Imagine suddenly being given enough money to go out and buy any new bike you wanted. That was the enviable position I found myself in a few years back, courtesy of two mindless tit-heads who attacked me one night on the way home from the pub. They left me so badly injured that I lost my left eye. However, a meaty compensation cheque arrived sometime later and (wearing a black leather eye-patch) I immediately rushed out to buy a brand new Harley.
Several months later I moved about 15 miles out of town. It soon became apparent that commuting to work every day was going to kick the hell out of my Harley and generally reduce it to a pile of scrap metal. After viewing some ageing Jap 250s whose owners seemed to think they were worth a small fortune, I eventually bought a 1990 MZ ETZ251 for the slightly over the odds price of £550.
It'd been stuffed several times by the original owner who then deemed it to be jinxed and promptly left it standing for 16 months. By the time I got my hands on it there were 1200 miles on the clock and it was like new apart from the accident damage, amounting to a smashed headlight, fractured speedo mounting bracket and bashed in downpipe and silencer.
After bodging the bike back into roadworthy condition I was ready for take off. Because it had been standing for so long I booted it over for a good two hours before the engine fired. Eventually, I headed off down the road in a cloud of blue smoke and the characteristic ring-dinging MZ exhaust note. My first impression was that nothing happened when I opened the throttle and that the sports moped I owned as a 16 year old used to have more power. I hadn't ridden anything relatively small for the previous nine years, so this probably had a lot to do with how the bike felt.
The speedo seemed to confirm the lack of performance, wouldn't go beyond 45mph. It soon became obvious that the clock was accident damaged, as after several seconds it would surge from 45mph to whatever speed the bike was actually doing. By the time I reconditioned myself to riding a small bike again I was able to appreciate that the performance was pretty good for a mere 250 single.
Although still awkward to start (until I mastered the technique of kicking it over first with the ignition off and choke on), the bike was pressed into immediate service as a commuter and general hack. My wife who had only previously been on the back of my Harley and its predecessor, a GSX1100, loved the bike at first sight. She used adjectives like pathetic, tiny and deathtrap, to describe it. She wasn't too chuffed to find it was now our daily transport to work and summed up the pillion seat as like sitting on a razor blade.
However, the MZ grew on me in a big way over the coming months. Being small and light it was easy to chuck around bends at outlandish angles, and was an ideal laxative when the roads were constipated by too many turds in cars. The controls were light (as long as no rain has penetrated the cables) and the brakes more than powerful enough. It does surge back and forth on the overrun, violent enough to warrant slipping the clutch on occasion to keep the motor spinning.
Top end’s anything between 55 and 80mph depending on gradient and wind conditions. It runs out of steam pretty rapidly into a strong wind, requiring a down change to fourth and a good bollocking to keep speed up. I’m not too concerned about hammering it as it seems to wind up to about 6000 revs and then level off, as opposed to carrying on until the piston pops out to say hello, hello.
It's always been the sort of machine that | can just get on and ride anywhere without worrying, as reliability has never been a factor. It could certainly teach my Harley a trick or two in the reliability stakes. If I had to make a life or death journey, I'd almost certainly take the MZ as I’d have a better chance of getting there. It has never yet failed to get me home, unlike a certain American machine | could mention. The MZ’s reliability is even more remarkable in terms of the amount of use it gets (around 160 miles per week, month in, month out, over a four year period) and because I don’t exactly go overboard with the cleaning and maintenance.
Electrics are the only area that have caused real hassle, serious winter rain induced an incapacitating misfire, though a new HT lead and plug sorted that. The fuses didn’t like rain or even remaining within their terminals for long. And when they came adrift, the bike stopped as though the ignition had been switched off. This usually happened at the most inconvenient moments such as when halfway round a roundabouts, etc. Eventually I wired the electrics direct and ran one mega fuse from the battery, which resolved the problem.
The MZ managed about 250 miles on a tank of two-stroke, but petrol consumption’s higher than I'd expect with the large tank emptying itself at a fairly rapid rate. I've never properly calculated it, but estimate about 40mpg.
Other factors consist of replacing the downpipe and silencer with items from a scrappy, as it became impossible to maintain a gas tight seal with the accident damaged originals. The thread in the barrel, where the downpipe screwed in, was also knackered in said accident. Matt’s Engineering of Abercynon grafted some studs around the exhaust port and produced an arrangement whereby the downpipe’s secured by a bottom clamp like a Jap bike. I was encouraged when the mechanic at Matt's said the engine internals still looked like new. This was some achievement after two years’ hard use.
The bike also acquired a slightly buckled front wheel, courtesy of some impatient lump of faeces in a cage. I had the misfortune to slide off on some oil on the way to work and instead of granting me five seconds grace to pick the bike up off the road, the twat in the car behind rammed the bike twice to knock it out of his way, then drove over the front wheel to get past. It's one of the biggest regrets of my life that I didn’t get his registration number, my excuse being that having broken my left shoulder I was too shaken up. On riding away, I was happy to note that the new blow to the speedo had cured it of sticking at 45mph.
The gearbox main shaft also expired after 22000 miles (mainly because there was always a lot of condensation in the gearbox oil which I was unable to shift). The bike still ran normally but sounded like a can of nails. Matt’s Engineering did the biz again, and although the repair probably cost about half the bike’s value, it was still cheaper than trying to buy something else of equal standing and reliability.
Surprisingly enough, some thieving bastard has tried to steal the bike twice from outside my parents’ house in Cardiff. I’d have thought that a well used MZ wouldn't feature too highly in the aspiring motorcycle thief’s portfolio of desirable machinery.
The cost of consumables has been negligible in four years of ownership, and the bike has paid for itself many times over in terms of the wear and tear it has saved my Harley.
Heavy fuel consumption has been the only downer, but it’s an easy bike to keep on the road with most problems solved by the competent home bodger. I expect to ride it for some time yet, not withstanding my wife who often slags it off and urges me to get shot of it at the earliest opportunity! However, when it finally does expire I'd have no hesitation in replacing it with another MZ.
Steve Lewis