Cycle News is a weekly magazine that covers all aspects of motorcycling including Supercross, Motocross and MotoGP as well as new motorcycles
Issue link: https://magazine.cyclenews.com/i/1543002
A cross this country, Ameri- can motorcyclists are in lockdown mode. Going outside is not an option during this time. They are inside, one with the couch, as cold and motionless as the package of beef tongue in the bottom of the freezer. Beverages and snacks are aplenty, and the screen is their best friend these days because a cold and vicious scourge has taken over most of the country. These riders will not move from the inside to the out - side for one very good reason: it is Mecum Auction time. Every year in late January our eyes turn to Las Vegas, where the mother of all motorcycle auc- tions takes place. The Mecum Auction is for neither the faint of heart nor thin of wallet, so un- less you are an Olympic snow- boarder (turned alleged drug kingpin), this auction is nothing more than a time to be reminded that regardless of how much fun we had riding our motorcycles, when it comes to investing in them, we just plain suck. The Honda CT-70 that you sold for $600 when you were a kid is worth 10 times that amount today. The Kawasaki 750 Triple that you could've had for $1800 in 1973 will cost you $25,000 in 2026. All day long, white-gloved stewards parade these dream machines across the stage, standing in repose for a couple of minutes so as to prolong the angst and exacerbate the humili - ation. It's like discovering that the girlfriend you dumped is now a supermodel, your old boyfriend is a Fortune 500 CEO, and here they are, gloating like the cocks of the walk. You? You're thinking that you should've bought that Muskin El Gato, even if you don't know where you would've found one or what it even is. Self-flagellation aside, the Mecum is also a place to check out motorcycles that many rid - ers have never seen before. This year, one of those machines was a 1973 CZ 125, a motocrosser as rare as the aforementioned beef tongue, but there it was, on the stage. A quick search of the Cycle News' Archives found one being put to the test, back in the July 12th issue from 1972. The Mecum machine sported the iconic coffin tank that both CZ and Maico incorporated into their designs. While this '72 test model one-two-five was one of the "yellow tank" machines, they appear to be similar in every other way, which would make sense for the CZ factory. Re - sources were scarce inside the Communist country at that time, and prudent conservation of ma - terials was the order of the day. "The small "Che-Zed" is extravagantly overbuilt," wrote the CN crew. "It has exactly the same frame, wheels and running gear as the 250. Even the lower end is the same. Only the barrel, head and piston are changed. The carb is a 28mm Jikov, which is also stock on the 250." Sharing components with other models was a European thing at that time. Costs were cut, but weight and girth were added. While the larger 250cc and 380cc models had the power to move that beefy chassis around the racetrack, the tiny 125 was like the little engine that could, except that sometimes, it couldn't. The big-bike build "means that the smaller piston has the same weight of crank, rod, flywheels, etc. to get moving as does the 250 every time you dump the pre-mix to it. It takes a lot of revs to get the CZ moving at a respectable speed, and you have to keep it wicked to continue that way, or that big [relatively] lower-end mass starts to drag CNIIARCHIVES P120 BY KENT TAYLOR RARE BREED The CZ 125, the little MXer that could but sometimes couldn't.