My Maico.

This is the story of my Maico GS250E that I bought from Off Road Motorcycles at 286 Victoria Road, Gladeville on the 11th September 1981. I paid $2588.00 on road and was given (seeing as how I had driven all the way from Tamworth to get there) a leather tankbag, T shirt and a nylon jacket all embossed with the Maico logo.
After getting home (a bit of a trip) I ran it in carefully with Castrol super TT mineral oil and then changed to Bel-Ray full symthetic at 55:1 ratio.
Prior to buying the Maico I had been riding a highly modified Honda XL250 (bore to 305cc, stroked to 320cc, CR forks, forward mount Mulholland shocks, 38mm Mikuni, Yoshimira No2 cam, lots of head work, plastic bodywork, etc) that was getting peaky in its power delivery and becoming unreliable (I got sick of pushing it home). Another bloke I worked with at the time had a 1974 250 Maico (that I later bought from him when he got married) that I had helped him with and was impressed with the engineering and build quality. I wrote away (remember those days) to the shop in Sydney and ended up sending a deposit, but had to wait for three months for the next shipment as they were that popular. While waiting I took holidays from my job went working for an engineering firm making truck bodies for Pioneer concrete and saved all the cash for the bike.
When I turned up at work with the new bike there were ohh's and ahh's and for while I was 'king of the kids'.
I rode the bike everywhere I could and to ease the ride to work made a bigger front sprocket from a Maico centre and Honda outer welded together and re-hardened, and it is still going now. I went on weekend trips, to rallies, trail riding with friends, chasing wild pigs, herding sheep on the farm, even putting a small sprocket on the front and entering a trials meeting (didn't do much good but was fun). It got bogged, drowned in a river, slid down a hill so steep I couldn't stand up (and went up similar steep hills) and lost in the Pillaga forrest. It wore out tyres, chains and spark plugs, but was always washed and serviced with good quality oils and I only replaced the original single ring after 20,000Km. The original Magura levers got bent (but they are quality materials and easy to straighten), lights got broken, seat got ripped and plastics scratched. The bike would just shrug off these minor mishaps and carry on ready for what ever I could throw at it. The magic handling saved my bum many times and once I had learned to trust it, it would give a bit of a head shake and go right over anything in it's path.
During my divorce I hid it in my nephew's shed, and once that over I didn't get much chance to use it for a few years while I raised my children. I had oiled the cylinder and protected everything as best I could, and after a long rest she fired up like it was only stopped yesterday. Once kids were grown I could get back to some serious riding but then the arthritis started to get a grip on me and the days out riding became less and less.
The bloke who grew up on the next property to me (I taught him to ride his first bike, a Kawasaki KV90) had always admired the Maico and for the last couple of years kept asking me to sell to him (as he had great memories of when I gave him a ride when he was about 14 years old). After many months of soul searching I finally decided that if I was not able to ride it like it should be ridden then he was the bloke to sell to. We agreed a price and I did a few little thing to tidy up the years of hard use and he came Friday to pick it up. I feel a part of me has gone as I have had it through all the trials and tribulations of my life, and it has always been there waiting for our next ride.
A much younger me with new toy.

Bye my old friend.

 

Thanks for all the nice comments. It was a difficult piece to write and still feel lost.
No internal work other than changing the ring before being sold. Still had all the original cables and bearings too.

 

A bit over 22,000Km.

 

Bike is back for a freshen up as I am the only person the new owner trusts to work on it. Very disheartening to see it in my shed again. He has won nearly all the events he rides in, even beating some 490's on a 250.
He got me to fit new primary chains (yes it runs two in parallel), oil seal on kickshaft and gear lever, new piston and ring (still std bore), make and fit new bushes in shocks, new fork oil, gearbox oil, gaskets and give a general lookover.