Three years ago............

Three years ago my best mate died. He was no age, fit and healthy, his heart just stopped.

Still missing you Chairman

And a Happy New Year

Well I've been very lax keeping this blog up to date. Mind you I've not really done much this year. The buggered knee has failed to get a whole lot better, so I think I'll be going to get some physio next year so hoepfully I will be able to walk around on a day out and not end unable to walk more than 10 yards the next day.

And next year will see me back to work, after a year off. Would be nice not to but there's no money left in the pot. After a year off I like the idea of being a pharmacist even less than I did before, but such is life! And a bit of sorting out and eBaying should help fill the coffers again ( or at least stop them emptying!)

So to all out there reading in blogland I wish you a happy and succesful and love filled new year

And to Jan who has looked after me for the last year , I love you babes xxx. And thanks to my Dad, without who I don't know how I would have kept my head above water

Wiesel bits

Well I took a wander round tinterweb and ordered a box of bits for my Wiesel. Someone had had fun and games with the wiring so instead of making a new harness myself (my usual approach) I ordered one which I will measure up before it goes on so I can make my own for the Berlins.Also ordered the proper battery which will fit the Berlins and Pitty as well. Settled on a lead acid instead of a gel battery as I tend not to replace stuff like regulators unless I have to. Some bits of rubber and a strap for the new battery rounded out the order. And yes Ive forgotten some bits so I'm already putting the next order together! So if anyone watching this blog wants some bits for IWL scooters I can highly recommend Jens Hartung. He also does bits for MZ.AWO and EMW so I think he will be seeing quite a bit of my money!

Bow down before me!

For I now own the holy grail!

Knee update

Well 7 weeks on, and 6 weeks after my operation, I am now allowed to bend my knee and start taking some weight on it. My consultant is not a great believer in Physiotherapy and my instructions were " you know what a knee is meant to do, so make it do it"! Don't go back to see him for another 6 weeks so hopefully I will have made good progress by then. Bit disappointed I won't have a big gruesome scar to show off but the surgeon only put two full depth stitches in, and the rest was done with steristrips

Next time Im in hospital I am going to see if I can get a copy of my x-rays! If notyou should be able to, it would be a great fund raiser for the NHS. So in the mean time I have had to rely on google to find an x-ray that looks like mine

Well back to exercising my leg...

Normal service will be resumed........

............but not for quite a while. A slip when about to leave the Rallymans Rally a couple of weeks ago left me with a medial tibial plateau fracture of the left knee. Out of hopsital now but not allowed to put any weight on my left leg for at least 6 weeks and total recovery estimated at 6 months minimum. Bugger.

...........and a happy new year

A nice little threesome part 2

So the next morning I get up and have breakfast, pack my stuff up, throw it in the sidecar and wait for the garage to return. While I'm waiting I start looking at the bike and realise that my idea of restoration differ somewhat from the bloke I just bought the bike from. Loads of nice shiny new bolts, but most are hugely over length, and when I grab the bike and shake it around I find that the sidecar mounting bolts are all loose. So out comes the toolkit I brought with me and half an hour later at least the sidecar is unlikely to come off on the ride home. By midday I'm on my 5th coffee and second packet of fags so I phone breakdown and they say they will find out what the holdup is. When they phone back they explain the garage didn't have a 6V charger so had to wait till the morning to find a bike shop to charge the battery up. Eventually they turn up around 5pm, the battery is connected and off we go. Except that half an hour later I am at the side of the road again with a dead bike. Same problem, and I realise that the problem is that although the bike is charging, its not putting out as much power as I am drawing. So another call to breakdown, the same garage come out and by 9 I am safely esconced in the same hotel I left that morning! Europ-Assistance phone me at the hotel and tell me what the next move was. So at 10 the next morning, after seeing the bike disappear on the back of a truck I get a taxi to the nearest train station, where I book a ticket to Rotterdam. And then the ferry to Hull, and then a train home. (All receipts sent to the company and reimbursed in a month) And a couple of weeks later I get a phonecall at work saying my bike will be arriving at my home address in an hour. I arrive home just in time to stop a mahoosive lorry trying to get down my street, the Pannonia is unloaded and the bloke even gives me a hand pushing it round to my lockup! So thanks Carol Nash... i certainly got my moneys worth from that policy! Oh and the fault was tracked down to the fact that the bike is equipped with a flywheel charging system producing a whole 45W of 6V electrons! And so a collaboration with MZ-B ended up in the production of a 12v 100W system which will, in the fullness of time allow ALL the lights to glow brightly

A nice little threesome!

I blame eBay... and alcohol. Otherwise how would I have found a bike I had never heard of before, and buy it, and arrange to drive it back from Germany.

A Pannonia 250 single, with a Duna sidecar and a Motokuli sidecar. All apparently restore and ready for me to ride back,,,, or maybe not but more of that later. So having won this on eBay I arranged to get myself over to Germany, hand over the money, sign the paperwork and ride the Pannonia back to the UK. And then I developed a lousy cold... snotty, achy and with a fever to light fags off. But the coach to Germany was booked, so off I set from sunny Bradford Many many hours later I arrived in the nearest city to the bike, grabbed my bag with my helmet, gloves, waterproofs etc in it and jumped off the coach. Only after the coach left to its next destination Didi I realise that I had left my jacket, with the money for the bike safely zipped up in the pocket, on the coach.SHIT!!!!!!!!!!!!!. So I find the coach office and explain whats happened. They explain that the coach will be returning in 4 hours time and they will contact the next stop to tell the driver to secure my jacket. So I phone the seller of the bike and explain the delay, and he is OK and tells me to phone him when I arrive at the train station nearest his place. Four hours later Im feeling even more like death warmed up and awaiting the coach's return. And eventually it pulls up and there is my jacket and more importantly the money. A one hour train journey and I am waiting for the seller to arrive... and wait... and wait. Just as I am thinking it might all be a huge scam, and I'm going to be left at a station in the middle of Germany, he turns up and we set off to finally do the deal. And the Pannonia looks lovely, All shiny paint, new seat, the sidecar has all new internal panels and seat, all looks good. So I hand over the money , sign some papers and we go out to stick my stuff in the sidecar and set off. Now being some 4 hours later than intended its starting to get dark, so i start the bike, runs great, and turn on the lights.... and the lights are like glow worms. SHIT again!. So we set to removing any bulbs we can do without... pilot bulb, speedo lights, rear lights on the bike ( well it's got lights on the trailer) rear lights on the sidecar ( well it's got lights on the trailer!) and off I set, into the increasing gloom A couple of hours later and the motor is running fine, keeping a steady 80kph, but the lights are fading .....and then it just dies. No lights... nothing. I get my torch and tools out and sit at the side of the autobahn trying to work out whats happened. I then find the battery is the smallest 6V battery I have ever seen in my life, and I accept that I am going no where. But I had insured the bike (on its frame number) with a Carol Nash classic policy ( £20 if i remember rightly) and that gives me European breakdown cover! So I phone the number and an hour or so later aq van turns out and out jumps a german mechanic, who scratches his head, prods a few connectors and then gets on the phone, which he soon hands to me. And a lovely lady at Europ-Assistance explains they are going to take me and the bike to a hotel, and the garage will charge the battery up for me and return it in the morning. So off we go to a hotel, and after a few beers and a Schnitzel and chips I head off to bed, looking forward to a nice ride the next day...... to be continued

Found in a pharmacy come gift shop!

If it hadn't been £25 I might have bought it!

The van filler

I blame the internet. And alcohol.
After having won auctions for the Doppelport and the Pitty, we had booked the ferry and hired the van and were ready to go. And then I happened to click on one of my eBay searches ( eBay.de, motorcycles,MZ ES) and there it was. Es250 €100 BIN. So I did. And then realised I hadn't bothered checking where abouts in Germany the bike was. But luckily it was on only a couple of kilometers off the route to pick the other two up. And it was well worth the money. Although well weathered, it is a complete and original ES250, down to the flat slide carburettor and the gold early speedo. Unfortunatly the rear bodywork that would have carried the panniers has been cut off ( this is common on these bikes as it makes access to the rear wheel a lot easier), but the parts have been sourced!

Where is it now?

First trip across the water to get a bike was with Chairman Dicker driving the transit to pick up a MZ BK350 with a Stoye1 sidecar. Its in Robins Mill in Huddersfield apparently.... have to ask someone where that actually is! By the time we got there to collect it it had already been split in two so heres two pictures of it!

Sex on Wheels

This is the bike that started it all.

MZ Brochure Art No 4

Two from Poland

The first is an SHL 175. This was the first bike that Jan drove me to Germany to pick up ( she deserves a medal as big as a dustbin lid to put up with me!) No transit this time, just her Ford Focus... not even the estate! In the days before satnav we printed off directions from Map24.de,as it was at the time, and they got us to the end of a road in the middle of Germany, and less than a 100 yds from the blokes garage

And then there are the WSK 175s bought froma bloke in Essex. There was an almost compete WSK 175 M21W2 Sport ( pictured) and in many bits a W2, the roadster version.

MZ racer

Seen over at the TT in 2007. 100th anniversary of the 1st TT, and the 50th anniversary of me!

MZ RE 125

When we picked up the Doppelport and the Pitty (oh and a MZ ES250/0 just to fill up the extra space) we stopped off at the Augustusburg bike museum just up the road from Zschopau. Starting with a Hildebrand & Wolfmülle the collection shows the development of the local bike industry through DKW to MZ, IWL and Simpson, as well as other prewar German manufacturers and a small collection from other countries. It also has probably the best collection of DKW and MZ race bikes. Acres of hand beaten ally to be seen, as in this 1956 MZ RE125.

MZ Brochure Art No 3

4 Strokes ... How did they get in?

After the end of World War II, the BMW plant in Eisenach found itself in the Soviet occupation zone. However this didn't stop the Soviets producing bikes badged as BMW until 1952 when a lawsuit from the West German BMW company forced a change of name. They must have thought long and hard to come up with the new name and tank badge

Pre 1952

Post 1952

So BMW (Bayerische Motoren Werke) became EMW (Eisenach Motorenwerk)

Anyway enough of the history lesson. I have a search set up on eBay looking for East Bloc motorcycles and one day up popped an EMW R35. Looking further I found out that the seller also had BMW R35 and an IFA BK350. Seeing that the bikes were in Southampton I bid on, and won, all 3 so I could fill the transit my ever suffering girlfriend would have to drive (didnt get round to getting a car licence till 2005, but thats another story). And thats why there are now a couple of 4 strokes to be restored!

1949 BMW (SAW) R35 ( rigid rear end and hand change and with an "aftermarket" Magneto bolted on the front of the engine!)

1954 EMW R35/2 ( plunger rear foot change, painted with a yard brush indicators and clock from a russian truck!)

The BK350 was sold on to MARK and is now with its new owner Alasdair ( Ive already got one, with a Stoye 1 sidecar if only I can find it!)

The new arrival

Well here is my latest addition.It is a 1956 IWL Wiesel. Its not totally original but theres nothing that cant be corrected. Its interesting to see the differences between this and the more common Berlin