Having a lot of fun on my old Montesa. I loved that bike so much - wish I still had it. It was a 1968 MK1 - first registered in August 1968. Reg No KGS 741G
This video brought back memories of the first bike I ever rode.. It would be around 1980, I was 13 and the bike in question was a Montesa Cota 348 (or 349 ?.. I can never remember which..) My Dad bought it for next to nothing because It wouldn't run properly. Dad got it running well (he was a professional mechanic and lifelong bike fan) but he wanted to try it on something a bit more taxing than the back garden. So Dad, my brother and me took the bike to an old wartime RAF airfield nearby and we pootled around some heaps of rubble on the bike, and all seemed fine for about half an hour.. until it was my go, when it seized-up absolutely solid without any warning !.. Obviously I wasn't flavour of the month with Dad, but later when he stripped it it became clear it wasn't my fault.. Some mechanical genius - probably the previous owner, because it would never have lasted very long - had managed to get the crank apart for some reason, then probably couldn't get it back together, so they had sanded away at the crank pin until they could hammer the flywheel back on (you could actually see the hammer dents in the flywheel) but it was then too loose, so they had decided to take up the slack with Araldite !.. Of course as soon as the bike got hot the Araldite melted, the flywheel spun on the crankpin and abruptly jammed up solid in the crankcases.. Unfortunately Montesas weren't a very common bike and Dad couldn't find a used crank/conrod assembly, so he had to bite the bullet and order a brand new one. Luckily everything else cleaned up OK (It being my first time on a bike I wasn't exactly tearing up any trees at the time of the stoppage) and after the rebuild it ran fine until he sold it a couple of years later.. but the 'cheap Montesa' didn't turn out to be quite so cheap after all !!.
Glad it bought the memories back. 😊 They were not a common bike and back in those days, parts were hard to find. We have it easy nowadays with the Internet. Loved my old Montesa - happy days ❤️
I fell off that bike so many times practising wheelies (and much else) but used to just jump back on and carry on. Now, I'd be incapacitated for week doing that!
@@guzz1jonYou do need to be young for off-roading. I did a bit of motocross in my 40s - watching young riders doing 45 minute sessions whilst I was suffering badly after 10 mins was an eye opener. I was fast, just not for long! 😂
