Your Collection: 1972 Maico
Monday, August 13, 2012 | 9:25 AM
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PrintThis weeks collection comes to us from Gerry Booth.
Here is my 1972 Maico square barrel 250 after restoration. The bike features "works style" aluminum tank, air box, and grand prix plates.
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Nice job Gerry. I remember these beauties being raced back in the day. The pipe
stinger was so long it almost went past the rear tire. And were they loud. Beautiful
bike and brings back some great memories.
Very nice! I remember my facination with them in my first year of racing in72. That pipe looks like it might be stock with the homemade silenser, where they drilled small holes in the stinger and made the round silencer packed with fiber glass? Otherwise I dont reconize the pipe.It also has the later style Aluminum rims or those are steel rims I thought they came with the old Ackront rims with the tall sidewall Gee things get fuzzy when I try to remember back then??
PS: Larry you should be able to remember more than I can? Long time and as I said they had the long stinger with no silencer.
@ Welker
Yes, long stinger and no silencer. Gene Ritchie used to cheat on his Maico's by
putting his foot on clutch case arm. You could be in gear when flag drops. No gate
kids, clutch hand on the helmet and jam in gear when the flag drops. Oh, man
getting old.
Beautiful, thanks. I raced against Maico's in '74, '75 ...
Sweet ride!
I started racing mx in 73 on a 72 TM 400 Suz. Bought a 75 Marco in Atlanta as soon as they came out (Can not think of the dealer, not Barry H, think Hannah hung out there a lot). traded it in on 78 400 and then got 79 450 that still have in great shape. About that time I was offered my old 75 for free. Should have taken it.
Great looking bike. One of the best handling bikes made.
In 1973 I was racing a 250 CZ . My brother had a 400 Radial Maico. We had our own practice track that was dry and paced like a rock . On one part of it we had a long dusty hard packed sweeper. About midsummer my brothe said try my Maico. Within about 2 laps I was doing full lock 3rd and 4th gear power slides lap after lap. Never rode a big bore that handled so good. The ground was like asphalt and actually would blue groove. About that time the knobs on the metzeler started chunking off. Also in the whoops I was so used to my CZ when I hit the first big one I waited for the jolt to go up my arms. With the Maico it never came. Those forks were incredible. No wonder Staten put them on his CZ . A Maico could make a average rider (myself) look great.
Great Job
Very, Very Nice...
I was always so envious of those elite few who owned, "Maico's" back then.
I never felt worthy enough to own one...
Definitely in another league of their own.
@ CZ
I belive it was Ake Johnson (sp) that put the Maico forks on his Yamaha
factory ride. Yamaha was less than pleased about that.
@Maico wasn't Barry Higgins shop H & H ?
Beautiful bike. I always loved Maicos. Remember guys like Gaylon Mosier on their Wheelsmith bikes? So cool. And they were a little ahead of their time in some areas. Maicos had offset axle forks long before the Japanese companies adopted them. My friend had a Maico 501. Wicked beast! It had SO much power. His father tried to kickstart it in the garage one night when he'd been drinking. Didn't use the compression release and it kicked back, threw him over the bars into the garage door and broke his leg. Ha ha. My buddy used to tell that story to anyone who would listen and his dad would just smile sheepishly because he couldn't get up and smack his son because of the cast on his leg. Bawhahaha.
Yes they made 501's and had 4 inches of travel can you imagine taking one of those to Southwick.
@ LarryWitmer . Yes Ake did it to . Yamaha and $$$$$$$ hired him away from Maico to make a Yamaha GP bike. Yamaha had a lot to learn . I think Staten did it (Maico Forks ) at the USGP . I only saw a few 501 Maicos raced as most riders could go faster on the 400 and later 450 . We rebuilt the tranny several times on ours. The gears were the size of a 125 streetbike . Shifter dogs were always rounded. CZ was the opposite, just slam it in gear with or without the clutch.
LarryWitmer, you talking about the salute start? Could do that on the 1st-gen CR125 Elsinore, too. Snick it into second, hold clutch down with toe, pin throttle, wait for the flag and then just sidestep the clutch. Holeshot. Fun.
Could never figure a way to game the rubber-band starts. Saw guys try. Pretty funny.
@ handlebar
Thanks for the proper spelling...I loved to watch Ake ride. Met him at Red Bud through Gene Ritchie, owner of Red Bud. Gene was a big man, and raced the
501 Maico, slamming that thing around. We honored Big Gene back around
1995 at Red Bud giving him a pic showing him holeshotting a pro race at Elkhorn,
WI. Epic good old days. Rubber band starts were painful sometimes...
Nice bike, My first Mx bike 71 MAICO SQUARE BARREL $1100. stock pipe had no silencer, steel rims , belleville clutch (needed constant attention),my bike came with different style engine case covers. It was a great bike. My first race at deerfield bch fla, I got run over by an OSSA, racing got better,GREAT MEMORIES!!