Morris Minor Owners Club

Okay folks, I have decided to use my savings to learn to ride a motorbike - so, I will be booking lessons, hopefully, over the next couple of weeks once I've checked out all the local schools.

Now, I don't necessarily need abike of my own straight away, but eventually I'l be looking for something cheap and cheerful - and prefeably relatively "classic" (or just old and knackered!) to use just on weekends and the odd day trip.
I love the older CZs, but everyone else reckons they're rubbish, but I can't bring myself to look at anything Japanese as I really dislike them, don't know why, think it's just my own personal prejudices.
I'm looking for something, really, really cheap - like, less than two hundred notes? Is it too much to ask? May be able to stretch a teensy bit more, depending on how much lessons and extras (helmet/gloves/boots etc) are going to cost.
Any ideas would be welcome, even considering anything without a current MOT if it's better than scrap and not dangerous.

Cheers!

'Everyone else' is WRONG! CZs and MZs are cool, still relatively cheap and damn good fun - just beware of the brakes and tyres, a bit like the Mog.

Seconded on the CZ opinion; I also had a Jawa 350 / Velorex combination which was really good and very reliable. The bike was the old black one with chrome panels on the tank, and was rather beautiful.

Differently beautiful, perhaps, but hey...


Off-the-shelf spares for all the eastern bloc bikes used to be cheap and easily-got. I'm not sure if that's still the case, though. I had a small collection of derelict bikes for donor material; I guess that derelict ones might be getting thinner on the ground, too.

Thanks guys, this bike, if I ever got hold of one, would just be for local tootling around and the odd slightly longer drive to work - it certainly wouldn't be for regular road use.

But I think I'll get lessons first, pass my CBT and then look around for something - I found the CZ/Jawa UK owners' club, so I may join up once I've got started on lessons.

Nothing wrong with Jap bikes. You won't get much bike for your cash though, but a Honda C90 will do all a CZ can but with reliability (and possibly faster).


Pete

You can pick up dirt cheap CZ/MZ's fairly easily. Personally I'm on the side of the MZ's, better performance and reliability; but it depends what you're after.

Jap bikes-----Credit where it's due!

Maybe so, but I'm just not too keen on them myself - same as I don't like modern cars, nothing wrong with them but I don't want one.

Haven't been on this forum for a looong while but...

I recently passed my full bike test and have a Jawa 350 which is a 350cc 2-stroke twin, made in Czechoslovakia. It doesn't currently run as it's been off the road since 1999 but I got given it for free. One thing I really don't like about it is the seat is too high for me. I'm 5'7 and I have to tip-toe to get my foot on the ground.

I wouldn't knock Japanese bikes though - they are still a lot of fun and very reliable. I also have a 17 year old Yamaha RXS100 which has a huge mileage on the clock, but always starts first kick, does nearly 100mpg and puts up with loads of abuse (i.e. me redlining it everywhere).

I'm going to be getting rid of the Jawa and getting another cheap old Jap bike instead!

P.S. If you want to talk some more about bikes a good site is http://www.bikechatforums.com.

i had an mz used it for dispatch riding years ago.
they reckon they were bullet proff but i shot a bolt straight through the side of the engine

covered me in oil and had to be recovered back.

we stripped the engine out and couldn't find anything wrong until we hit the piston and the valve had danced about on the piston for a bit and reseated itself nicely but left a hole the size of 10p in the piston.

that ended that bikes life and my dispatch riding career

MZ all the way,i like all this east european stuff but wont touch a CZ,Jawas are slightly better.Everything on an MZ is made of alluminium,but on a cz its all steel and chromed steel which rusts.The engines dont last well either.Ive had 6 MZ's and they are great,ETZ's sufferwith problems on 3rd gear,and TS's with electrics.
Personally i would look for an early to mid 80's MZ ETZ250.

steve4063 wrote:i had an mz used it for dispatch riding years ago.
they reckon they were bullet proff but i shot a bolt straight through the side of the engine

covered me in oil and had to be recovered back.

we stripped the engine out and couldn't find anything wrong until we hit the piston and the valve had danced about on the piston for a bit and reseated itself nicely but left a hole the size of 10p in the piston.

that ended that bikes life and my dispatch riding career

There are no valves in an MZ?? sometimes if you fit a longer plug it can burn a hole in the piston.

You won't get much bike for your cash though, but a Honda C90 will do all a CZ can but with reliability (and possibly faster).

Big up the Honda Cub!!

I spent my youth riding 90's around the local quarries with the farings taken off for clearance.

...and you won't be able to do a A1 bike test on a C90, it's too smaller capacity

I loved my ETZ125, it was fantastically light and had the best brakes in the world. They're the same brakes as are on a 70s Ducati (much heavier) and you can stoppie the bike with two fingers on the lever.

Not that I did that on my first test, no, not at all. (My examiner wasn't impressed...).

That bike was a star, even when the oil pump failed it got me to work despite seizing twice on the way. The top end bearing had disintegrated and fired itself into the cylinder head, all that was left was some of the cage. Still ran though... sounded attrocious though

Quick top end rebuild, and some cleaning up of the cylinder head and off we went again

My current 'zed (a Kanuni-MZ ETZ 251) has been travelling 30 miles a day (when I'm on nights) despite having a failed oil seal and oozing twostroke oil from the base gasket. Cost me 45 quid and another 20 or so to get it through it's MOT...

DanRodd wrote:

steve4063 wrote: we stripped the engine out and couldn't find anything wrong until we hit the piston and the valve had danced about on the piston for a bit and reseated itself nicely but left a hole the size of 10p in the piston.

There are no valves in an MZ??

There are 4 stroke MZ's but they aren't common so that is probably why you didn't realise the existed.
Originally they fitted a 500cc Rotax engine into basically an uprated 250/301 two stroke chassis
( http://www.mz.scotland.btinternet.co.uk ... sandy1.gif )but latter developed a new machine around a Yamaha lump
( http://www.motorbyte.com/mmm/pages/revi ... n97_98.htm ).
They now make their own 4 stroke engine but I've never seen one and just know it exists by looking on web sites.


Paul humphries.

I've seen a few of the new four stroke 125 'zeds. It was *lovely*.

Pyoor_Kate wrote:I've seen a few of the new four stroke 125 'zeds. It was *lovely*.

I searched everwhere, for ages, after a Rotax powered version.
Seems they didn't sell many and owners tend to like them so much they hang on to them.
I ended up with a Honda CB400A automatic instead (I have a duff left leg so it suits me better anyway)

Paul Humphries