About ten years ago I was Regalia
Officer for the MZ Riders Club in the UK. What that meant in real terms was
that I sourced and sold the club’s t-shirts, badges etc. Every now and again I
would also buy batches of hard to come by spares as, before the widespread use
of eBay and the internet to buy spares online, certain items were nearly
unobtainable, or were ridiculously priced if you could find them.
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| MZs Ugly Duckling, the ES250/2 Trophy |
I once managed to get a batch of about
twenty pairs of rubber chain-gaiters for the MZ ES250/2 Trophy and Trophy Sport from a company in Germany
through a friend who worked over there. These were unobtainable in the UK at the time and, although they were quite expensive, they were
correct size and meant that owners of these bikes could fit the proper sized
item rather than having to cut down other ones to fit.
After selling about half of them I was
told by a friend that he thought that Silk used the same size gaiters. I
contacted the Scott Owners Club to see if any of their members who owned a Silk
might be interested, and was unsurprised when they didn’t bother to respond.
MZs are rather looked down upon by the classic bike brigade and I was sort of
used to this sort of attitude from the days when I ran a club stand at the
Scottish Motorcycle Show.
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| Silk 500S at Stafford Motorcycle Show |
However, they must have mentioned it
to someone, because a few weeks later I got an email from a Silk owner
interested in a set. He had been looking for some to finish off his fully
restored bike for ages and was keen on getting hold of them if they would fit.
He didn’t even blink at the price.
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| Silk 700S and 500S at Stafford Motorcycle Show |
As I wasn’t 100% certain that they
would fit, and in the interests of fairness, I offered to take them back if
they were the wrong size and refund him the purchase price. He accepted and I parceled up a pair and sent them off.
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| Silk 700S with the rear chain enclosure and rubber gaiters clearly visible |
A few days later I got an excited
email from the bloke who said that not only did they fit, but that the serial
numbers stamped on the new ones actually matched those on the scabby old pair
he had removed. He was more than happy and sent me a couple of pictures of his
bike so that I could see how they looked. A very happy, satisfied customer.
He, in turn, must have told others of
his good fortune as shortly afterwards I received an order from the Scott club for
as many pairs as I had left!
If you look at pictures of Silks
online you will note that many of them seem to be missing the rear chain enclosure
and/or the rubber chain gaiters. So, it seems that these are still a difficult
item to lay your hands on.
