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

Granny takes a trip

Not the psychedelic 1960s King's Road boutique, but my wife's grandma aboard her 1929 Rudge.

Groovy granny!

From the sublime to the…Tomos

1988 Tomos A3 MS as advertised

What is it about motorcycles that you can own examples which, by any standards, rank right up there with the classics – a ’53 sprung-hub Thunderbird and a ’56 Panhead are good for admiring glances pretty much wherever they go, even among the sports bike fraternity (and sorority) – and yet also stable a machine which, when new, was the butt of every possible joke and has done little to redeem itself in the intervening years?

And yet… I like my Tomos moped. In fact, I love it! Mind you, I did once own a CZ Sport 250 twin with a home-brew sidecar and pretty much anything is a step up from that.

Clean, but there's one or two jobs to do…

Tomos! Even the name is naff and any machine manufactured in the dour Yugoslavia and sold through branches of Woolworths for just £219 is unlikely to win over the funky moped brigade and yet that's just what it does. Fantic, Garelli or Yamaha Fizzy it isn't (or even Malaguti or Puch) but the plucky little Tomos with its cheerful decals, simple and sturdy design and willing motor wins plaudits to this day.

Mine came from a private ad on an autocycle club website and is a replacement for the 1951 98cc James Comet I was riding on club outings but sold in a rash moment. I miss the James but its departure made way for the Tomos, a machine I've always liked and would've bought new had I not been a penniless student in London at the time, riding to and fro to uni on the CZ when I could afford fuel or my bicycle when I couldn't.

Prepping for 'action'

There's a few jobs to do – inevitably – but this one's pretty clean and will be campaigned vigorously once it's back on the road. Look out for reports of its exploits posted here…