Hello. My name is Nicholas Kotarski and I owned a MuZ 251 Saxon Tour from April 1994 to September 1999 during which time I covered over 84,000 miles on it. Yes that is the correct number of noughts! The following is an account of my relationship with the bike which may be of benefit to new, old or potential owners. I hope you find it useful. If you do or just wish to acknowledge you found the page tell me at  n.kotarski@ntlworld.com

I am pleased to say to previous visitors to this site that I have finally broken the story up in to 5 pages to improve down load times. For new visitors, there is no search facility, but I have given most chapters relevant headings in case you are looking for some thing specific e.g. Chains.

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Note.        The contents has been published in MZ Rider the magazine of the MZ Riders Club.

Me and My MuZ

Just inside the North Circular on the A1 into London. It was 9am on a cold Wednesday 20th December 1995. I was waiting at the road side for the RAC to arrive to transport me and my MuZ 251 Saxon Tour to Burwin Motorcycles. Not for the first time something had gone wrong with the motorcycle I purchased new on 23rd April 1994. This time the main fuse kept burning out for no obvious reason. But then, with electrics things are rarely obvious.

  While I waited, I began to wonder again why I had bought this motorbike instead of something else, i.e. something Japanese. Making a short story long....it was in the later part of 1993, due to market conditions I was having to travel to London to work instead of Luton, my home town. For eleven years I had used a motorbike to get to work, mainly my lifetime friend a 1979 Honda CD200T Benly. When I started working in the City of London though, I started commuting by train. With this came the phenomenal expense (£2,300 p.a. then) and aggravation. When it was announced that there were to be a series of train strikes, I looked to the Benly once again to get me to work. Despite having sat in the garage for over a year I got it through its MOT first time.

  The first day commuting into London by motorbike was a pleasure, mainly because most people had stayed at home or at least left their cars at home. I decided to stick with the Benly after the strikes and save myself some money. The journey was an easy one. Two miles from home join the M1 at Junction 11. Off at Junction 2 on to the A1. Follow the A1 to Moorgate (City), London. 37 miles (22 motorway and 15 miles urban) on well lit roads taking an average time of 1 hour 15 minutes door to door. The longest journey time to date is 3 hours when there was 3 inches of snow on the M1.

Why buy a new motorcycle?

  Because my wife, Hilary, had told me to and who was I to argue. She had decided that the Benly was too small and unsafe. Rubbish of course, it had only done 74,000 miles (the last 20,000 in the past 20 months) and I was sure it would go around the clock. Anyway, running the Benly was cheap. 90 mpg minimum, despite rebore and 2 lots of exhaust valves. Heath Robinson repairs like £6.00 motorcross front mudguard acting as a rear mudguard and DIY maintenance.
"OK dear let go of my arm, I will start looking for a new bike." Now what qualities would my new motorcycle need to have.

Low purchase price (£3,000 maximum), minimum/cheap dealer servicing during warranty period, easy and infrequent DIY maintenance, cleaning to be kept to a minimum, economical (hopefully 70+ mpg), must be able to fit a full fairing, preferably shaft drive or fully enclosed chain, not too heavy (just in case I do come off) and at least 80mph top speed to make cruising comfortable between 60-70mph. Not much to ask really.

After an evening browsing through Which Bike the short list was:-
Obvious no. 1 candidate    Honda CD250U                       £2,374.00
Contenders                       MuZ251/301 Saxon Tour          £1,650.00/£1,850
                                        Honda CB250T                         £2,995.00
                                        Kawasaki GPz305                     £2,750.00

All the other so called commuters were semi-custom singles/twins with too much chrome for my liking and bare chains.

Could I afford any of these?

Dear boss, can I have a loan of up to £1,500 for two years so that I can get to work? Yes I know I have only been here 4 months. I can! Oh thank you, grovel, grovel.
Dear brother, would you be interested in buying the Benly with full MOT for £175? Yes you can pay in installments over 6 months! Thanks.
Darling, you know you said I should get a new motorbike, well can I have £1,500 out of my dwindling redundancy money? I can! Thank you and I promise to do all those jobs for you.
£3,175, now lets get down to choosing.

Which One To Buy?

Cross off the Honda CB250T. Too expensive, exposed front forks and final drive. Probably wouldn't look right with a full fairing either.
The GPz305 was now the outsider because it was now the most expensive and had exposed front forks. Twin front disc brakes would mean expensive pad replacement I bet. Twin carbs will need balancing and probably thirsty, less than 70mpg I would think. Riding position a bit prone for my liking but it did have belt drive.
The Honda CD250U was probably the safe bet, although it had lost the enclosed chain from the Benly days. The bigger engine had CDI, 12v electrics, 5 gears and should still be good for 80+mpg. Still it was £500 more than those MuZs.
The MuZs certainly looked better than they used to (personal opinion chaps/lasses), but I knew very little about them. It did say they could do 80mpg and that was the magazine figure, which is usually the minimum from my experience, especially as I don't rush around. Better get some more information.
A detailed letter to the importers, MZ (GB) Limited produced the latest colour brochure, price list, accessory list, nearest dealer (with possibility of a demonstrator), contacts for insurance, test reports from independent magazines (which were all favorable except about the supply problems, and oh, don't forget the MZRC application form.

Fitting Handlebar Heaters	First Impressions (part 2)
The Dark Side (part 3)	The Good, the Bad and the I can live with that (part 4)

 

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