Simple Singles
Simple Singles
CW RIDING IMPRESSION
FOUR BACK-TO-BASICS MOTORCYCLES FROM GERMANY'S OTHER BIKE-MAKER
STEVE ANDERSON
THINK OF IT AS THE BIGGEST leveraged buyout in history: One day there's East Germany, a Communist police state that’s spent 40 years keeping its citizens safe from capitalism and neon lights, and the next day, West Germany makes the beleaguered Commie management an offer that they can’t refuse. Wall-leveling celebrations are broadcast worldwide, East Germans wander wide-eyed through well-stocked West Berlin department stores, and real estate managers from McDonald’s scout locations on gray eastern streets. Can you say “culture shock?”
Imagine the poor folk at MZ. The East German motorcycle-maker had relished as grand a history as anyone this side of Harley-Davidson, but 40 years of Communist rule had taken its toll. Oh, the company may have been able to trace its roots back to DKW, the largest motorcycle manufacturer in the world during the ’20s and ’30s, and one of the most innovative. It may have claimed the invention of the modern two-stroke, with the designs of Walter Kaaden winning GPs in the late ’50s and early ’60s. It may have been the largest motorcycle manufacturer in the Eastern Bloc. But none of that really mattered. What mattered was that for four long decades, MZ had been run with all the efficiency and competitive spirit of the Chicago Post Office, and that its motorcycles were as stylish and salable as Russian shoes. MZ had to change, and quickly.
Flash forward five years to the now privately owned MZ, and you can see those changes reflected in these four machines: the Tour, the Country, the Silver Star and the Voyager. Gone are the popping and smoking two-stroke utility bikes of the Communist past, machines for which everything from carburetors to sparkplugs were sourced from Eastern Bloc factories. The new bikes are-at least by MZ standards-awash with style and chrome, and are assembled by MZ from the best of Western European components. For these machines, MZ builds frames, fork tubes and sliders, a few other body parts, and buys almost everything else.
Start with the Austrian Rotax engine. It debuted in CanArn Thumpers 15 years ago, and has won about a million U.S. dirt-track races since then. It's as reliable as a rock, and hop-up parts abound to make it as big and fast as any fourstroke Single anywhere. Housing it is MZ’s banana frame, with the box-section, fabricated backbone serving as oil tank for the dry-sump engine. Move forward, and the fork's internal damping components-as well as the rear shocks-are by Bilstein, the switchgear by Italian C.E.V., the front brake by similarly Latin Grimeca. That company also supplies the cast wheels of the Tour, while the spoked aluminum rims of Silver Star and Country are Spanish Akronts. Headlights are
Bosch, ignition systems Japanese Nippon Denso. With these bikes. MZ has left its insular existence behind, and joined the world. Only the chain enclosures survive to remind of the utilitarian past.
MZ has also embraced the Harley-Davidson philosophy of offering the greatest number of models from the fewest possible parts. All four machines share a common foundation in engine and frame; the differences are in the trim. Open the choke on the left switch assembly, turn the key, and they all fire up quickly with the snuffling pulse of a heavily muffled Thumper. It's when you ride away that real differences become most apparent.
Take the Tour. At $4195, the price leader of the bunch, the Tour sits high, with a well-padded seat, and narrow handlebars that lean you forward slightly. Like the others, its 500 Rotax pulls hard through bottom end and midrange, and gets buzzy beyond 6000 rpm just as the torque begins to fall off. There’s little point in winding all the way to the 7500-rpm redline; you go almost as fast and with a lot less fuss if you shift 1000 rpm or more below that. On the road, the small quarter-fairing keeps the wind off your chest, and when you shift to fifth, the engine feels happy spinning just over 4000 rpm at 60 mph. Go faster, though, and that happiness slowly fades; by the time you’ve reached 80, vibration and diminishing power should have convinced you that you’ve reached the machine’s usable, if not absolute, limit.
On a curvy road, the Tour’s front brake offers more than adequate power, especially since the narrow little MZ is a real momentum machine, flowing through corners more than charging out, with the classic Single's trick of changing exhaust pitch more than speed with a twist of the throttle. Entering corners, the Tour asks a firm shove of the bars, and once committed, holds its line with determination.
It’s amazing how different the fundamentally similar $5595 Country feels. Set up in Paris-Dakar style, the Country comes with a high exhaust and Bridgestone Trail Wing dual-purpose tires. Its spoked front wheel carries a 19-inch tire (to the Tour’s 18-incher), its rear a 16-incher (just like the Tour). The plastic fuel tank wraps around into the fairing, and the handlebar benefits from a wide and high dirtbike bend. The rear suspension uses different shocks, but both it and the Tour are equally tall, and both have 5.3 inches of rear-wheel travel. Tighter gearing spins the Country’s engine roughly l() percent faster, and turning almost 5000 rpm at 65 the Country vibrates far more on the highway. Its mirrors fuzz, and its grips and seat buzz; you have to slow down to 55 for it to feel as good as the Tour. Back in the twisties, though, the wide-barred Country feels aggressive and light, flicking into corners with a shrug of your shoulders, the front wheel almost falling in. Handling is excellent to a point, that point being when the outer knobs on the open-pattern tires start shimmying and wiggling, hinting that traction is soon to go. It’s already a point beyond where many riders will choose to venture.
For the third variation on the theme, MZ added chrome, steel fenders and tank, and shorter suspension to create the Silver Star, also priced at $5595. Think of it as a German answer to the Japanese Honda GB500, itself designed to mimic classic British Thumpers. The same gearing as the Tour makes it equally long-legged on the road. With a thin-and fairly hard-seat, the skinny Silver Star sits on lowered suspension that is slightly stiffer than that of the other machines. Perhaps most important, though, the Super Star feels supremely light, the classic street-going Single that you can place anywhere in a curve, at anytime, without doing much more than thinking about it. That, and the torquey, electric-start engine, make it a particularly fun city bike.
By adding a sidecar to the Star, and making appropriate chassis modifications, MZ created the most unusual member of this quartet: the Voyager. One of the only factory-fitted sidecar outfits available in this country, the $7695 Voyager comes equipped for the three-wheel life, sitting low on l 6and 15-inch wheels, wearing a square-section 125-15 Michelin X car radial on the back. The brake pedal controls drums on both the normal rear wheel and the side-
car wheel. Riding dynamics arc pure sidecar, a Physics lOl demonstration of the effects of offset force on a body. Accelerate, and the Voyager tries to turn right. Brake with the front, and it turns left. Brake w ith the rear, and the sideear wheel pulls it to the right again. Turn left, and the sidecar wheel is pushed hard into the ground; turn right with no passenger to counterweight the car, and it’s quickly lifted off the ground, limiting solo right cornering to substantially less than what your grandma might try in her Buick. And the greater weight and frontal area keep peak highway speed down in the 65-mph range.
This all may make the Voyager sound unappealing, but the limited performance is more than made up by the quirky fun of riding it around town, and by the smiles you'll get from almost anyone you encounter. Few vehicles are friendlier than sidecars, and the classically styled, pinstriped Voyager makes the most of that charm. Put your golden retriever in the car while cruising, and you may find yourself feeling like Robert Kincaid, the female-fantasy hero of the “Bridges of Madison County." Anyone who can't strike up conversations with women in this situation is beyond help, and wall never need the sidecar in any ease.
In the end, these four machines are a snapshot of the transformation MZ has undergone, and is still undergoing. Not that long ago, the company was building earnest machines, agricultural two-strokes that carried East German workers to and from their rendezvous with the Five Year Plan. Now it's building toys for frivolous capitalists. These Rotax-powered bikes, though, still retain a unique character, and one that's far different from the slick Euro-tech of MZ's Yamaha-powered prototypes, the Skorpion and Kobra 850, machines that represent MZ's future. If these current, still-earnest Thumpers appeal to you, you'd better grab one before it's as forgotten as the East German Olympic team.
