OzVMX Forum
Marque Remarks => Maico => Topic started by: firko on September 09, 2007, 02:25:50 pm
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Here's one I'm willing to bet none of you have ever seen. It's my recently acquired Maico 250 trials bike. Trials Bike! I hear you say. Maico never made a trials bike. Yep you're right. This bike was built by a yet unknown but seriously brilliant engineer in the Tamworth area back in the mid to late 70s. It started life as a '73 250 motocrosser but now bares little resemblence. The entire rear section of the frame has been redesigned, a 75 /76 swingarm has been shortened about 6'', the steering rake has been bought in, the top end is a 77AW250 fitted with a beautiful home made reed valve, 28mm mikuni, homemade exhaust, relocated pegs, Elsinore 125 tank and so on. The welding is superb tig work and it features aircraft bolts throughout so the builder knew his stuff. The more you look, the tricker this bike is. I'm going to try and get it running next weekend to access wether the engine needs any work and then I'm going to start on a minor resto. If the motors OK, it'll only need paint, upholstery and some TLC.
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-8/1062154/mt2.jpg)
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-8/1062154/mt5.jpg)
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-8/1062154/mt1.jpg)
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-8/1062154/mt4.jpg)
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Is that the bike i may have seen an obscure picture of in a tamworth bikeshop sometime last year Firko? if it is I do agree it looks like a factory made bike.
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Most probably the same bike Pokey. I doubt it if there are two! It definitely came from the Tamworth area and Les Richters has spoken to the mad scientist that built it. I'll talk to him soon and get the whole story. It might make a good VMX feature bike.
You are so right, until you look very closely you'd think it's a factory job. The big giveaway to me was the welding. No Maico ever had welding that good!
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im off to tamworth on the long weekend of this month for the first time.whats the name of the bike shop where there got this bike,i wouldnt mind checking it out..... :o
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While on the subject, in the late '70's played with trials and were fairly serious about it. The result can be seen here:
http://www.trialscentral.com/forums/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=5030 (http://www.trialscentral.com/forums/index.php?act=attach&type=post&id=5030)
(thanks to Andy Greig of Trials Central..without whom blah blah... ;D)
I think you'll agrees that looks fairly close to production. For some reason they dumped the project.
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It looks like its one and the same beasty firko. I doubt there could be two in the same area. When i seen a half side on shot of the bike it looked like a maico but a trials maico? i was pretty sure maico were not into trials and finding one in Australia would be a long shot even if it was a prototype.
It does look a proffessional job on her alright but Im not that keen on the pipe.
Do we know of what if any engine mods were done apart from the reed?
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Allthough the pipe looks ugly its typical of trials bikes of that era, cut the max revs & support bottom end power.
With such a serious effort I wonder if he managed to lower the primary drive ratio? If so it looks like it would make a great twinshock trials bike.
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Hi Geoff...Apparenly he has had a fiddle with the primary ratio. The ugly exhaust is going to be one of the things I'll modify to improve the factory appearance of the bike. I may also replace the Elsinore tank with a much narrower one from a TL125 which I think will improve the looks. Other than that I want to keep the builders original concept alive by not changing anything much.
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A trials Maico; Sensational!
The Germans (and some bloke in Tamworth) never cease to amaze with their engineering brilliance.
If only Volkswagen made dirt bikes...
You're changing the tank - have you considered a 'coffin' style tank?
Nothing screams Maico like a coffin tank.
Just a thought...
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another maico trials bike
(http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g120/ibop/IMGP1581.jpg)
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This would be a nice match to go with the Maico Firko, could lend it to a mate whilst you play trials in the backyard ;)
http://cgi.ebay.com.au/NORTON-TRIALS-REPLICA_W0QQitemZ190196182249QQihZ009QQcategoryZ102690QQssPageNameZWDVWQQrdZ1QQcmdZViewItem
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I don't know about you fellas but I like it how it is, something about bikes with the original modifications by the guy who hade the vision in the first place, they are a real time capsule & a link to the past
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I totally agee with you Bingil and in actual fact I'm not changing the bike except for a quick paint job, a new rear fender and replacing the out of place Honda tank with a narrow Maico fibreglass coffin tank. I know that detracts a little from the builders original vision but I think he would have used a Maico tank if he had one, going by the extremes he went to to keep the bike all Maico. I guess changing the tank is my interpretation of another mans vision but it sure looks a lot better (and more like a Maico) with the Maico tank.
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No worries Firko it will be a good conversation piece & if you can get the history of the bike it will make good reading for the boys into the old dirt bike scene, Hope to see & here more on it in the future Cheers
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what do you make of this one firko
(http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g120/ibop/IMGP1588.jpg)
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the books in german so i dont know what there saying .weres walter when you need him i get him to deciefer when im stuck
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Paul you've uncovered the rarest of the rare Maicos, A Motoball special. Motoball is this weird soccer like game they play in Europe. It looks like a cross between Soccer, gymkhana and Roller Derby to me. All of the big Euro manufacturers made bikes specifically for Motoball. Who'd believe it? Ulrich, my German Maico collector friend has one but even he knows of no other round barrel versions surviving.
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-8/1062154/motoball.jpg)(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-8/1062154/motoball1.jpg) (http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-8/1062154/motoball2.jpg)
Even Bultaco made a Motoball Special
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-8/1062154/mz_ts.jpg)
An early MZ Motoball bike.
http://images.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://www.theoffside.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/motoball.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.theoffside.com/world-football/motoball-soccer-played-on-motorcycles.html&h=200&w=182&sz=10&hl=en&start=9&tbnid=HuMHLvoDLobMSM:&tbnh=104&tbnw=95&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmotoball%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG (http://images.google.com.au/imgres?imgurl=http://www.theoffside.com/wp-content/uploads/2007/03/motoball.jpg&imgrefurl=http://www.theoffside.com/world-football/motoball-soccer-played-on-motorcycles.html&h=200&w=182&sz=10&hl=en&start=9&tbnid=HuMHLvoDLobMSM:&tbnh=104&tbnw=95&prev=/images%3Fq%3Dmotoball%26gbv%3D2%26hl%3Den%26sa%3DG)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PclrSGSZIG4 (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PclrSGSZIG4)
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here another neat 77 gs with a 501
(http://i54.photobucket.com/albums/g120/ibop/IMGP1591.jpg)
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This is taken from the Maico Madness site
Motoball
In Maico Madness you ask for more pictures and information about Maico. Probably you will be interrested in my story about it. In 1978 our Motoracing team "De Blokhut" stopped his existance, the members of this team did not want to stop their whole club so they started looking for an other option which was related to Motorsport. Since about 1960 in Dordrecht (beside Rotterdam) Motoball was played. Our members got interrested in this game and started their own club by then. What is Motoball? Motoball is, like the name says, playing football on motorcycles. The bikes can have maximum 250cc and they need some assimilation like being closer to the ground etc. The ball is 45 cm across. The rules are fundamentely the same like in a soccer game. A team exists of 4 players on motorclycles and one padestrian goalkeeper. This sport is quite popular in the East European countries like Belarus, Russia etc. Every summer we have a European Championschip, this year in France (Valreas). The countries who take place are: Germany, Holland, France, Belarus, Ukraine, Russia and Lithuania. Enough about the sport himself now. When our club started in 1978 we started playing with Bultaco 250cc crossers. About four years later we discovered that the Bultaco's where not fast enough to deal with the German Maicos and the French Honda's. So we started to build our own Maico's. At first we used the 1980 machines and later the 1981 Maicos. Later in the 1980ies-1990ies the Maico engine parts got more and more expensive so that we needed something else. Then we removed the Maico engines and builded Rotax engines in the Maico frames. Today we still have one real Maico in our team which is about to disappear when we have a good option for the engine (Rotax stopped building the engines that we use too). That's why now I am looking for a probably younger and water cooled Maico engine, but I don't have much information about it. If you could give me any information (about the price of a whole engine and the parts, horsepower etc.)I would be verry grateful You can always give me a mail, my adress is [email protected]
Kenny Houben
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-8/1062154/motoball3.jpg)
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Lets get to it and start building our own version, using trail oldies (Goalies have Maicos!!!), mix the high marking from Aussie Rules + lots of strong body tackles from The Mighty League , Full pack butt sniffing scrums from Rugby and a sooky fake fall down screaming round ball from the Nancy boy game. :D YES!!!!!!!!!!!!!
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Wow thanks for the memory!
Me and several mates tried this on our pushbikes back in 1975 (I was 15).
All the kids in my street were soccer players at that time.
I don't recall if the inspiration was a clip on the telly or we saw photos in a book, but we shot up the park to try out Motoball.
We played it on the treadlies a few afternoons and it was really difficult to co-ordinate.
Motor bikes would have made it easier but jeez we got cranky and aggresive with it!
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I'm rushing to get the Maico trials bike ready for CD5. Before I put it back together Ithought I'd show off the huge amount of chassis work the still unknown original owner put into the bike. Below is a comparo between the highly modded '73 Maico frame and a stocker.
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-8/1062154/Maicotrials1.jpg)
The whole rear section and engine mounts have been fabricated from scratch and has some Husky GP influence.
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-8/1062154/maicotrials2.jpg)
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-8/1062154/maicotrials4.jpg)
Note the huge differences between the modded trials frame to the stocker. This guy knew his stuff.
(http://img.villagephotos.com/p/2005-8/1062154/maicotrials5.jpg)
The bike now has Works Performance shocks to replace the rooted Girlings, an original colour Maico silver/Yellow paint job and a fibreglass Maico coffin tank to replace the Honda Elsinore tank previously fitted to bring it back to looking more like a Maico. Other than those small aesthetic changes, I've left the bike totally as originally built in respect to the original constructors vision.
I can hardly wait to use it as my pitbike at CD5.