The Auction

I won the bike two weeks ago on eBay. The seller listed it as an abandoned project with the following description:

• Complete bike stripped for restoration
• Forks profesionally powder coated by Triple S in Bingley
• Three brand new Mitas tyres on cleaned up wheels
• £200 worth of new parts, inc. all cables, damper, swinging arm bushes, chain, and front sprocket.
• Many smaller parts and frame repainted
• Bodywork and fuel tank solid and almost rust free
• DKW (forerunner of MZ) engine turns over and has compression
• New parts book and owner's manual in German
• Matching engine and frame numbers
• This bike comes without documents and has not been registered in the UK but can be dated and verified through the MZ Riders Club.

I set up a snipe and waited with mixed feelings about whether I wanted the bike or not; I couldn't really afford the time or space, and I already had a project on the go - my 1966 Honda C100, dismantled and awaiting paint and rebuild of it's very tired engine. Meanwhile my other bike, a 1978 Honda C90, was shitting itself left, right and centre with a mass of problems which had been present from a few days after I bought it last November.

The auction finished and I received an email on my phone whilst eating dinner. I told my girlfriend, and she laughed in bewilderment. She doesn't understand why I felt I needed a third bike, but she knows how it goes...

Within a few days I received a phone call to do a job in Cheshire, conveniently only 40-miles from where the bike was located. I collected on the first Wednesday of March from a friendly bloke called Dave. Dave was big into his Soviet bikes and didn't have a car (or a TV) - just a pair of gnarly Nato-green Urals, some sidecar thing parked on the driveway, and a very cool workshop. He talked me through the boxes of parts and wrote down useful names and numbers.

Jam packed amongst lights and camera equipment, Berlin-in-a-box and I sped south to Leicester, where I spent the night in a hotel since I had a job nearby the following day. I don't know what the journalists made of me turning-up to the shoot with a crusty scooter shell protruding from the back of my Volvo, but I don't really care either. This is how I roll.