My first bike: Suzuki B120 (not the actual one). Think it cost about £220. Bought it and rode it off -no instruction or anything. Scary looking back!
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That wasn’t the dreadful Puch thing. The dreadful Puch was the ‘Maxi’ step through.
The M50 was the preceeding model to the ‘Grand Prix’, I had one of these and to be honest it was as good (or as bad) as any of the pedal-equipped mopeds of the mid-late 70s.
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Laughing !
You’re right Stephen. A friend had a Puch maxi and I remember he regularly got off and ran along side it to get up a local steep hill 
His didn’t even have a basket either…
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A friend of mine had a Puch Maxi, he used it as a spare bike many times while his unreliable Spanish built 250 single Harley D was off the road..
He still wore his leather tassel jacket tho’ …even when storming around on the Maxi!
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It was like that in those days… my local bike shop was only half a mile from home, i collected my new Yamaha 80 and simply pushed it home walking along side, back at home i parked it up out the back garden, got out the instruction book and started to read up how to operate it. Funny thing is it all worked out okay 
A few years and bikes later i did buy a pre-owned Suzuki ‘bloop’ to use over one winter - a fine commuter rat-bike, one of those bikes that was very useful, should have kept it longer.
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I remember a bloke who used to come down to North Berwick from Prestonpans on the bus in his leathers and crash helmet to hang out with his biker pals. I think that was rather brave!
Same here. Picked up the Puch with my Father (in a calf trailer with the landrover). Rode it up and down the farm drive a couple of times on Friday, took it on the road on Saturday on my way to a part time job (managed to ride into a hedge at slowish speed because I wasn’t paying attention).
Used it as my main transport, fell off a lot but I was young and bounced. A few of my school friends weren’t as lucky though, one died and another still shuffles around with a cane, he’s never worked and suffered brain trauma as well as a lot of orthopedic issues.
So when I rode (up until a few years ago) it was always - ATGATT… All The Gear All The Time. I live in New Jersey… mandatory helmet law. Next door is Pennsylvania No Helmet laws, Delaware no Helmet, and Connecticut … No helmet laws. about 30 plus states in the US do not require Helmets. It seems that for the most part it’s Harley riders that want to ride without a helmet, some Wingers, and some nutty sport bike riders… but mostly Harley and cruiser riders. I’m not going to rant about stupid, but it’s really a special kind of stupid that rides a Motorcycle without the proper gear.
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We had an agreement that if one of the usual riding group turned up without the gear for a ride all the bikes went back in the garage and no-one went out, it always worked and it seems unthinkable that we’d get on a bike without the right clothing or helmet…
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Would anyone like to buy a brand new Z1 for £1,369?
I’d be happy to rough it with the Norton for £786
It was a lot of money in 1976, above my pay grade : /
Apologies for thread drift and crap photos! 
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Just looking at the manual for my motorbike ahem! moped and it says:-
CAUTION - exhaust system is equipped with catalysts, so do not enter into
the exhaust pipe with any tools, wires, do not pour in any fluid, etc. Any
such intervention can cause damage of the catalysts.
We strongly suggest making exhaust system cleaning by an authorized service agent.
Assume the catalyst filters out all the 2 stroke petrol/oil nasties. Before I go in search of an ‘authorised service agent’ just wondering if anyone knows what is involved here.
I had one of those, It was sprayed ‘rattle can gold’. XJE 11L I think
A friend borrowed it and holed a piston (they’re two strokes and if hammered when the timing isn’t right/fuel mixture isn’t right etc. can do this). He replaced the piston and brought the bike back a few days later.
I was 17 and didn’t know any better… so I rode it as usual (badly) and after about a week it made some horrible noises and stopped. The piston had shattered in the bore. On inspection a standard sized piston had been fitted (to replace the holed one) and the bore had been bored out to +0.25mm… so the piston had been rattling around, surprised that the rings stayed on it for as long as they did.
That was the first time I took an engine to pieces and rebuilt it. Done a fair few bike engines since. 1981, doesn’t feel that long ago…
Having followed the developments in electrically assisted pedal cycles, i am interested in what the motorcycle manufacturers might create in the new world of motorcycles to come, in particular (for me) practical commuter motorcycles which need not have the weak and noisy single pot engines of the ‘lovely’ Fis-1 and Puch models which I remember so well from my teenage years. There seems to me to be so much scope to reinvent the motorcycle as the commuter vehicle of choice. Love the photos btw. they take me back, waaayy back! :0)
There are quite a few around, I was thinking about buying one.
Leader of the pack (excuse me…) is Zero Motorcycles who have some pretty attractive (but pricey) models:
https://www.zeromotorcycles.com/
I quite like their FX model. Was tempted by it before the current situation made me think spending money maybe isn’t wise.
BMW have an electric scooter, the C Evolution:
https://www.bmw-motorrad.co.uk/en/models/urban_mobility/cevolution.html
I think this looks like a good commuter but… 14k for a scooter…
Then there are a bunch of small Chinese bikes which are commuter focussed, cheap and probably only suited for urban use (struggle to get to 50mph). Some of them are using a Bosch power train. I’ve spoken to some owners of the Chinese bikes and they all would have preferred to be riding something else (mostly Zero) but the Zero was about three times the cost…
Oh, and then there’s the Harley Livewire (at least I think that’s what it’s called). It’s stupid money (20k+) but I think that’s probably in line with most Harley-Davidsons.
That pre-fairing decade of 1970 - 1980 certainly brought about huge advancements in motorcycle technology for the consumer.
From front wheel drum brakes, spoked wheels, and contact breaker points, to disc brakes, alloy wheels, electronic timing, liquid cooling, and mono-shock.
The T250 Hustler was a bit before my time, but had a couple of [coffin tank] Yamaha 250s during the later 70s, and in 1980 a 250LC.
Forgetting to put it away in the garage had its downfalls.
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If - fantastic film!
Good shot on the tea earn! 
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Wow, they are expensive, let’s hope they get a foot in and the price comes down or we are going to get even more grid locked in our old cars.
Nice LC Debs 
just make out the wheel design and plastic radiator protector.
Owned several LCs myself over the years the best was my old 250LC fitted with a MK1 350 YPVS engine.
Last two stroke I owned and I regret selling it was the Suzuki RG500 in the best colours blue and white these now sell for over 10k !!!
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The 250LC was my last two-stroke.
i sold it in 1982, during a time when i became increasingly conscious of the atrocious environmental emission design flaw of the two-stroke engine.
I continued with car ownership, although rode a bicycle to work.
A few years later i was to own more motorbikes but these would all be four-stroke 
It’s astonished me for years that two-stroke engines are permitted to remain legal on UK roads.
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My first bike (not this particular example), I have no fondness for it whatsoever. Curiously quoted maximum power on these was 1500rpm over the 9k red line.
Bought with money from a holiday job before university but it had been bodged by a previous owner. I had endless trouble with it and eventually gave it away as a pile of bits.
A year at university is all I managed and when I got my first job after dropping out the first months salary supplied a deposit on one of these on hp.
The decision was between this over 2 years or a 250 (either RD or KH triple) over three, on paper there wasn’t much between the quoted top speeds so I went for the shorter debt to find out that 70 was all it would do with me on it. I passed my test of this bike. Before I was in a position to trade it in the 125 learner limit was announced and I ended up trading it in for what I still owed on it.
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