is Massive Attack?
There are nights when I don't wake up in a cold sweat about those decisions.
 |
| why, why must you haunt my dreams? |
Well, there was a sort of recession on, and all the DHSS could manage to do was a successful attempt to force me into some sort of training.
This turned out to be that of riding the Morini to the Fishponds Skillcentre - a redundant army base turned into a selection of workshops - where we reluctant types were trained to become shoddy plumbers, brickies, hairdressers and, in my case, semi-skilled motor mechanics. Frankly I wasn't much good at it, but then neither were any of the other idiots on the course.
I had become reasonably competent as a bike mechanic, but cars had all sorts of strange bits on them like distributors, track rod ends and universal couplings.
To give you an example of how inept we all were, consider that I came first in the electrical wiring test. And I'm colour blind.
Then there was the bloke who connected the heater hose on the lecturers Peugeot to the brake servo pipe on the carb manifold.
This filled his engine with water the first time he started it up, and snapped a conrod.
None of us were likely to make onto the McLaren pit crew.
After “qualifying” (and I use the term advisedly) I spent a week in a Lada dealership and I then managed to get a job servicing Renaults.
The job involved the following - change the plugs, change the oil, change the filters, change the brake pads – whether they needed it or not.
I also learned how to put on a driveshaft boot – a horrid job, and how to fix a starter motor by the addition of a £5 electrical component, then spray it blue, and tell the punter you'd fitted a new one and charge them £75.
The chief mechanic wisely kept me away from anything more complex.
While I was there I bought an old Wolseley 1300 automatic which had been traded in.
 |
| oooo what a lovely brown! |
It wasn’t that great, but seeing as it had only done 20,000 miles from new, still had its original plastic seat covers on and was 20 years old was bit of a bargain at £50.
It should have come with a compulsory flat cap and pipe, a tissue box on the back shelf and a subscription to Peoples Friend.
The automatic gearbox had a two or three second delay before it kicked in, which meant plenty of angry toots from behind at traffic lights.
And it was fitted with sports radial tyres at the front and 20 year old crossply tyres at the rear. This made for some very interesting handling characteristics.
I drove around in it for a bit and added 10,000 miles to it. Its low mileage and simple construction meant it was incredibly reliable which also meant it was often pressed into service to transport people long distances, but it didn’t suit me at all.
So I sold it for a hefty profit - the first time that had ever happened.
At about the same time I gave up being a motor mechanic, which was just as well for all concerned.
Events culminated one day when I had got so bored with the job that I accidentally fitted a set of brake pads the wrong way round. The owner never got their hands on it, and the mistake was quickly rectified but it was clear that wielding spanners for a living was not for me, and before I killed someone by my cackhandedness, I left the motor trade to drive a van for a living instead.
Friday, 24 December 2010
Origins: My dad buys himself a Christmas present
In the next proper instalment we move to four wheels, so where, one might ask, does this obsession with the internal combustion engine come from?
It is certainly at odds with anything in the way of good environmental practices, and I’m not that good a mechanic, or that good a rider or driver either, to be honest.
But as it is of course traditional these days to blame your parents for pretty much any psychological problems you might have I can honestly say I hold my father entirely responsible for my disease.
Experience of motorcycles in the family included the Coventry Eagle belonging to my uncle which my old man crashed into a wall - Uncle subsequently went on to own a number of BMWs, that were utterly luxurious motorcycles by the standards of the day. A cousin broke his back piling his early Honda Goldwing into a pedestrian barrier in central London.
My grandad had a Lambretta 200 which he and granny went touring on round Scotland and another uncle had a Triumph Bonneville, and later an MG Roadster (he also had an Original Model 50 air rifle, which I thought was cool as hell)
In my childhood, once the old man got driving, we had a motley collection of motorcars.
As a small boy I was driven around in an Austin A40 and an AC 2 litre – which had a wooden chassis – and the enormous pile the old man rented in a decaying part of Birmingham had a coach house big enough to put both in and also housed a rotting Morris Eight that was there when we moved in and which I used as a climbing frame.
Don't get the impression we had any money. This was in the days when you could still rent decaying piles for next to nothing as no-one wanted them, and they hadn't all been turned into luxury homes and flats.
I found the old place on Google streetview a while back. It was surrounded with horrid nineties pseudo mansions and had a gravel drive. When I lived there the drive was made of old bricks and bits of bombsite, and we lived in two rooms because we couldn't afford to heat around two thirds of it.)
I found the old place on Google streetview a while back. It was surrounded with horrid nineties pseudo mansions and had a gravel drive. When I lived there the drive was made of old bricks and bits of bombsite, and we lived in two rooms because we couldn't afford to heat around two thirds of it.)
Later he had a Renault 8, and then a Renault 10, which he put through a hedge upside down into a field. Tricky handlers, those rear engined Renaults on icy roads.
 |
| A Renault 10 with a definite whiff of Gitanes and black roll neck sweaters |
After the Renaults we went to BMC, looked briefly at an Vanden Plas Pincess (a Morris Oxford with very classy coachwork and a huge 4 litre engine) and he bought a Wolseley 18/85 saloon, more commonly known as the Land Crab, because of its tendency to drift sideways. This much-loved motor had a class - I loved the grey leather seating and the fold down shelves in the back of the seats and the way the Wolesley badge lit up in the middle of the radiator grille.
 | ||
|
In 1973 we started a chain of events that had a formative effect on my motor vehicle ownership in later life.
At the time I was 12, and morphing from short-trousered child into monosyllabic teenager.
By now the old Wolseley was pretty much on its last legs, so one Saturday morning my father and I climbed into it and drove into the centre of Glasgow.
Our first stop was a tiny, grimy back street garage run by a small balding dwarf-like man who wore a tie under his overalls and had oily fingerprints on his forehead. He certainly didn’t look like a car salesman and there appeared to be only one car on sale, a fairly new Mini – an unlikely choice for my dad.
But he led us through the workshop to the rear and there he pulled a dust sheet off a shape in the dark corner.
There before me was a vision of loveliness, surpassing anything I had ever seen in my short life.
It was a 1949 Lagonda two and half litre convertible coupe.
 |
| How could anyone not want this? |
It was burnished gold, and swept dramatically from front headlights to duck tail. It had a tan leather roof that matched the tan leather seats, a polished wooden dash, deep chrome and it smelled of pure class.
It had less than 40,000 miles on the clock. It was of course entirely impractical and I was in love with it – and so was my dad.
The garage owner wanted £700 for it.
My dad said he would have to think some more.
“Beautiful, isn’t it son?” he said as we left, “Of course, your mother would kill me.”
Next stop was a big flashy Ford dealership on the Maryhill Road. There we found a practical vehicle – a red 1.6L Ford Cortina Mk3 estate.
 |
| fucking horrible |
It had black vinyl seats, black plastic trim, a ghastly and tinny chrome radiator grille and was everything hideous there could be in a motor car – especially after the encounter with the Lagonda.
It cost £700. And of course the head ruled the heart and the old man bought it, as it turned out to his eternal regret.
It was uninspiring and broke down all the time. Even though it was only a few years old, bits fell off.
We had owned it for a year or so when the main bearing which ran the drive shaft fell apart – and that was when he cried "enough!".
By now it was nearly Christmas 1974, we had experienced power cuts and miners strikes and petrol had shot up in price from about 30p a gallon to 75p a gallon and all thanks to the Israelis and Arabs. Thank goodness times have changed, huh?
So the old man decided that we needed a new car, and that it should be cheap to run and practical – an estate was a good idea for family holidays, and after his frankly traumatic experience with the Cortina, he wanted something a bit more solid. An economical diesel engine was considered essential too.
The only estate car diesels in the market place were Mercedes or Peugeots. He considered a Peugeot, being impressed by the extra fold up seats in the boot, but rejected it as a bit too French. He was disdainful of Mercedes as having ideas above their station. “You dont see Rolls Royce making estate cars,” he said.
There was one other option that almost fitted the description: a LWB Land Rover Safari Diesel – in the days when Land Rovers were a good deal more agricultural than they are today. Yes dad – that’s a really good idea for commuting daily into the middle of the Scotland’s biggest city.
He phoned around and found one at a big Land Rover specialists near Greenock so he arranged a test drive.
Driving the Cortina, driveshaft and all to the dealers we parked it as far away from the salesman as possible and we hoped they couldn’t hear the dreadful graunching noise.
This was a classy establishment, with carpets in the showroom and restrained and besuited salesmen speaking quietly and urgently to the farmers that made up their clientele.
And when we went through the doors, there it was in the centre of the floor.
And when we went through the doors, there it was in the centre of the floor.
A five year old XJ6 4.2 Jaguar.
We went over and sat in the Jag.
It had leather and woodwork in spades, Walnut fold down trays in the back of the drivers seats, a built in VHF radio, an eight track tape player under the dash, electric windows and other things to impress the 13 year old me – like two petrol tanks, and two exhausts curving out of the back.
The keys were in it, and he switched it on. A whole Apollo 15's worth of lights shined on the dash.
The keys were in it, and he switched it on. A whole Apollo 15's worth of lights shined on the dash.
It also did about 12 miles to the gallon, and had an automatic gearbox and a six cylinder engine with pistons the size of coffee mugs.
It was as far from a Land Rover as it was possible to get.
My dad turned and looked at me.
“What do you think of this, then?” he said.
“Its gorgeous, dad.”
He pressed the button that brought down the drivers window and beckoned the salesman over.
“This Jag,” he said, “I’ll take it.”
I don't think I'd ever seen him so happy.
Tuesday, 21 December 2010
A Thing Of Beauty And A Joy Forever
It was August, 1986 and I was about to embark on a long love affair.
With my pockets full of disposable loot, I chugged over to the fair suburb of Knowle in the missus’ Hillman Avenger estate – of which more another time.
I was going to see a Moto Morini 350 Strada – more commonly known as the “three and a half” because of the unusual badging used by Morini.
Moto Morinis are Italian and Beautiful. Think Botticelli's Venus, rather than Ducati's Sophia Loren or Moto Guzzi's Gina Lolabridgida
The Morini was five years old and had seven previous owners. The current owner was a girl, a young student who had just split up with her biker boyfriend and had lost all enthusiasm for matters two wheeled.
The bike was a little dog-eared – all the chrome plate had fallen off the bike from the exhaust system to the headlamp brackets – something that was quite common in Italian motorcycles at the time – in fact even breathing on to the chrome was likely to start it flaking off.
The paint was a little tired, too, with bubbles of rust appearing around the petrol tank.
No matter – this was my dream bike and I rode it 30 yards up the road, rode it back, gave the girl £350 and crobba-crobbed off into the evening sun, with a huge grin on my face.
(Crobba-crobba is the official noise of any Italian V-twin, by the way)
Well the first thing to do with the Morini was to get out and ride her.
So I did ride her, everywhere. The bike was a jewel, and there was hardly anything on the road at the time that could keep up on a country lane or a B-road – many a rider of a big Japanese four came frightfully unstuck trying to keep up on the bends.
Theres nothing unnecessary on a Morini 350. You get a gorgeous lightweight engine, a brilliant frame, good sized petrol tank, and the rest is the best bits from Italian industry. Grimeca brakes and wheels, Marzocchi forks and shocks and even the electrical system works brilliantly.
The only duff bit on the bike was the starter motor. Which I solved by the complicated technical procedure of undoing three bolts and throwing it away. Nowt wrong with kickstarters.
I‘d had her for six months when one night, remembering at around 2am that I hadn’t locked her.
I went outside and found she had been nicked.
I knew that she had an egg cup full of petrol in her tank – and hoped against hope she had coughed to a stop nearby and frantically prowled the streets of St Andrews and Montpelier searching for my lovely bike, but she was nowhere to be found. Eventually I gave up and reported the loss to the police, resigned to never seeing her again.
The following morning a policeman knocked on my door.
They’d found my bike. In Camborne, Cornwall.
Two country boys had come to Bristol to look for work, spent a fortnight on the streets and then given up, stealing my bike to get home on.
I threw tent and sleeping bags into the back of the Avenger and the girlfriend and I headed south west.
I was convinced they had trashed my bike. But when I got to Camborne Police Station she was in better condition than she had been when she had been stolen. The tank was full of petrol, and the oil had been topped up too.
I spent a blissful week in Cornwall in glorious sunshine hacking that little Morini round some of the most perfect biking roads in the country. On occasion I even hoped the two lads didn’t get too badly clobbered for nicking the Morini.
Back home that October I was riding home from the Weston Super Mare beach race when the Morini shattered a valve spring. But because of the pretty unique nature of the engine, the valve did not bend on top of the piston - I even rode the bike ten miles home not realising I had a broken spring.
So I stripped her down for a much needed servicing, replaced as many of the rusty bits as I could, had the seat recovered, spent a fortune on a specialist paint job from Dream Machine (that turned out to be rubbish), and fitted a pair of Tommaselli Gold Commander clip on handlebars.
This just made a great motorcycle brilliant.
The Morini remained my regular transport until the 1990s.
Then I was caught full in the face by the collapse of the late 80s economic miracle, negative equity and all.
I'd started a business two days before Sterling collapsed in 1989, and it all went downhill from there.
I went bust in 1992 and was declared bankrupt in 1993.
And the problem with that was, I wasn't allowed to have any assets worth more than £500. There was every chance the receivers would seize the Morini and sell it.
I was gutted, but There didn't seem to be anyway round it and keep within the law. The Morini was worth more than £500. And then, the day before I was expecting the receiver, I had a brainwave. As a complete motorcycle it was worth more than £500. But as a load of second hand motorcycle parts...
I set too with spanners and sockets, and by the time I'd finished I had three crates of oily parts, two wheels and an engine, worth.... well your guess is as good as mine. The receiver didn't even look at it. And I hadn't broken any rules.
So, 17 years later the Morini sits in my garage still stored in a collection of crates and cardboard boxes, and every so often I go and start to clean up parts with polish and a toothbrush.
Needless to say, a few bits have gone walkabout over the years - and if anyone has a set of 36mm Marzochis out there I'd be very grateful. I have acquired a new engine in the meantime though.
I consider the Moto Morini Three and a Half Strada to be very possibly the finest motorcycle ever built by anybody ever. The purest example of its form. You can keep your Harleys and your Honda Fireblades and your Triumph Bonnevilles. There is no better motorcycle.
One day I will see the return of La Dolce Vita.
With my pockets full of disposable loot, I chugged over to the fair suburb of Knowle in the missus’ Hillman Avenger estate – of which more another time.
I was going to see a Moto Morini 350 Strada – more commonly known as the “three and a half” because of the unusual badging used by Morini.
Moto Morinis are Italian and Beautiful. Think Botticelli's Venus, rather than Ducati's Sophia Loren or Moto Guzzi's Gina Lolabridgida
 |
| A Moto Morini 350. Sort of. |
The Morini was five years old and had seven previous owners. The current owner was a girl, a young student who had just split up with her biker boyfriend and had lost all enthusiasm for matters two wheeled.
The bike was a little dog-eared – all the chrome plate had fallen off the bike from the exhaust system to the headlamp brackets – something that was quite common in Italian motorcycles at the time – in fact even breathing on to the chrome was likely to start it flaking off.
The paint was a little tired, too, with bubbles of rust appearing around the petrol tank.
 |
| oily drainpipes, Rucanors, open face, goggles, red piping on the gloves, black silk scarf, almost a mullet. It must be 1986 |
(Crobba-crobba is the official noise of any Italian V-twin, by the way)
Well the first thing to do with the Morini was to get out and ride her.
So I did ride her, everywhere. The bike was a jewel, and there was hardly anything on the road at the time that could keep up on a country lane or a B-road – many a rider of a big Japanese four came frightfully unstuck trying to keep up on the bends.
Theres nothing unnecessary on a Morini 350. You get a gorgeous lightweight engine, a brilliant frame, good sized petrol tank, and the rest is the best bits from Italian industry. Grimeca brakes and wheels, Marzocchi forks and shocks and even the electrical system works brilliantly.
The only duff bit on the bike was the starter motor. Which I solved by the complicated technical procedure of undoing three bolts and throwing it away. Nowt wrong with kickstarters.
 |
| The bare bones. Add an engine and its all a motorcycle needs |
I‘d had her for six months when one night, remembering at around 2am that I hadn’t locked her.
I went outside and found she had been nicked.
I knew that she had an egg cup full of petrol in her tank – and hoped against hope she had coughed to a stop nearby and frantically prowled the streets of St Andrews and Montpelier searching for my lovely bike, but she was nowhere to be found. Eventually I gave up and reported the loss to the police, resigned to never seeing her again.
The following morning a policeman knocked on my door.
They’d found my bike. In Camborne, Cornwall.
Two country boys had come to Bristol to look for work, spent a fortnight on the streets and then given up, stealing my bike to get home on.
I threw tent and sleeping bags into the back of the Avenger and the girlfriend and I headed south west.
I was convinced they had trashed my bike. But when I got to Camborne Police Station she was in better condition than she had been when she had been stolen. The tank was full of petrol, and the oil had been topped up too.
I spent a blissful week in Cornwall in glorious sunshine hacking that little Morini round some of the most perfect biking roads in the country. On occasion I even hoped the two lads didn’t get too badly clobbered for nicking the Morini.
Back home that October I was riding home from the Weston Super Mare beach race when the Morini shattered a valve spring. But because of the pretty unique nature of the engine, the valve did not bend on top of the piston - I even rode the bike ten miles home not realising I had a broken spring.
So I stripped her down for a much needed servicing, replaced as many of the rusty bits as I could, had the seat recovered, spent a fortune on a specialist paint job from Dream Machine (that turned out to be rubbish), and fitted a pair of Tommaselli Gold Commander clip on handlebars.
 |
| Waldo DR Dobbs, my cat, is unfazed by the beauty of my Tomaselli Gold Commanders |
The Morini remained my regular transport until the 1990s.
Then I was caught full in the face by the collapse of the late 80s economic miracle, negative equity and all.
I'd started a business two days before Sterling collapsed in 1989, and it all went downhill from there.
I went bust in 1992 and was declared bankrupt in 1993.
And the problem with that was, I wasn't allowed to have any assets worth more than £500. There was every chance the receivers would seize the Morini and sell it.
I was gutted, but There didn't seem to be anyway round it and keep within the law. The Morini was worth more than £500. And then, the day before I was expecting the receiver, I had a brainwave. As a complete motorcycle it was worth more than £500. But as a load of second hand motorcycle parts...
I set too with spanners and sockets, and by the time I'd finished I had three crates of oily parts, two wheels and an engine, worth.... well your guess is as good as mine. The receiver didn't even look at it. And I hadn't broken any rules.
So, 17 years later the Morini sits in my garage still stored in a collection of crates and cardboard boxes, and every so often I go and start to clean up parts with polish and a toothbrush.
Needless to say, a few bits have gone walkabout over the years - and if anyone has a set of 36mm Marzochis out there I'd be very grateful. I have acquired a new engine in the meantime though.
I consider the Moto Morini Three and a Half Strada to be very possibly the finest motorcycle ever built by anybody ever. The purest example of its form. You can keep your Harleys and your Honda Fireblades and your Triumph Bonnevilles. There is no better motorcycle.
One day I will see the return of La Dolce Vita.
Saturday, 18 December 2010
Trophies and Dreams and Rock and Roll
After moving to Bristol I bought a Mobylette moped for a fiver to get about on, which was stolen within weeks, rather bizarrely.
I mention this for reasons of continuity only - this is All The Motor Vehicles I Have Ever Owned, after all
I then acquired my second MZ for a tenner.
This was a 1973 ES250 Trophy, a curious beast with leading link forks, which had been sprayed matt black and came with three tea chests full of spares and three spare wheels
A bargain you might think? Regrettably, unlike the first MZ, this one was abysmal. In fact the longest I ever got it to run for was five minutes, it was appalling to ride, having been designed by the East Germans to haul a sidecar and after riding it once I resolved never to ride it again. It was horrid.
I popped a small ad in the Evening Post to sell it, saying “offers invited” and a very strange man indeed with a foot-long white beard and appalling body odour turned up on my doorstep with his twin sons, neither of whom appeared to have a chin.
He went into paroxysms of delight over the MZ and offered me £50 for it. Then I told him I would throw in the spares and he got even more excitable and offered me £100. “So, you, er, like MZs do you?” I said. “Yes. I’ve got 9,” he said and he and sons took it all away
This was a relief as I hadn’t been able to use my shower for some weeks, as it was the only place I had to store the wheels.
Meanwhile the £80 I got for selling the Z400 financed a Blues and Psychedelia night at a night club in the middle of St Pauls.
In those rather more innocent days, one could actually do this without paying people off, operating as a front for something illegal or getting ripped off.
On the other hand, you couldn't actually make any money for anyone to rip-off playing John Lee Hooker and The Strawberry Alarm Clock back to back.
Then I began to "manage" a blues/soul trio called The Red Hot Knives - a sort of punk Booker T and the MGs - and there were many late nights and extremely early mornings, as the band were put on in obscure venues including a vegetarian cafe, a civil service social club and the splendidly named Demolition Ballroom, which one night after a rained off Ashton Court festival saw me join a well meaning bunch of lunatics mount a 12 hour blues/punk/protorap/acid rock spectacular at two hours notice.
My principle job was getting the Red Hot Knives there in one piece and soberish, calling the BBC to promote the gig, lugging the PA and keeping the rainwater from dripping on the mixing desk by holding a tarp over the sound engineer with a broom handle.
We packed around 700 people into the Ballroom that night, a squatted and squalid former furniture showroom which stole its power from a by-passed streetlight. My minor involvement in that night remains one of the things I'm proudest of. It were proper bonkers.
All of which has little to do with Motorcycles, but as the whole effort was financed by a worn out Z400 I felt it deserved a mention.
Anyway, I digress...
For £50 I bought a mates Honda CB250T – this was cheap because he didn’t have the money to spend on a few bits it needed, like an exhaust system and a chain and sprockets.
The Honda wasn’t a half bad bike and was more than capable of getting me about in a fairly unexciting manner.
But that was the rub – unexciting – as stimulating as Thora Hird in a rubber basque.
I buggered about with it a little, ditching the enormous chrome back mudguard and fitting a white plastic moto-crosser one, along with a neat little trail-bike tail-light/number plate set up.
I found a small ad in the back of motor-cycle news for a company that sold budget exhaust systems - fifty quid for bare metal, or sixty for chrome. Being a cheapskate I bought the bare metal one, and sprayed it matt black. I had to take the stand off to make it fit, and it still took a few whacks with a hammer get it on. It looked great, until I started it up, and all the paint fell off.
The remainder of my ownership involved me battling to keep paint attached to the exhaust system. And here's a tip. Never use Hammerite to paint an exhaust system. The smoke produced as it melts is impressive and probably toxic.
Then, in April 1986 the insurance company decided to accept that my XJ 650 – stolen some two years previously – really was not going to turn up again and paid out. Finally I could get myself a really good motorcycle.
I had hard cash, and, as the Honda was running well, I had no real urgent need for a new bike. Which meant that I could take some time to look for a really good one.
Most motorcyclists have wish lists. On mine were a Laverda Jota, A Ducati V-twin (either a 900ss or a Pantah would do) the gorgeous little Moto Morini 350 V-twin and the Yamaha XS650 Custom – but I had resigned myself to never finding any of them in my price range in the near future.
The morning I got the £700 insurance cheque I was idly scanning the columns of Motor Cycle News over a full Irish breakfast - a pint of Guinness and a John Player Special - in the bar of the Old England.
An advert almost leapt off the page at me.
“1980 Moto Morini 350 Strada. £350. no offers. call Bristol.....”
I mention this for reasons of continuity only - this is All The Motor Vehicles I Have Ever Owned, after all
I then acquired my second MZ for a tenner.
This was a 1973 ES250 Trophy, a curious beast with leading link forks, which had been sprayed matt black and came with three tea chests full of spares and three spare wheels
 |
| A MZ ES250. Ghastly |
A bargain you might think? Regrettably, unlike the first MZ, this one was abysmal. In fact the longest I ever got it to run for was five minutes, it was appalling to ride, having been designed by the East Germans to haul a sidecar and after riding it once I resolved never to ride it again. It was horrid.
I popped a small ad in the Evening Post to sell it, saying “offers invited” and a very strange man indeed with a foot-long white beard and appalling body odour turned up on my doorstep with his twin sons, neither of whom appeared to have a chin.
He went into paroxysms of delight over the MZ and offered me £50 for it. Then I told him I would throw in the spares and he got even more excitable and offered me £100. “So, you, er, like MZs do you?” I said. “Yes. I’ve got 9,” he said and he and sons took it all away
This was a relief as I hadn’t been able to use my shower for some weeks, as it was the only place I had to store the wheels.
Meanwhile the £80 I got for selling the Z400 financed a Blues and Psychedelia night at a night club in the middle of St Pauls.
In those rather more innocent days, one could actually do this without paying people off, operating as a front for something illegal or getting ripped off.
On the other hand, you couldn't actually make any money for anyone to rip-off playing John Lee Hooker and The Strawberry Alarm Clock back to back.
Then I began to "manage" a blues/soul trio called The Red Hot Knives - a sort of punk Booker T and the MGs - and there were many late nights and extremely early mornings, as the band were put on in obscure venues including a vegetarian cafe, a civil service social club and the splendidly named Demolition Ballroom, which one night after a rained off Ashton Court festival saw me join a well meaning bunch of lunatics mount a 12 hour blues/punk/protorap/acid rock spectacular at two hours notice.
My principle job was getting the Red Hot Knives there in one piece and soberish, calling the BBC to promote the gig, lugging the PA and keeping the rainwater from dripping on the mixing desk by holding a tarp over the sound engineer with a broom handle.
We packed around 700 people into the Ballroom that night, a squatted and squalid former furniture showroom which stole its power from a by-passed streetlight. My minor involvement in that night remains one of the things I'm proudest of. It were proper bonkers.
All of which has little to do with Motorcycles, but as the whole effort was financed by a worn out Z400 I felt it deserved a mention.
Anyway, I digress...
For £50 I bought a mates Honda CB250T – this was cheap because he didn’t have the money to spend on a few bits it needed, like an exhaust system and a chain and sprockets.
The Honda wasn’t a half bad bike and was more than capable of getting me about in a fairly unexciting manner.
But that was the rub – unexciting – as stimulating as Thora Hird in a rubber basque.
I buggered about with it a little, ditching the enormous chrome back mudguard and fitting a white plastic moto-crosser one, along with a neat little trail-bike tail-light/number plate set up.
 |
| My CB250T, and the best angle to view it from |
I found a small ad in the back of motor-cycle news for a company that sold budget exhaust systems - fifty quid for bare metal, or sixty for chrome. Being a cheapskate I bought the bare metal one, and sprayed it matt black. I had to take the stand off to make it fit, and it still took a few whacks with a hammer get it on. It looked great, until I started it up, and all the paint fell off.
The remainder of my ownership involved me battling to keep paint attached to the exhaust system. And here's a tip. Never use Hammerite to paint an exhaust system. The smoke produced as it melts is impressive and probably toxic.
Then, in April 1986 the insurance company decided to accept that my XJ 650 – stolen some two years previously – really was not going to turn up again and paid out. Finally I could get myself a really good motorcycle.
I had hard cash, and, as the Honda was running well, I had no real urgent need for a new bike. Which meant that I could take some time to look for a really good one.
Most motorcyclists have wish lists. On mine were a Laverda Jota, A Ducati V-twin (either a 900ss or a Pantah would do) the gorgeous little Moto Morini 350 V-twin and the Yamaha XS650 Custom – but I had resigned myself to never finding any of them in my price range in the near future.
The morning I got the £700 insurance cheque I was idly scanning the columns of Motor Cycle News over a full Irish breakfast - a pint of Guinness and a John Player Special - in the bar of the Old England.
An advert almost leapt off the page at me.
“1980 Moto Morini 350 Strada. £350. no offers. call Bristol.....”
Thursday, 16 December 2010
A series of unusual events
After the death of the Honda, a mate lent me a Suzuki TS250 trail bike to get about on and visit the posh bird, which was huge fun. As was the Suzuki.
It looked cool as hell, too, or would have done except the owner had decided to stick enormous peace dove stickers on the petrol tank which rather ruined its hard as nails image
more on a lovely TS250 here
There was a bit of an issue with the exhaust pipe as well.
One can almost imagine the design discussions in Japan when they put this baby together.
"What shall we build Michio-san?"
"Let us build a trail bike, with a powerful engine of our own construction. Let it be rorty and rapid with a comfortable seat and a cool looking petrol tank, and good ground clearance, and a silencer with a funky chrome heat shield as well."
"What shall we make it out of, Michio-san?"
"Let us use the best quality steel and aluminium. Except for the exhaust pipe. For that we shall use the scrap metal we've got left over from those Zero fighters rusting in the scrapyard. Bash it as thin as you can. Then bend it in a ridiculous curve, and stick it right at the front behind the front wheel, where it'll catch all the crud from the road. Don't bother to rust proof it either."
The somewhat perforated nature of the exhaust meant the bike was a bit conspicuous. I tried to fix it with buckets of gun gum, jubilee clips and baked bean tins, to no avail.
After a while the owner took it back – so he could posh it up, and sell it to buy baby clothes, which was a depressingly common event among my chums, and I bought a Kawasaki Z400 twin from another mate for £80.
This was pretty much worn out and very sloppy – the handling was best described as approximate and it didn’t so much accelerate as inexorably gather momentum.
The brakes didn’t.
A curious bike, the Z400 twin. There's Kawasaki making balls-out mental double overhead camshaft fours and insane two stroke triples and they also manage to come up with this rather pedestrian overweight single cam twin.
The Z400 would not have had much impact on me but for an incident one summer afternoon.
I had been out on the bike and parked it up outside my local, just a quater-mile from home. After a mildly boozy lunch involving the quaffing of three or four pints – on a weekday too, those were the days – I was intending to leave the bike and stagger home on foot – but for some reason I decided not to and got on the bike – stuffing my gloves inside my jacket as it was high summer, and jamming my helmet on without fastening it.
Five yards from my house, travelling at 10mph, I wobbled, hit a patch of gravel and the Z400 spat me off. My hands were ripped open as I hit the deck, and my jeans torn open at the knees.
I was covered in blood and went to hospital where the somewhat unsympathetic nurses plucked gravel from my wounds with tweezers, told me to stop whimpering and patched me up. I still have the scars on my left hand and left knee.
It was August 1984 – the last time I used a motor vehicle with any measurable quantity of booze in my system.
In September a series of curious events drew me into a strange bit of business involving several members of a religious cult who declared that they wanted to kill me.
They were upset that I had loudly and drunkenly told a crowded pub one night that their preffered conversion technique of filling their targets with LSD laced herbal tea and telling them about the mysteries of the universe wasn't exactly kosher, and that I felt you couldn't buy enlightenment for £2.50 a tab. This angered their guru.
Threats of violence towards me were made. My flat was invaded by menacing figures at strange times of the day and night. A fire was started in the hallway.
And so I stiffened my upper lip, summoned up all my courage, and I bravely ran away.
Stopping off only briefly to tell the posh bird that her parents were entirely right, and she'd be better off without me (which didn't go down too well), I rode off on the Z400 and hid myself away working in a Dutch tulip bulb packing plant for five weeks, before returning home in the dead of night, gathering up my meagre possessions and heading for a bolt hole in North Devon owned by a platonic lady friend.
The Z400 was pressed into service as I hacked backwards and forwards to Exeter during a pretty nippy winter once a fortnight to sign on, and I learned the virtues of a hard days graft chopping wood for the AGA and the benefits of a four mile walk to the pub.
After a few months of this pretty bucolic existence my welcome was exhausted so I decided it was time for a new start.
I loaded the Z400 again and headed for Bristol.
The Zed's sloppiness had been fairly easy to cope with on Devon country lanes, where the worst things one might come across were a tractor or an unexpected cow. In the big city, a sluggish, lurching, heavy beast with approximate braking and a dodgy ignition system was something of a deathtrap.
A burgeoning career in the music promotions business was beckoning, so I flogged the Z400 to a secondhand shop for £80 and spent the money on venue hire, gig posters and wallpaper paste.
It looked cool as hell, too, or would have done except the owner had decided to stick enormous peace dove stickers on the petrol tank which rather ruined its hard as nails image
more on a lovely TS250 here
There was a bit of an issue with the exhaust pipe as well.
One can almost imagine the design discussions in Japan when they put this baby together.
"What shall we build Michio-san?"
"Let us build a trail bike, with a powerful engine of our own construction. Let it be rorty and rapid with a comfortable seat and a cool looking petrol tank, and good ground clearance, and a silencer with a funky chrome heat shield as well."
"What shall we make it out of, Michio-san?"
"Let us use the best quality steel and aluminium. Except for the exhaust pipe. For that we shall use the scrap metal we've got left over from those Zero fighters rusting in the scrapyard. Bash it as thin as you can. Then bend it in a ridiculous curve, and stick it right at the front behind the front wheel, where it'll catch all the crud from the road. Don't bother to rust proof it either."
The somewhat perforated nature of the exhaust meant the bike was a bit conspicuous. I tried to fix it with buckets of gun gum, jubilee clips and baked bean tins, to no avail.
After a while the owner took it back – so he could posh it up, and sell it to buy baby clothes, which was a depressingly common event among my chums, and I bought a Kawasaki Z400 twin from another mate for £80.
This was pretty much worn out and very sloppy – the handling was best described as approximate and it didn’t so much accelerate as inexorably gather momentum.
The brakes didn’t.
A curious bike, the Z400 twin. There's Kawasaki making balls-out mental double overhead camshaft fours and insane two stroke triples and they also manage to come up with this rather pedestrian overweight single cam twin.
The Z400 would not have had much impact on me but for an incident one summer afternoon.
I had been out on the bike and parked it up outside my local, just a quater-mile from home. After a mildly boozy lunch involving the quaffing of three or four pints – on a weekday too, those were the days – I was intending to leave the bike and stagger home on foot – but for some reason I decided not to and got on the bike – stuffing my gloves inside my jacket as it was high summer, and jamming my helmet on without fastening it.
Five yards from my house, travelling at 10mph, I wobbled, hit a patch of gravel and the Z400 spat me off. My hands were ripped open as I hit the deck, and my jeans torn open at the knees.
I was covered in blood and went to hospital where the somewhat unsympathetic nurses plucked gravel from my wounds with tweezers, told me to stop whimpering and patched me up. I still have the scars on my left hand and left knee.
It was August 1984 – the last time I used a motor vehicle with any measurable quantity of booze in my system.
In September a series of curious events drew me into a strange bit of business involving several members of a religious cult who declared that they wanted to kill me.
They were upset that I had loudly and drunkenly told a crowded pub one night that their preffered conversion technique of filling their targets with LSD laced herbal tea and telling them about the mysteries of the universe wasn't exactly kosher, and that I felt you couldn't buy enlightenment for £2.50 a tab. This angered their guru.
Threats of violence towards me were made. My flat was invaded by menacing figures at strange times of the day and night. A fire was started in the hallway.
And so I stiffened my upper lip, summoned up all my courage, and I bravely ran away.
Stopping off only briefly to tell the posh bird that her parents were entirely right, and she'd be better off without me (which didn't go down too well), I rode off on the Z400 and hid myself away working in a Dutch tulip bulb packing plant for five weeks, before returning home in the dead of night, gathering up my meagre possessions and heading for a bolt hole in North Devon owned by a platonic lady friend.
The Z400 was pressed into service as I hacked backwards and forwards to Exeter during a pretty nippy winter once a fortnight to sign on, and I learned the virtues of a hard days graft chopping wood for the AGA and the benefits of a four mile walk to the pub.
 |
| This is my actual Z400 and is the oldest photograph I have of one of my vehicles. Note the blown fork seals, rusty-o-matic exhaust and broken headlight glass from where I'd dropped it outside the flat. |
After a few months of this pretty bucolic existence my welcome was exhausted so I decided it was time for a new start.
I loaded the Z400 again and headed for Bristol.
The Zed's sloppiness had been fairly easy to cope with on Devon country lanes, where the worst things one might come across were a tractor or an unexpected cow. In the big city, a sluggish, lurching, heavy beast with approximate braking and a dodgy ignition system was something of a deathtrap.
A burgeoning career in the music promotions business was beckoning, so I flogged the Z400 to a secondhand shop for £80 and spent the money on venue hire, gig posters and wallpaper paste.
Wednesday, 15 December 2010
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