A cheap hack for the desperate…

Cheap, cheerful and acerbic

…is what Used Motorcycle Guide, the A5-sized, Cardiff-based kitchen table quarterly said about the CZ 250 in its Winter 1986 issue.

Ironically, the description is a snug fit for UMG too as anyone who remembers it will attest, and is precisely why its readers liked it so much: often witty, always irreverent, largely honest and looking like it was put together with John Bull's Printing Outfit (and probably a No2 rather than the No9 kit pictured here). Better yet, those early copies had a cover price of just 99p.

Production facilities at UMG HQ…

But back to the CZ, an example of which I owned at the time. I won't say I loved it, but I did like it, largely because it was mine, it worked most of the time, had a useful home-made 'sidecar', the gear shift pedal doubled as a kick start, I couldn't afford anything better and…well, I kind of warmed to underdogs (Oric rather than Spectrum).

Typical stuff served up by editor Bill Fowler and an army
of pseudonymic and reader contributors

Also, its previous owner was female, cool, and I had a bit of a crush going on. She'd moved on from the CZ to a Harley SS250. Super pretty but a pig to get going (er, the Harley…).

Mitigating circumstances: I was poor, it went, there was load-carrying space