Funky Mopedz

[warren t claim]

As we have threads about buses and trucks I thought I'd start one about our "sixteener specials" cos after an extensive 90 second search of our threads I couldn't find one.

 

Back in the mid 80s when I was a gangly teenager many of the local lads ran around on two wheels when they were 16. The lure of independent transportation and the ability to cause mayhem to the locals was enough to make us all sign up for paper rounds to pay for our bikes, insurance and helmets. In my day you bought your insurance for £50 from the local broker and it was called a Norwich Union Rider Policy, an unusual insurance arrangement as you insured yourself as opposed to the bike, you simply bought the lowest capacity policy they had which covered you up to any bike less than 100cc. This also meant you could have a few bikes at the same time without any insurance hassles. In the mid 80s rider training was in its infancy and you didn't have any CBT to do to validate your licence so any learning was strictly a trial and error thing. Riding gear usually comprised of a secondhand helmet, ski gloves and a thick coat to go over your clothes and keep you warm. You were then ready to take to the road on whatever bike you had at the time. What bike you bought depended on a few important things, namely your budget, availability, street cred and most importantly date of first registration, this was because you could either get something flashy like a Suzuki X1 that was only a few years old but legally restricted to 30mph or go for something made before 1977 like the infamous Yamaha FS1E and have a top speed only restricted by your own childish attempts at tuning. Fortunately older bikes were plentiful and available for a reasonable £30-50 so most of us went for the older option. Here's a few that I had the pleasure of owning......

 

The Suzuki AP50. Suzukis slightly more substantial alternative to the Yamaha FS1E. These little Suzukis came with an autolube facility for their little two stroke units that was an absolute swine to bleed and as it used to lube the journals in the crank you couldn't just lob a bit of Silkoline in the tank when you filled up with petrol.

The Honda SS50. These were quite different to anything else that was available at the time due to them being a 4 stroke. Very reliable and economical although somewhat slower than the two strokes. The later ones had a 5 speed gearbox and a frankly useless cable operated front disc brake.

Here's the famous Yamaha FS1e, this one's in "Popsicle Purple" and still sports its pedals that almost inevitably got junked as they look sad. These little beasties had an unusual gear arrangement where neutral was at the top and the (4)gears went up as you pushed the lever down. Top speed was a little over 45mph. Be prepared to pay an eye-watering £2500 if you want a nice one today.

 

So am I alone in being nostalgic over my teenage mopeds or do you have any tales to tell of your own?

[John F]

I had half shares in an early Suzuki AP50 that I had to keep at my mate's house 'cos I was banned from having a motorbike. We never got it running properly, but did manage to sell it for what we paid for it.

 

Then I borrowed a Honda Camino step-thru from a very fit lass called Imogen, and rode that around completely illegally for a good few months until I reached the magic age of 17, whereupon I managed to scrape together enough cash from my supermarket job to buy a 1977 Mk 2 Escort.

[meggersdog]

I had one of these,same colour and seat type.BAV 8T was the reg and just like your comment about the front disc of the SS50 mine was useless and eventually fell apart.There was a restriction baffle in the downpipe so I removed it and got my dad to weld another downpipe to the silencer.Down hill with the wind behind you or in the slip-stream of lorries the speedo needle would hit the stop just past the indicated 45mph and the rev counter would go past the 8k red line.

It was a great little bike and never let me down in the two years I owned it (82-84).Went to "sunny hunny" on it a few times (Hunstanton is about 50 miles away).One of my mates had an SS50 but the rest all had two-strokes FS1E's and AP50's who would often ride away only for us to catch up a few miles later when their plugs fouled up.One of the lads got a Suzuki X1 and because he had only ridden a FS1E and mine before (both with 4 gears) he moaned about the lack of speed until we pointed out he actually had five gears on his 'ped.

 

 

 

[Cavcraft]

I remember those days (actually slightly earlier than the 80's though) very well. Just like the adage of 'if you read it on the Internet it must be true' it was also a world renowned FACT that all Fizzys did at least 73mph if you put drops and a Micron on them. SS50s could be made faster by dropping a C90 engine in (they bolted straight in) and you could ride a 49cc, borrow a mate's TS100, pass your test and go out and buy a 750-4 and scare yourself daft.

 

A little later on a lot of bigger bikes became almost pointless as LC Yams were running rings round just about everything.

[John F]

I remember those days (actually slightly earlier than the 80's though) very well. Just like the adage of 'if you read it on the Internet it must be true' it was also a world renowned FACT that all Fizzys did at least 73mph if you put drops and a Micron on them. SS50s could be made faster by dropping a C90 engine in (they bolted straight in) and you could ride a 49cc, borrow a mate's TS100, pass your test and go out and buy a 750-4 and scare yourself daft.

 

Or for bonus shite points, you could get a Sidewinder shower-tray / wheel-on-a-stick thing, and ride whatever sized bike you liked on 'L' plates since it then became a "sidecar combination". I actually saw someone riding one of those things back in the day, booting it round a roundabout with their Sidewinder wheel in the air

 

 

A little later on a lot of bigger bikes became almost pointless as LC Yams were running rings round just about everything.

 

Hmmmm not sure about that... LCs were and are good, but the aural and physical oomph of an old-school 1,000 cc+ bike still takes a hell of a lot of beating

[Cavcraft]

Ah, I see what's happened there, John, you have failed to realise that two strokes are for winners!

[peter9000uk]

 

Had one of these bad boys. Had a great habit of breaking piston rings but went like stink.

 

 

And before one of these

[Father Ted]

I used to dream of getting a Fizzy. Instead I had a Tomos Disco.

 

Oh the shame, the shame.

 

Still, it would actually crack 40 on the flat and indicated more downhill with a following wind.

[retrogeezer]

In August 1985 I was the proud owner of a brand new Honda MTX50 in red, that was until I found out it was 5mph slower and the suspension 6 inches lower than my mates Suzuki TS50X!

 

 

 

 

Saw this old Camino in town the other day too:

 

[eddyramrod]

In compiling the pics to post this, I've surprised myself. I never really understood bikes and I've never hung around with gangs of mates who had the cool stuff like Fizzies, but you're going to see five now. Yes five! OK, in the beginning there was this (well, one like it):

It's a Minimotor, made in 1950 so it was 23 years old when my dad brought it home. In pieces, in his A35 van. AXG 813 was the registration. He reassembled it and had it running briefly, but never enough to use. Later he dismantled it again, I think he wanted to get one of the castings fixed, but it never happened. I was about 14 at the time.

So my 16th looms and out of the paper my dad buys one like this:

Which was a 1972 Mobylette, UWM 617L in metallic light grey. Bear in mind I was approaching the last term of an extremely unhappy school life, you'll forgive me for not remembering this thing with a rosy glow.

Time passes and a mate from art college offers me one of these:

A 1967 Honda PC50, VMB 52E, in red and white. Well I did the decent thing of course. I used it a bit around 1978/9 but my dad used it more, I think he really enjoyed it.

So come the 80s and it's my sister's turn. Before she learned to drive she had a couple of small bikes, the one that sticks in my mind being the 1982 Honda Express:

Not least because some bar steward nicked it from outside her flat! That was about 1987, so I think it'll be long gone now. Before that happened I was on my way out one night and my 1967 Fiat 500 broke down, so I walked the few streets to her flat and borrowed this. I pulled up outside one of Southport's top hotels and walked into a black-tie evening in my tux, casually stuffing my gauntlets into my helmet! Move over 007!

I deliberately haven't had much to do with bikes since then, but about 15 months ago there was this one:

I can't even remember what it is now, Honda I think, but I do remember it was 98cc. It was donated for an appeal and I volunteered my services to collect it in my truck, and try to get it running. Which was achieved, with help from Andreas and Costas at the garage of course. I did test-ride it a couple of times, just up the road and back.

 

I'm not a biker, and never will be. I firmly believe that the more metal you have around you, the safer you are. Hit a Focus while you're on a bike, you're dead. Hit the same Focus with a Volvo 740, you walk away, possibly even drive away. Hit it with an ERF, you might notice a little bump... and yes, I do know the idea is not to hit anything but you can't bargain for the other guy. Meanwhile Mrs R's late brother, who she worshipped, was quite the committed biker and had an AerMacchi. Funny that: she grew up loving bikes and footy, and I've always been indifferent to bikes (at best) and have hated footy from a very early age. It's a strange world.

[catsinthewelder]

I was a bit of a slow starter, at 19 I bought a second hand one of these

 

 

But it was a pain to tune up compaired to my freinds Malaguttis and Suzukis so I chopped it in for the only new vehicle that I have ever bought

 

 

It got nicked a couple of months later and the insurance wouldn't pay out so I rode without it for the next 5 years

[eddyramrod]

I had one of these,same colour and seat type.BAV 8T was the reg .

 

My mate had BAV 938T on a Mk2 Granada. In a further almost-coincidence, the bike pictured is ECW 924S; another mate had ECW 4S on a Simca 1000 that was written-off in about 1983.

 

Sorry, you can go back to the topic now...

[oman5]

I admit to a hankering for a honda c90 with an old giffer spec top box..but seen the price on them today?

[sporty-shite]

I never had a 50,cos it took me too long to persuade my mum to let me have a bike. However, a few months before my 17th birthday, I was offered a light front ended RD80LC. Snapped it up, straightened the forks, new headlight and away I went on my rider policy No training, no nothing. Just the sound of my micron and K&N, and revving through the red line (12000rpm ) It only did about 60 tops,but it got there quick enough, therefore,it did 60 just about everywhere.

 

Loved that bike, but it hardly got used after I passed my test and bought a Nissan Cherry Coupe.

 

Google image.... Same colour, even down to the white wheels.

 

[wuvvum]

One of the few good points about being dragged off to live in France shortly before my 14th birthday was that one could (and still can) ride a moped at age 14 over there. So in late 1993 I found myself the proud owner of a brand new MBK Swing, much like this one:

 

 

It was a surprisingly nippy little thing and would buzz along at 40 once I'd run it in. I loved it, but unfortunately it got nicked, and was replaced by a blue MBK 51 like this one - slower and more shit, and irritatingly unreliable too. And it had pedals instead of a kick start, which lost it about 100 posing points. It did get a bit quicker once I fitted an expansion exhaust that I'd bought for 100 francs from a flea market.

 

 

That got nicked as well (I chained it up by the front wheel; the thieves brought a spare front wheel and a 15mm spanner and had it gone within seconds), and was replaced by a 1972 Peugeot 102 bought for 600 francs from an Arab at the local flea market.

 

 

That was actually not a bad bike for what it was, although the headlight was shit due to 6v electrics and it became almost impossible to start in heavy rain as the centrifugal clutch got wet and wouldn't engage. It'd still do 35 on the flat though, although fixed gearing (the MBKs were both variomatic) made hills a bit of a chore. Unbelievably, that also got nicked, and was replaced by one of these.

 

 

An ex-Post Office Motobécane AV88. I bought it for 300 francs off the father of a friend of my mum's, who was never going to get round to using it any more. I was over the moon at the time as it had indicators, which none of the previous bikes had had. It eventually gained a new engine from a more modern MBK moped with electronic ignition and a kick start - said engine had slightly dubious origins, but I was 16 and didn't really care. The engine number on these is on the cylinder head, and I had to use the head off the original engine as the mountings were different, so it retained its original number (at the time, this was the only means of identifying a moped as none of them were registered). It also eventually gained a longer expansion exhaust, which killed low-down torque stone dead but meant it would cruise at 50, which surprised a few of the flash kids on their funky Piaggio Typhoons. Amazingly, this one didn't get nicked, and I still have it today.

 

Eventually I moved back to England and promptly bought a Vespa PK50. I never could get it running right though and bought a Yamaha RS100 to replace it. I've had a few 50s since then, notably a Yamaha DT50 and a Salient, a UK-registered Motobécane, a Raleigh Wisp and a Xinling XL50 QTB - the first vehicle I'd ever bought brand new (my dad paid for the Swing).

[RoadworkUK]

I'm very, very unhappy right now.

 

I bought this house, like. When I went to view there was a '99 Honda NSR50 in the back yard. "Nice bike" said I, to the 17 yr old owner. "Doesn't work" said he, and I clocked the flat tyres and distantly expired tax disc.

 

I thought nothing more of it until we collected the keys from the estate agent at the end of last month. When we got to the house, the driveway was piled up with old filthy mattresses, broken furniture and general shat, and a '99 Honda NSR50, with flat tyres and no tax. Unlocked, unsecured, left out with the rubbish. On my land. "I'm having that" was my first train of thought, accompanied by a hint of "what if the guy's coming to collect it, forgot to lock it and it gets stolen?". Rather than allow thiving pikey scum to spirit it away during the night I pounced on it and wheeled it into the shed. If the owner meant to collect it surely he'd have locked it or at the very least left a note. So I left it in the shed where it would become an additional project when the tedium of redecorating / rekitchening has blown over.

 

On monday, having heard nothing from the owner, I thought I would run an HPI check on it to gauge my chances of arranging a V5 so I could legally take ownership. I "mistyped" the registration of a customers part-exchange at work, thus achieving a free HPI check totally by accident. There on the screen, in a huge red box shone the terrifying alert:-

 

STOLEN.

 

Shit, thought I. That's obviously the reason the guy stuck it on the driveway unlocked; because it was nicked. He was moving out so had a great chance of washing his hands of a hot bike. But then I checked out the date it was reported stolen:- the day I picked up the keys. Bollocks.

 

It would appear that, in attempting to prevent thieving pikey scum from nicking it, I had inadvertantly nicked it myself. Still strikes me a little odd that the guy should leave it unsecured on my driveway and then report it as stolen rather than asking me if I'd seen it.

 

I've phoned the estate agent (who has contacted the vendor- I had no forwarding address or contact details) and she's collecting it on thursday morning. I'll put a note on it with my number.... just in case he does want rid. I'd quite like a cheeky little 49cc Honda race-rep...

[Father Ted]

Do you not think hes pulling a fast one with the insurance hoping you would bin it along with the other shite left dumped?

[RoadworkUK]

Do you not think hes pulling a fast one with the insurance hoping you would bin it along with the other shite left dumped?

 

The thought did cross my mind... but then an untaxed, unSORNED thirteen-year-old 49cc Honda's not going to give him much of a windfall... would he insure a bike that's been sitting in the back garden for two years? Either way; not much use to me with STOLEN all across the HPI. Damn it!

[ashmicro]

 

 

That's EXACTLY the same as the one I had!

 

I had a version of the MTX 50, called the MT-5, and I also had a giffer-spec C90 with top box and human-cannonball helmet.

[retrogeezer]

The MT-5 was re-introduced as the MTX50 was too big/heavy for 50cc, it was basically an XL125 with a 50 engine!

[John F]

Ah, I see what's happened there, John, you have failed to realise that two strokes are for winners!

 

Hehe

 

Depends what they are, Billy. My old 1975 Kawasaki G7 was ACE, and definitely for WINNARZ, but I still get a semi whenever I even think about my old 650 Katana, which was ACE+.

[warren t claim]

All this hardcore 'ped talk has now forced me to buy a few Used Motorcycle Guides off Ebay. £15 well spent

[wackywacerwill]

At 16 I was rolling one of these

 

 

AR50, 80 head and piston with micron pipe ensured winning, soon followed by main bearing failure I vividly recall decking out one of it's solid mounted footpegs mid corner and ensuing near death potential high side trauma. Mine (not pictured) lacked a kickstart but went easy enough on a bump topping out at a indicated 65 downhill with trailing wind. Swapped it and another spares bike for a DTR125 in the end before taking a hiatus from bikes and buying a metro.

[Father Ted]

Do you not think hes pulling a fast one with the insurance hoping you would bin it along with the other shite left dumped?

 

The thought did cross my mind... but then an untaxed, unSORNED thirteen-year-old 49cc Honda's not going to give him much of a windfall... would he insure a bike that's been sitting in the back garden for two years? Either way; not much use to me with STOLEN all across the HPI. Damn it!

I woke up (from a bad dream where the MIL came on holiday in the caravan with us and ended up sleeping between me and the missus) thinking about this.

Just report it as dumped to the local plod, the fact that the previous owner lived at that address when he reported it stolen might get plod interested in a potential insurance fraud.

[barefoot]

My mother would never let me have a moped when I was 16.

 

A few years ago however, I bought this...

 

 

...great, paid just a bob or two, but it's 70cc & I had to do a CBT & its run out & I never ride it.

It's been in the back of the garage for a yonk.

Thinking about looking hard for a Chinese 50 to get me into the village a couple of times a week to save fuel.

[Guest]

[Cavcraft]

Lol at Jon! Had many a fun hour on step through Hondas. My very first set of wheels was a 1979 C70 and self taught was the order of the day. Naturally I moved on to strokers after that as they're the choice of champion. Funny how a 1978 KH125 felt like a Tornado jet after a C70 but trust me it did!

[gtd2000]

Well I started off with a Yamaha FS1E in the early part of 1982 when the Falkland War was ongoing.

 

The reg was JSH 661 P and I paid £90 and I sourced it via a pal called Mark (RIP - commited suicide a few years back, in a car with a gallon of petrol!) who was an apprentice mechanic working with a chap called Gordon who owned the Fizzy over in Earlston.

 

Identical to this one but the condition was miles apart - despite being only 6 years old at the time!

 

 

I was originally going to buy a Simpson S50? A hellish looking thing but it was going to be transport.

 

 

Fortunately the Fizzy came up in time to save me from embarassment

 

I remember picking the bike up with my dad in tow following me home - I was ordered not to go above 40MPH but did manage an indicated 56MPH down a very long hill

 

Most of my mates had 50's at the time including:

 

Neil "Foxy" Fox - Suzuki X1

John "Bug" Hermiston - Honda CB50 (AKA Gaylord)

Richard "Tam Brains" Thompson - Yamaha TY50

Adam "Dum Dum" Wilson - Yamaha DT50

Marshall "Percy" Mercer - Honda C50 (with C70 engine)

Alan "Tam" Johnstone - Yamaha DT50

Moray Jack - Honda C50

Malky Gowans - Suzuki AP50

Michael "Kojak" Glastone (RIP) - Suzuki AP50

Ben Vogelsang - Honda PC50

Rob Young - Honda MT5 (slow as shit!)

Scott Galbraith - Suzuki ZR50

 

I'm sure there were loads of other 50's at the time but that's all the ones that come to mind - there were other guys that we hung around with but cannot remember their names right now and the bikes they rode...

[eddyramrod]

Oh and by the way, given the thread title? I bought the single!