Mad Hatters Rally /F2 Motorcycles
by Martyn
Mad Hatters, well not exactly mad, more like old wooly hat and flat cap brigade. While the weather was just perfect on the Friday on the trip down to F2 Motorcycles the weather was definitely wooly hat and flat caps on the Saturday.
We got away on the Friday, basically because I finished fitting the sidecar to the new M1500, while I had to still sort out the extra fuel tank and fit a rear rack on the bike, the Outfit was all set up and needed a trip to check everything and to see if any adjustments were required.
As you would expect at this rally, there were a few Urals on the field, but there was one new Jawa Outfit. F2 Motorcycles, the sole importer for the new Jawa Motorcycles http://www.jawamotorcycles.co.uk can now supply a fully set-up brand new 350 Jawa Outfit; they only use Velorex UK sidecars as they have a strengthened chassis, swingarm, shock absorber and axle. The gearing is changed and a sidecar brake is fitted. The front fork rates are stiffened to limit dive under braking, the rear shock absorbers are changed to limit body roll in corners and a friction steering damper is fitted to limit low speed steering wobble. The price for all of this is under £5,500 , so pretty good value.
The 350 Jawa is a two-stoke and simple to maintain, in solo form they are £2,995 on the road. Again good value but then some would argue that point on the quality of finish and looks. The CBF250 (£3,495) is now discontinued, Yamaha still sell the YBR 250 at around £3600, I say around, because, as with all of their bikes you can’t find out the actual price unless you visit a dealer and Kawasaki still sell the Ninja 250R for £4100. As with all new bikes there are deals to be done and I wouldn’t be surprised that you could get a good chunk off the price. I paid less than £2995 with a screen thrown in for my CBF250.
350 Jawa Outfit
The Jawa 350 with straight forward servicing and low cost spares make these the ideal all rounder, so we are told, which is good. As for low cost spares, well I just had to purchase a speedo cable for my CBF250, (which is very unusual, must have been a Monday morning one) but at £9 complete it isn’t exactly expensive. Talking of speedos, the Jawa uses the same system as fitted on bicycle speedos with a magnet and sensor, something tells me if I was to buy a secondhand one, I would take no notice of the mileage on the clock. I would say that for tyres, chains and sprockets the cost is not that much different; the only time you will see a difference is when you throw it up the road or if the engine goes bang, but how many engines go bang nowadays? I quite believe that if you change the oil and filter/s regularly, modern bike engines will go for miles without any need to touch them. I had a TRX850 and at 54000 miles I took it in to have the valves adjusted. Not one needed adjusting; all were within limits and in the last 5 years on Lesley’s XVS1100 I have only adjusted one valve and I really didn’t need to as it was just within limits, I only did it because I had the covers off.
Saturday late afternoon, the rain had stopped and Pete had gone and got some meat to burn on the barbeque. At least we could spend the evening around the bonfire although it did try to rain at one point, but a few more logs soon sorted that out. The people who run the campsite run a café from their bungalow, you get a cracking breakfast for under £4 and in the evening they do meals as well, it is not the Ritz, but it is all that you want, good honest value for money food.
We had to head home on the Sunday as I had to go to work early Monday morning. I took the lead until Huntington at which point Lesley flew past on the outside lane, dived into the roundabout, at first I thought her brakes had failed, but when she took off like a rocket out the other side I knew it not to be the case. From that point it was a case of me chasing her, when we got home, I said “you wasn’t hanging about” I get the innocent look and she say’s “what me, I am well behaved” followed with a big grin. So from that I guess the new outfit is OK, will just have to do an all over check and tighten the nuts before the next outing. On that point, I had better give the sidecar nuts and bolts a check over as well! Wales here we come, let’s pray for some good weather.
Martyn