MZing IN FINLAND MZ-RIDERS OF FINLAND / SUOMEN MZ-AJAJAT

MZing IN FINLAND

By Keijo Virtanen

Y es, MZ has a very good and strong tradition here. Finland belongs

to the first who started to import IFAs in the very beginning of

the 50′s, and because the Zschopau factory “Mannschaft” could

come to races to Finland more easily than to some other western

countries, MZ got here a good name and reputation in both road

and off-road racing; of course by winning.

MZs were solid, sold too, thus Finnish MZ-riders have now been

able to restore examples of most early models. A simple 2-stroke

which can stand well the riding during our winters, when 4-strokes

suffered from ice inside the crankcase because of condensation and

hardened oil which did not circulate – during the days of all-year-riding

MZ was a natural choice. And then the last official MZ-rider for

GP-circus was a Finn named Virtanen (Virtanen is the most common

I have been a very small school-boy when motorcyclists were near

to become endangered species in the 60′s – but my elder brother

did ride motorcycle. He had mostly Jawas, which were always

broken in one way or another, but once he was offered MZ ES300

The finnish Suzuki-importer sold well TS models in the 70′s and ETZs

Japanese big bikes have become most common also in this country,

but the MZ-riders belong to a “mentally and technically priviledged

group”. After several years of discussions, when MZ-riders

happened to meet, whether an MZ-rider club was needed or not,

in 1992 a club was founded, relatively informal from the start, and

so it has remained, with minimum bureacracy.

The situation was that our Suzuki-importer went into bankruptcy by

the late 80′s, so we did not get more MZs nor spares, except

ordering them separately. After the Wall had come down a good

try with new ETZs was started by a small group of MZ-activists;

they imported some tens of bikes but the firm suffered that they all

had to keep other jobs to live, and when real MZs went to Turkey,

only high-priced MuZs remained available. So there has been

a humble mission for an MZ Riders Club: to spread information

about the qualities of these real motorcycles, where to get spares

When other clubs have meetings, rallies, in order that members can

show more and more shiny and gorgeous (and expensive) motorcycles,

MZ riders arrange a meeting just to get together – and talk about…

whatever under the sun (or a cloud) one happens to have to share,

and if they have something to show about their motorcycles that is

that they are just clever devices for moving from place A to B

The winter in Finland is dark, snowy, wet, chilly, sometimes really

cold, more than -30 C degrees… all what winter can be, but the

Spring will see a few MZs on the roads leaving a fresh aroma behind