Let’s Embarrass Each Other With Our Mopeds

[NorfolkNWeigh]

I had a 1976 Fizzy when I turned 16 in 1980, it was a DX with a disc brake and someone had removed the pedals and welded on footpegs, which meant , as it wasn't restricted, I might as well have had a 250- it would have been just as legal. My mates all had brand new restricted things that looked like proper bikes, but even with my not inconsiderable bulk on it, my Fizzy was still faster ( till it came to a bend) .

After about 6 months I hitchiked to London to find fame and fortune leaving the Yam in my dads barn, this was seen as tacit approval for my younger brothers to abuse it around the fields and up and down Forestry tracks.

I took it from West Wales to London in the open boot of my dads 2.5 V6 Consul, without realising that they had snapped off the kickstart shaft- bastards. I used it round London for about 4 months by running and bumping it to start and with the exhaust snapped at the head, never got pulled( well caught,actually) once, even though I worked as a waiter in Park Lane and lived in Wembley so was riding in the West End in the early hours.

On my 17th birthday I got £30 in part exchange for it against a Honda 250 RS on HP which I went straight to work as a messenger on.

[wuvvum]

I still have the ex-La Poste Motobécane AV88 I bought 20 years ago for 300 francs.  It has a later MBK 51 engine fitted (electronic ignition, reed valve etc).  It used to have an expansion exhaust on it and would sit quite happily (but quite noisily) at 50.  I haven't had it running for a couple of years now, although I do occasionally kick it over to keep everything free.  I got it sparking again last summer but didn't get round to taking off the carb and cleaning it out - that'll be a job for this year.

[Junkman]

Junkman now has my Mobi. At least it now runs!

 

Actually it currently not does, but on purpose.

Restoration is seriously underway and an insane amount of €€€€s (i.e. about £65 in real money) was transferred to a French Moby spares dealer.

[xtriple]

I had a Puch VZ50, yellow with a half chrome tank and left hand grip gear change. The cables for which were always losing their nipples.... Then I bought a then new Puch M50. How posh... it looked like a proper bike and had foot gear change and a disc on the front. I'm sure it was red but I also seem to think it was black with gold pinstripes like a JPS version. Obviously, one of these recollections is SERIOUSLY flawed...

 

That was it for my moped days as I went straight onto a Kawasaki S2 (350 2 stroke triple) which was seriously illegal but we were all at it out in the wilds of Warwickshire back then! One lad had a Benelli Sei at 16... he lied about his age when he applied for his licence. He was 15...

 

When my wife was on about getting a bike a few years ago, I bought her a Honda Melody mini from a lovely local dealer (since given up due to very old age - he was 90 when I knew him!) and she rode that to bike night a few times. I rode it a bit but I couldn't do turns in the road on it to save my life! It was sooooooo unstable it really scared me and nearly put Lorn off learning on a decent sized bike for good.

 

She then Had a brand new Yam XT125 which was waiting for her when she got back from doing her CBT, total surprise and got me loads of brownie points! She wrecked it in short order as we did a lot of green laning and she spent a lot of time on her bum with the bike in various hedges.

 

Never fazed her in the slightest!

[martc]

... I also seem to think it was black with gold pinstripes like a JPS version....

 

I think (vaguely) that they were not actually marked JPS but SDP intertwined to look like JPS thus cashing in on the brand without paying for the use of a trademark. SDP = Steyr Daimler Puch.

[Junkman]

I also 'upgraded' from my first mopeds to a Kawa 750 triple two stroke, then a new 1100 Katana, then a new Guzzi LeMans 1000, then several Rubber Cows, then a Suzi OMGGSXR1100RR.

But moped is an entirely different thing and I never felt the fun I felt on the mopeds on the big bikes and actually found them cumbersome and disappointing in some ways,

with the exception of an ex-WoD Indian 101 I was the temporary curator of and with which I made my longest motorcycle tour of EVAH.

 

Today, my uppermost ceiling of motorized two wheel fun would be a 125 or maybe 175 Peugeot 55. Or another 101.

[Junkman]

I think (vaguely) that they were not actually marked JPS but SDP intertwined to look like JPS thus cashing in on the brand without paying for the use of a trademark. SDP = Steyr Daimler Puch.

 

 

Where I grew up in Munich, there was the constant Zündapp vs. Puch war. I was a proud Zündapp warrior, of course.

It was so popular among late 70s adolescent hormone carriers, that Bing carburetter jet sizing and such stuff was discussed in school yards, not footie results.

And it was always Zündapp vs. Puch. Together we pissed on Kreidlers and Herculeses.

[panhard65]

My first bike was an NSU Quickly it was the 3 speed 23-f which had the double seat and rear suspension. All my mates had fizzy's but I suppose it is where my love of old crap came from. I was the first member to join the owners club with a quickly and they seem to be pretty popular now. I finally got a decent bike (SS50) which was great fun and lasted until I got my first car. A few years ago after a gap of nearly 30 years I bought another moped for commuting. This little Suzuki looked lovely but was a right pile of crap and didn't stay long.

I then had a couple of sym jet 50's one with a 100cc engine in it. Again I didn't really enjoy them so off they went.

I then went really silly and bought this

It could hardly pull itself along and was positivly dangerous with 16 stone of fat bloke on it so got sold on at a huge loss as usual. It was at this point I decided if I am gonna get back on 2 wheels I need something a bit bigger which brings me to the current 125 superdream. Just need to think about doing my bike test now so I can ride the deauville that I bought as well.

[barefoot]

My mother wouldn't let me have a moped, so I never had one until I was about thirty five and I bought myself a little Honda, 

an ST70. A bloody 70 so I couldn't ride it without a CBT.

I spent all summer rebuilding this crappy moped thing, which of course is really a motorbike.

It was white with a horrible flower power seat cover, but I wanted it to match my bay, so I built a bike rack and totally made the bike match.

 

 

I did my CBT, hated every second of it and rode the bike about twice before parking it up in the back of my

garage & waiting for my license to expire.

Of course it was only years later that I discovered that the white & flower power was a special limited edition

Lady Dax worth the best part of a millionty pounds.

I still fancy a bit of a poxy ped to go down to the shops on.

[Bobthebeard]

I also 'upgraded' from my first mopeds to a Kawa 750 triple two stroke, then a new 1100 Katana, then a new Guzzi LeMans 1000, then several Rubber Cows, then a Suzi OMGGSXR1100RR.

But moped is an entirely different thing and I never felt the fun I felt on the mopeds on the big bikes and actually found them cumbersome and disappointing in some ways,

with the exception of an ex-WoD Indian 101 I was the temporary curator of and with which I made my longest motorcycle tour of EVAH.

 

Today, my uppermost ceiling of motorized two wheel fun would be a 125 or maybe 175 Peugeot 55. Or another 101.

Plus one one the 'fun on mopeds' comment. Have had several big bikes over the years but packed in motorcycling as just too dangerous and not enjoying it. Mopeds still do it for me though. About as dangerous as a pushbike but loads more fun!

[Junkman]

It wasn't so much the danger that put me off big bikes, that's something I can control to a large extent.

It was this arriving somewhere and having to change into something that carrying with me actually made the entire ride less enjoyable, the self-imposed folklore around big bikes,

the constantly being nannied ("Think Bike" signs and all that elth'n'serfty bollox) and those "Bikers Welcome" signs royally piss me off to this day. I set a few of them on fire in my heydays.

Everywhere I went there was this scourge in form of hoardes of wankers on these Hardly Dangerous septic mobile toilets trying to look cool despite in reality they looked like

chimpanzees on a sharpening wheel and I just didn't want to be associated with them. In the end, I only used my bikes locally and for this purpose, they are too impractical and mopeds

are simply better and more fun.

[Bobthebeard]

^^ Plus one!

[Leyland Lawrence]

Only 6 left on the road (at present)

 

[Junkman]

A moped shitefest must happen.

[Fabergé Greggs]

Only 6 left on the road (at present)

Sweet. I know of one- express SR or Caren. Bloody lovely.

[srad34]

This is my erm, work moped........

[barrett]

Friction drive, yo!

 

What do I win?

[Cheggers]

Friction drive, yo!

IMG_20140321_112707.jpg

 

What do I win?

Hopefully something not too heavy

 

Or far away

 

[Dick Cheeseburger]

My 186 Lambrini. In Pug-tastic metallic blue for the non-purists. Staple 206 colour. 

 

[Jerzy Woking]

I've been riding mopeds since I was about 12 (1972) as lots of my school mates were farmers sons.

 

I still remember the feeling of riding one for the first time. It was a stripped down Mobecane with no lights, mudguards or brakes. Probably hitting the heights of 25 mph doing lap after lap of a meadow and I was hooked. My parents (who despised motorbikes) at that time lived in a house that backed onto a disused railway line-all the sleepers were there for a couple of years, but there was room to ride to the side of them. In a couple of places they had been ripped up leaving big craters which we used to jump-and crash-flat out.

 

My first purchase was a few weeks later when I bought a Raleigh Runabout, resplendent with leg shields and panniers, from a mates mum for the massive price of a pound. I had this for about a year and hid it in the undergrowth near my parents home. I thought I was being clever hiding it from them, but a many years later they said they knew I had it because my mates mum worked with my mum.

 

I had a number of Norman Nippy 's which, when they inevitably wore out, I would break them and advertise the bits in the free ad section of "Motor Cycle Weekly" at which point I found they were worth more as a pile of bits than as a whole bike, so I, and by that time my brother who I had hooked into mopeds, used to buy non runners and break them for parts. This money we the invested in buying Autocyles. These were nearly always James's with 98cc Villiers engines, but still with pedals. They were always faster than our mates moped. We even had a Rudge with a two speed gearbox and a hand change lever. We ruined that by making it into a speedway styled bike with huge wide handlebars. Loads of other mopeds, mainly French followed, bought and sold on a whim.

 

We progressed onto bikes from there, anything from 2 stroke Francis Barnets up to a 650cc BSA with no header pipes. Noise and flames - could a 15 year old have anything cooler?

 

But I was 16 and therefore able to ride on the road. My mates had FS1E's Fantics (GT's and nd Caballero's) Garelli Tiger Cross's and one even had a Casal if anyone remembers them. I didn't go down the HP route but had a 3 speed hand change Puch. With the addition of a Honda CD175 tank and seat, it looked like a sports moped (from 10 yards)-goodness knows how I attached them but I bet it wasn't safe. But my mate went one better and built his "Ralch" which was a Raleigh Runabout rolling chassis with a Puch Maxi engine in it. He also had a go at porting it with the help of an article in Motorcycle Mechanics. Not only did it handle dreadfully, the it had a power band the width of a gnats cock. Not that bad with a top speed of about 35 but scary all the same.

 

At 17 and six weeks old I took my bike test on my brothers SS50 but removed all the pedal assembly and bolting on a set of C50 footpegs (these were on a bar that bolted to the bottom of the engine). I passed and went out and bought a 1000cc Goldwing, but that's another story.

 

Both my brother and I have had bikes ever since, everything from Brit, Jap, Germany, Italian and American. A few years ago my brother bought a very early C90 which he said was handy for popping into town on car parking is so problematical. He still has it, and I now have a pair of scooters (110cc 2 stroke and a 125cc 4 stroke) along side my Guzzi, CBR and GSX-R. The scooters are great fun, momentum is all. The 125 I sometimes use for my 120 mile daily commute, which due to the heat traffic for most of the ride takes just 10 minutes longer than it does on the GSX-R

 

But I now hanker for another proper, old school, pedal moped. I'll find one somewhere. Fancy a Mobelette, Puch or a more complicated hand chage geared Norman, Puch or NSU. There are out there somewhere!

[capsuleboy]

It all stared for me back in 1977 with an AP50 and the bug has never really gone away. Recent ebay activity has included...

[capsuleboy]

Oh and this...There are many more including a Honda double of Spacy and Stream to go with the Yamaha.

[Junkman]

OMGOMGOMG

 

I need a fresh pair of kecks now.

[OwdChina]

Feels like a moped,.............. compared to the Suzuki. Something else that leaks more oil than a BP drill rig.

 

[Junkman]

If you'd try on a moped now, you would realise the difference.

Number one difference is that mopeds never leak oil. They run on two-stroke mix.

[Leyland Lawrence]

I find mopeds some of the most interesting and varied machines out there. Transportation at its purest and most simple. I'd love a 32cc winged wheel

[Cavcraft]

This is my erm, work moped........

 

 

That colour scheme is awesome, would love one of those. A lad at work is going to sell his R1 to buy a Fireblade in that colour.

[I_am_Diesel]

After a night on the sauce whilst amusing myself on a popular auction site I woke up the next day to discover that I had won this........

 

 

The missus was less than amused despite my protestations that I had in fact bought it for her. I ended up putting it back on said auction site and selling it at a loss.

 

Never mind, I still have this as my moped.........

 

[castros_bro]

Not me but Ernesto Guevara de la Serna touring on a Mosquito moped

 

[hennabm]

As a 15/16 year old I had a succession of two Honda SS50.

The first one I swapped the barrel and piston for a 70cc one - had over 65mph out of that one. Due to a  MkIV Cortina stopping sharply one day, I also managed to shorten the wheelbase a little.    So much so that to make it stand up I had to weld a couple of "extensions" to the centre stand legs.

 

The second one I kept as std as it was a nicer machine. It came with a side stand instead of the usual centre one.

 

I was always jealous of the guy at college with the "JPS" Puch 50.