|
Sidecar Ramblings
Latest ramblings at the top.
(from our Far Eastern correspondent, Tony Melling)
https://sites.google.com/site/mzoverland/etz
Sidecar Ramblings 24th June 2011
Periodically I have a browse on Yahoo Auctions, the Japanese version and earlier last week I spied a Jawa complete with sidecar but fitted with a Rotax engine. This model must be rare in Japan and the asking price reflected itʼs condition which wasnʼt very good. There was also an MZ sidecar for sale but a bit rough and they were asking an extortionate price although they have dropped it by a reasonable amount but still no bids.
I was curious to see if there was to be any interest in this Jawa and a few days later I checked again. Yes, still there and no bids. I continued looking through the sidecar pages, a few Harleys, Gold wings, a Bee Emm and suddenly I couldnʼt believe my eyes. The MZ outfit that I very regrettably sold in favour of buying a Bee Emm was for sale. We have mourned the passing of this sidecar bike for some time now but there it was looking a little neglected but basically just the same as I sold it. We contacted the seller and negotiated a price and in seconds it was removed from the Auction site. Iʼve mentioned before about the pros and cons of riding an MZ outfit here in Japan but we feel that the fun factor outweighs any problems associated with the mountains or Highways. i.e. not much power going up and relying solely on the brakes on the decent. The bike is situated about 250 miles away but will be delivered next week sometime. Watch this space for a further instalment!
Oh! The Jawa and MZ sidecar are still for sale with no bids.
PS BMW R100cs with Watsonian Monaco sidecar for sale. It has to go as a more superior outfit is taking itʼs place.
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
23 August 2010
Everyone loves a sidecar. Well not really but the ones that do are passionate about them. I would like to see more articles about sidecars and in particular MZ related sidecar articles. So if there is sufficient demand I am willing to collect stories, photo’s and a register if need be. So for starters here is a brief insight into my sidecar memories.
Everybody asks, “why a sidecar?” Well the answer is the same as for the question, “why do you ride a motorcycle?” If anyone feels the need to ask these questions they will never understand the answer.
My addiction for sidecars started back in the fifties. I was engrossed in the “Green Un and the Blue Un” and for those of you that are unfamiliar with these phrases, they refer to to Motor Cycle magazines that were very popular in their day. One was called “Motorcycling” and the other “Motorcycle” I forget which colour was which. I read and reread these mags from cover to cover. They were my initiation into the world of Motorcycling. These were the days when you could pick up an ex army BSA M20 for £7-10s. Sounds cheap but that was two weeks wages for me when I began earning a crust at 15. They were advertised at Pride & Clarke, a dealer in London which seemed an awful long way for me still riding a pushbike.
The pages were full of adverts because at that time there were many sidecar manufactures. Only a handful were destined to survive and 1959 saw the peak of both manufacturing and sales but it was to change very soon. Bad management, reluctance to reinvest, the introduction of the bubble car and close behind came the Mini.
There were stories of trips to far and wide places and some with sidecars. These stories fired a desire to travel and preferably with a sidecar.
I passed my test in 1960. My father had never owned neither a car or a motorcycle and bought me my first bike for my 16th birthday for which I am eternally grateful. A BSA Bantam 175 Super. I soon progressed to a Norton ES2. I paid the dizzy price of £20 for this and thought it was wonderful.
However the desire to try an outfit became stronger and stronger. I bought my first sidecar outfit, a Triumph Thunderbird (remembered as my worst bike) attached to a Watsonian Avon single seat sidecar from Wall & Sagars in Lancaster. I paid the money and left the shop, no advice on how to drive a sidecar outfit, nothing. On leaving the shop I was confronted with a roundabout on which I wanted to turn left to go down the A6 to Preston. I really didn’t want to go to Fleetwood but that’s where I ended up heading because I couldn’t get the outfit to turn left.
My biggest regret was that I took very few photo’s in those days and what little I had have been lost or misplaced over the years. I have moved house many times and countries too so yes, I do wish I had kept photographic details of my motorcycling life.
Did my stint for Queen and country, No not behind bars, I enjoyed Army life for 4 years but bought myself out because I couldn’t get out of Germany and I wanted to travel. On being de-mobbed I bought a BSA A10 with a Busmar double adult sidecar. The family had increased in numbers and so needs must. The bike was wonderful but the sidecar felt like a house on the side and like many others at the time I decided to move on to four wheels. Ha but not for long!
Episode 2
Life was about to change, drastically. Like many others, I got married to young and paid for it later. Whilst in the army I didn’t see my wife so much, drove HGVs for a couple of years when I came out of the army and saw her even less. Then I lost my licence, worked in a factory and saw her everyday. what a nightmare!
I suppose she was OK really but we just didn’t get on so we decided to separate and that was a turning point in my motorcycling life.
I was alone more or less hence no need for a sidecar. I bought and ran many bikes.
Honda, Guzzi, Triumph, BMW and one day whilst working in Blackburn I saw an MZ. A guy in my factory had an new ES250. Looking at it I was impressed but he had no end of bother starting it.
Two more years went by and I was driving heavy plant machinery for a living and covering around a thousand miles a week rather than lodge out. Plus many miles at weekend doing the occasional Rally. I was running BMWs then, my first new one was an R90/6. Great bike. I loved it. I found an old R60 and after putting in an R75/5 engine in I attached it to a Squire sidecar. I didn’t like Squires, still don’t but I got it cheap.
Other and better outfits soon followed. 750 F1 Honda attached to a new Danish Bender sidecar, I sat attached lightly because after collecting it from a dealer, it collapsed in a big heap on the way home. I tried a Mark 1 California Guzzi attached to a Watsonian Monza. This I liked. The Guzzi has a much better frame than the BeeEmms and handled the sidecar effortlessly.
Then out of the blue I wanted a smaller bike. I had ridden countless numbers of miles, even more in kilometers but I had been white lining. Well that’s what I call it. Sitting in the saddle mile after mile and seeing nothing only the white line in the center of the road. Some days I would finish work at Friday lunch time and make for the nearest ferry and attend a rally in Sweden or some other distant location and be back at work late Monday or tuesday morning. I’d seen nothing, to tired to enjoy the rally and suddenly it’s time to go home again.
I remembered the ES 250 and thought hmm MZ, I wonder. By now the TS 250 was in the shops. It also got a good write up in the Motorcycle press so I bought a new, red TS250. I was hooked. Well and truly this was the beginning of my addiction to MZs. Very soon as the Super five was launched I ordered a blue one. This bike was to re-enforce my belief in MZs.
I collected my first TS250/1 on January 2nd 1979. Outside there was about 10 inch of snow on the ground. The dealer said that they hadn’t road tested the bike due to the inclement weather but had completed the normal PDI check. Now get this, I don’t and never have tell or told porkies.
I ran this bike for the next six weeks and covered 400 miles. Weather as it was forced me to do nothing but short trips. However in mid february I was due to attend a sidecar rally in Germany and decided I wanted to use my MZ. The night before the off I checked points, plug and gearbox oil. Hmmm it seems to be taking a lot of oil. 3/4 of a liter in fact. The bike was garaged, no oil on the floor, no oil spayed around the bike, but I quickly came to the conclusion that there had never been any oil in the gearbox from day1. Unbelievable but true.
I left the MZ in my garage and went to the rally on my BMW/sidecar. On return I took the MZ back to the dealer. I told him what I had found and he said that’s impossible. I said to him that if I had been at fault I would have said nothing and just returned the bike on warranty. I asked him to strip down the gearbox just to check everything was in good order. This he did and when I collected the bike he said that there was no apparent wear but the gears were a nice shade of blue. I took him at his word and ran this bike for another 25,000 miles with no problems. Good stuff these MZs.
Now it was on these overseas rallies that I saw quite a lot of MZs with sidecars. Sure I’d seen them in the UK but few and far between. The problem was that the Stoye sidecar made for the MZ was for R/H fitment so I decided to fit a Velorex to an ES 250.
I used Ball and Claw fittings bought from a Ural dealer and extended the bottom section of the Earls fork to reduce the trail on the front wheel. Very happy with this one but I still fancied an MZ chair.
Episode 3
The years went by and I bought and sold quite a few MZs, some with sidecars and some without. It was through having an MZ that I met my best mate Brian Southworth from Nelson. We were introduced to each other over a pint at the Eagle and child in Leyland, the North West Sections meeting place. I lived in Earby and with Brian at Nelson we rode home together up the A59. OK, we’d had a few pints but with me leading and Brian doing a heroic job of following me. When we eventually stopped Brian commented, “ What’s the hurry?” I explained that for about the last 5 miles the throttle was wide open due to the slide in the carb stuck at the top of it’s travel.The dowel pin that keeps the carb slide in a central position had worked loose and gone inward and held the slide open. I had just waited for the most convenient place to stop. The crankcase took in quite a bit of petrol but once restarted and after about 10 miles everything was back to normal.
We travelled together during the coming years. Scotland, Applecross, Wales for the Dragon. It must be said that although I have an affection for sidecars, I am not an enthusiastic passenger. When we went to the Dragon Brian was the ballast in the chair and I mentioned at one stage that I don’t like being passenger. I drank to much Polish spirit at the rally and Brian drove the outfit home. Oh! memories. Never did live that one down.
In 1987 I was running a Jawa 350 with a sidecar, again it came very cheap. I was determined to try and organize a winter sidecar rally. I spent a good few weekends the previous summer up and down the dales looking for a suitable rally site and eventually found one at Dent. Margaret Taylor at High Laning camp site thought me quite mad to want to camp in Winter.
Me on the Jawa and Brian on an MZ with sidecar. It was cold on the way to Dent, very cold with a lot of ice on the roads but after a bacon butty and a mug of tea at Devils Bridge we were in high spirits for the 1st MZ sidecar rally.
It was whilst at Devils Bridge sitting on the wall as you do when two guys walked past us. They were wearing diving gear and had just surfaced from the river. On passing us one commented to the other “Bloody Hell, I wouldn’t like to be riding a bike in this weather”.
We laughed all the way to Dent.
Thirteen people checked in for the rally including Simon Greenwood, ( I still can’t absorb that Simon is not with us anymore, We were going to do the Himalayas together ) his girlfriend at the time Karen, Dave Johns on a Honda 90 with sidecar and Frank Todd from Preston.
Simon came on an ES and MZ sidecar that he had previously bought from me and camped next to me along side the east wall of the field. Fortunately it was dark when they arrived because on waking in the morning, not only was everyone greeted by about 10 inches of snow that had fallen over night but Karen then found out that on the other side of the wall was the graveyard. She was quite alarmed to find out that she had been sleeping literarily about 12 feet from the nearest grave.
I made a version of Hot Gluewein which went down a treat, the Sun pub made us feel really welcome because normally at that time of year they would be very quiet. All in all I was very pleased with the first attempt at our first winter rally and I’m pleased to see that a Winter event is still is still being held although not always at the same location.
Episode 4. The Final
Another house move. This time to Salterforth and wow I had my first garage. The car sat at the front of the house and I had the garage ( actually it was originally a small Bakery or so I was told by the old timers of the village ) solely for the bikes. I built another ES and Velorex outfit but her indoors, yes I got married again, wasn’t keen on bikes so I let that go. The ES and MZ chair that I sold Simon had been perfect for me but my daughter wasn’t keen on facing oncoming traffic with the chair on the offside and Simon made much better use of it than I did.
I bought an Ex police BMW, found a very low mileage engine with the intention of building another outfit but my enthusiasm waned when constant remarks of discouragement or should I say lack of encouragement from my wife. I shelved this idea, sold all my bike related gear with one exception of an ETZ 250.
I went to a rally in Czechoslovakia on this one. Apart from a blown fuse the trip was trouble free. Great beer in Czecho. On the return trip I clocked 946 miles in 19 hours plus the ferry time. It was Motorway almost all of the way and as boring as hell but I had to return to work. I left the rally site at 7am on Sunday morning and arrived at work at 9am on monday morning.
I bought a Honda 90 to do a trip for charity. That involved riding to the North cape, 4500 miles in 24 days. Great trip, I filled the gas tank 44 times. I felt like throwing it in the North Sea on the return trip.
I found that my passion for bikes did nothing for my marital harmony, I tried a caravan, trailer tent, camping but nothing suited her. So again my home life broke down.
And so to present day. In 2003 I choose to move lock stock and barrel to Japan. Almost 7 years ago and no regrets. Sure I miss some things, a nice fire in the winter, late nights, (it goes dark here at around 7pm in the summer) and of course the camping rallies. Not many of those about here.
Shortly after arriving here I found an MZ ETZ251 complete with MZ sidecar. I couldn’t believe it. I was told that there were about 70 outfits imported in around 1991 but I can;t confirm that. It seems a high number. It needed tidying up It ran well but the frame was twisted. I soon found a donor bike and made a very sound outfit. The traffic drives on the left just the same as the UK but the volume of traffic and ridiculous speed limits dictate much slower speeds. OK for the MZ but the downside is that if you keep to the coastal roads where 80% of the population live, you have to contend with heavy traffic and tailbacks. If you ride inland it becomes very mountainous and the MZ with a chair on the side does struggle, both on the accent and on the decent.
So I sold my MZ and bought at great expense here a BMW R100cs with a Watsonian Monaco sidecar. It hasn’t solved the problem of driving on the heavily congested areas. Overheating is a constant problem. 30 mile tailbacks are quite common. I used this outfit to show my wife, Ha yes I did it again but no worries, she likes bikes, she had a Honda CBR 600 when we met. She likes camping and sidecars and most importantly she loves MZs.
In 2008 I shipped the BMW to England and toured for 5 months. My wife and a friend joined me for 3 months. We covered the UK, Scandinavia, as far south as the Swiss border but we thought that the highlight of our trip was the Hebrides. We are very grateful to Jim and Catherine in Ireland, Andy Ross on Berneray and many others that we met on our travels.
Since we returned to Japan we have been taking stock and despite the pro’s and con;s of running an MZ outfit that we have decided that we enjoy the MZ much more than the BMW. I have bought and restored an ETZ250 and had the intention of fitting a flat bed chassis on the left side and mounting an MZ sidecar body on it. We have discussed this idea but think that it will be much cheaper to find a complete ETZ251 with a chair. Despite the fact that the chair would be on the wrong side it doesn’t really matter in Japan. The sidecar fraternity here in Japan of which vastly out numbers UK sidecarists ride with outfits on either side. Many are Harleys, Side-bikes from France just to name a few.
In 2012 I intend riding from Japan to the UK across Russia and then maybe onward across the states to complete the circumnavigation and a chair on the left would be more practical. If I don’t find or construct an MZ of my choosing for this trip I will use my solo MZ but either way it will be by MZ.
So there you have it, a very brief run down of my motorcycle life. If you wish to ask me anything about sidecars, MZs travel, shipping etc, drop me an email. My contact address is on my web site.
https://sites.google.com/site/mzoverland/
Ride Safe
Tony Melling Japan
August 2010
|
