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Offline JETZcorp

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A First Bike for my Friend
« on: January 06, 2010, 06:09:54 PM »
We're looking into getting him this.  He's 17 at the moment, about 6ft even and 200lbs.  He saw my bike and wanted one immediately.  I couldn't even convince him on Maico, it's got to be this.

http://vancouver.en.craigslist.ca/van/mcy/1515140457.html

If any of you goons get it in your head to buy this from under us, I'm afraid you'll have to be killed. :P


Is this Maico a 440 or only a 400?  Well in all the confusion, I forgot myself.
But considering this is a 1978 Magnum, the best-handling bike in the world, you have to ask yourself one question.
Do you feel lucky, punk?

Offline JohnN

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Re: A First Bike for my Friend
« Reply #1 on: January 06, 2010, 06:13:07 PM »
Nice Bike... great price. Go grab it quick!! ;D
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Offline JETZcorp

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Re: A First Bike for my Friend
« Reply #2 on: January 06, 2010, 10:16:03 PM »
We're trying!  The seller hasn't responded to my eMail, and Mike is desperately jumping through parental hoops to get the money together.  He has to take some pilot license test, and get a job before they'll loan him $2,000 for the bike.  He's got his sights on a job at McDonald's (yeah, welcome to teenage life) so we should be set if that comes through.  If I don't get a reply by tomorrow I'm just going to call the number and see if there's any luck (I'm handling the actual deal because I know something about Huskies and he doesn't).

I'm really excited about this bike, because to be honest, it's quite a lot nicer than mine, especially after I bent the front brake lever during my little snow adventure.  When he first showed me the link, my jaw was hanging open for a full minute.  I couldn't believe now nice it was, how cheap it was, and how close to him it was.  Needless to say, the math homework didn't get done that night.

The only things I don't like about it are the number plates and the barpad.  I don't think either of those things need to be on a bike unless you're using it for racing - and we're not.  Chances are, those things would come off before we even got the tie-downs undone. :)


Is this Maico a 440 or only a 400?  Well in all the confusion, I forgot myself.
But considering this is a 1978 Magnum, the best-handling bike in the world, you have to ask yourself one question.
Do you feel lucky, punk?

Offline 2smoker

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Re: A First Bike for my Friend
« Reply #3 on: January 07, 2010, 03:21:20 PM »
Why in the hell somebody at 17 years would like that old school ride? Man, you can get cheap 250cc 2 stroke 2006 and over for nothing! An Husky with a frigging banana seat, Metal gas Tank and Twin rear shocks! Give me a brake! Buy him something competitive where it is easy to find the parts and has some resale value! First ride...he will crash it!Something he can be proud of at 17 years old in 2010 LOL
« Last Edit: January 07, 2010, 03:24:27 PM by 2smoker »
Formula over substance will ALWAYS sell more.

Offline JETZcorp

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Re: A First Bike for my Friend
« Reply #4 on: January 07, 2010, 04:44:12 PM »
He thinks the new bikes are hideous, and I don't blame him.  One thing to keep in mind is that this 17-year-old isn't one of those new little bastards that smokes pot and spends hours in the school parking lot showing off a Civic with the engine out of a lawnmower.  He's the kind of guy who shows up in an F-150 and plays games with the Civic crowd using the big, manly V8.  He's into no-nonsense vehicles with a raw, rough sort of presence.

Besides, it's not like Husky parts are hard to get.  I thought about buying a new front brake lever for mine the other day (in the end I just fixed it myself) and found myself with five different options of where to get one just on the first page of a Google search.  Husky Club?  Husqvarna-Parts.com?  Even eBay had a nice selection for my specific bike.  I guarantee you a 1979 Husky will be easier to find parts for than an '03 KTM.  Maico parts would be easier still, but he's not interested in those. :P

And for what it's worth, I'm not exactly an old-timer myself - I'm just 18 and the proud owner of an '82 Husky.  And exactly what is wrong with a metal tank and twin shocks?  Husqvarna had the best suspension of anyone in the business, even though they stayed twin-shock almost half a decade longer than everyone else.  The metal tank doesn't really add weight (srsly, it's aluminum) and it looks a lot better than some milk jug stuck between pieces of plastic like we see today.

As for resale value, vintage is the big thing right now.  Five years from now, an '06 bike will be practically worthless.  No one is going to want it anymore because it's "too old" to race in modern motocross and it's not allowed in vintage racing.  Meanwhile, old bikes have been going up in value like you wouldn't believe.  Just a few years ago, you could pick up a 490 Maico for $1500.  Now you'd be lucky to find a good one under $6500.  The Husky we're buying here would probably net 3-5 grand on eBay.  And off-road and off-track, where we ride, these bikes do better than a new one anyway.  You can lounge about on the seat for days on end of you want, and the suspension is a lot softer, and the horsepower is just about the same.

Oh yes, believe me, this is the perfect bike for Mike.
http://motorbikearchives.com/Bike-Tests/Motocross/Husqvarna-250CR-1980.html


Is this Maico a 440 or only a 400?  Well in all the confusion, I forgot myself.
But considering this is a 1978 Magnum, the best-handling bike in the world, you have to ask yourself one question.
Do you feel lucky, punk?

Offline JohnN

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Re: A First Bike for my Friend
« Reply #5 on: January 08, 2010, 04:19:28 AM »
I find it so interesting that a young guy would prefer an old school machine over a new one.

When watching the movie "It Might Get Loud" (a music documentary with Jimmy Page, The Edge and Jack White) when Jack White was interviewed he had a disdain for technology. Is this a new movement of some kind or something?? Since I'm older and don't always get to talk to younger folks about preferences, I was not sure.

As for the 2006 Honda CR250... in 30 years it will be vintage and folks in 2040 will look back wistfully to the "good old days." LOL

But just to keep things in perspective.... what do you think is being loaded into the Pan Am airplane by fork lift???



n September 1956, IBM launched the 305 RAMAC, the first computer with a hard disk drive (HDD). The HDD weighed over a ton and stored five megabytes of data.

This little device below holds 8 Gigs and costs under $20.00!



Personally I enjoy technology!!
Life is short.

Smile while you still have teeth!

Offline JETZcorp

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Re: A First Bike for my Friend
« Reply #6 on: January 08, 2010, 03:52:20 PM »
Oh yes, I do too.  I just think the old motorcycles had more soul and personality than the new ones.  I'll be the first one to bash a club over someone's head when they talk about the "good old days" before the internet and digital such and such.  When I'm my normal, suburb-dwelling self, I embrace modern stuff.  But when I want to get out of the city and relax, I want the computers and electronic stuff to stay out of it.  Vintage Huskies are like old American muscle cars or Harley Davidsons.  Sure, the performance may be a bit down from the modern stuff (but dollar-for-dollar, you'd often be surprised) but put performance isn't what I'm after.  I want something that I can look at and admire everything.  Nothing is covered with plastic, there are no radiator hoses going everywhere.  It's a simple, solid-looking machine that gives off the aura that it was carved out of a single piece of high-grade steel.  When you fire it up, it actually fires up, with corresponding sound response that scares small children and makes mothers come running.  And yes, that DOES actually happen when you rev out the 120 in town - my dad's 100 Yamaha is even worse (or better) that way.

By the way, the 250WR in that ad has been sold to someone else.  We're back to patiently waiting for anther 1978-1982 Husky 250 to show up.  There's one in Connecticut (an '82) but shipping brings the price to near $3,000 and it needs paint and fenders.  Pass.

By the way (again) I'll see your flash drive and raise you the MicroSD in my helmet camera!
« Last Edit: January 08, 2010, 04:02:02 PM by JETZcorp »


Is this Maico a 440 or only a 400?  Well in all the confusion, I forgot myself.
But considering this is a 1978 Magnum, the best-handling bike in the world, you have to ask yourself one question.
Do you feel lucky, punk?

Offline JohnN

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Re: A First Bike for my Friend
« Reply #7 on: January 08, 2010, 07:01:38 PM »
I'm just pulling your chain....

The old bikes are cool for all the reasons that you stated... and honestly many of the new bikes would be had to tell apart if you removed the stickers and the color from the photos... in fact it wouldn't surprise me that more than 90% of the folks in motocross now could not identify the bikes set up this way.

For an interesting take on this read this article...

http://www.muddywatersmx.net/2007/12/14/why-all-the-dirt-bikes-look-the-same/
Life is short.

Smile while you still have teeth!

Offline JETZcorp

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Re: A First Bike for my Friend
« Reply #8 on: January 08, 2010, 10:02:20 PM »
That was a great read.  And you bring up an interesting point.  If you put on generic plastics, or just took them off entirely, so that the bike lineup was the same color and one had to identify a bike purely by its engine, frame, etc, how many people could tell them apart?  The major calling card of a company's bikes back in the old days - the design of their cooling fins - isn't there anymore.  It would be a fun experiment.


Is this Maico a 440 or only a 400?  Well in all the confusion, I forgot myself.
But considering this is a 1978 Magnum, the best-handling bike in the world, you have to ask yourself one question.
Do you feel lucky, punk?

Offline JohnN

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Re: A First Bike for my Friend
« Reply #9 on: January 09, 2010, 04:18:56 AM »
But back then it wasn't just the cooling fins, it was the almost everything. The frames, tanks, suspension, seats and yes even the plastics were different.

Each company had their own ideas about how a bike should work and built the bikes based on their philosophy. Now when a company strays too far from the "norm" hundreds if not thousands of folks collectively go ewwwww!

This is the reason that you don't see any true inovations, because companies are afraid if they are too different they will lose sales.
Life is short.

Smile while you still have teeth!

Offline JETZcorp

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Re: A First Bike for my Friend
« Reply #10 on: January 09, 2010, 10:20:08 AM »
Exactly.  I may have told this story before, but when Heikki Mikkola won the 500cc world championship on his Husky, Adolf Weil took the bike and had a go with it.  He came back with a new respect for how good Heikki must've been, because he could barely ride the thing, it was so different.  If you were deaf and blindfolded (but could somehow ride a bike anyway) you could tell a Husky from a Maico from a Bultaco from a CZ.  Nowadays I imagine a lot of the ups and downs we hear about between bikes is a result of what sort of lap the rider had when he tested it.  That's just speculation, but it would explain why "the forks were hard to set up" could be one's biggest complaint about a bike.


Is this Maico a 440 or only a 400?  Well in all the confusion, I forgot myself.
But considering this is a 1978 Magnum, the best-handling bike in the world, you have to ask yourself one question.
Do you feel lucky, punk?

Offline opfermanmotors

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Re: A First Bike for my Friend
« Reply #11 on: April 25, 2010, 03:54:33 PM »
"He thinks the new bikes are hideous, and I don't blame him.  One thing to keep in mind is that this 17-year-old isn't one of those new little bastards that smokes pot and spends hours in the school parking lot showing off a Civic with the engine out of a lawnmower.  He's the kind of guy who shows up in an F-150 and plays games with the Civic crowd using the big, manly V8.  He's into no-nonsense vehicles with a raw, rough sort of presence."


LOL - I feel the same way, the new bikes are hideous, I did look before I bought my bikes.  The only new bike I would buy would be the Maico. 

The second part "showing off a Civic with the engine out of a lawnmower" reminds me of seeing people doing that many years back.  A few of my friends were into cars, I was never, but they had built their own cars and engines, like restored a 1969 Camero and made Chavelles with built engines, put posi into them.  And we were at some illegal drag race and I think some guy had a Camero or something, one of the new ones, and he had his hood opened showing other people the engine and pointing to it.  My friend was mocking him saying "Look how chevy put those wires in there.  Look how chevy routed those cables there, isn't that great?  Isnt that nice how Chevy bolted this motor in?"
Modest beginings start with a single blow of a horn, man.

Offline opfermanmotors

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Re: A First Bike for my Friend
« Reply #12 on: April 25, 2010, 03:56:23 PM »
BTW, that listing is gone, did he get it?  What was it, a 1979 Husqvarna CR250?
Modest beginings start with a single blow of a horn, man.

Offline JETZcorp

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Re: A First Bike for my Friend
« Reply #13 on: April 25, 2010, 06:46:03 PM »
The listing claimed it was a '79 250WR.  But the frame was slightly wrong, the forks went too far past the front axle, and the frame didn't loop over the rear fender, so I'm going to say it was an '80.  We contacted the guy, and a few days later got a reply saying it'd been sold to someone else.  Now he's trying to get himself into a brand-new showroom KTM 250XC, primarily because the bank won't give him the money for a $2000 Husky, but the dealership will give him the money for a $6000 KTM.  I told him about TM and he said he'd check out the TM dealership they have in his area, but I haven't heard back on that yet.


Is this Maico a 440 or only a 400?  Well in all the confusion, I forgot myself.
But considering this is a 1978 Magnum, the best-handling bike in the world, you have to ask yourself one question.
Do you feel lucky, punk?

Offline ford832

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Re: A First Bike for my Friend
« Reply #14 on: April 30, 2010, 05:03:13 PM »



LOL - I feel the same way, the new bikes are hideous, I did look before I bought my bikes.  The only new bike I would buy would be the Maico. 



And yet it looks the same as all the Jap bikes due to the fact it's a modern machine. ???
I'd rather a full bottle in front of me than a full frontal lobotomy.