The Rare and Enigmatic

1975 Maicati 350

Here's the only two pictures I ever took. I was a typical teen, in a rush, no time to take pictures. Damn shame as from the right side it really looked pretty darn good.
The bulging clutch cover made the left side a bit less photogenic. But you'll have to take my word for it.

The Story

Picture the state of dirt biking for 4-stroke fans in the mid 70's. Especially for a high school kid with a very limited budget.
Sure, there were the Honda XL's, and Yamaha had the TT500, but neither handled especially well, and turning one into a light good handling bike back then took cubic dollars, something high school kids generally don't have.

The first Maicati was a custom build dirt bike combining a Ducati 350 engine and an early 70's Maico chassis. Why a Ducati? Well, let's back up a few years. My first bike was a Honda C110 50cc into which my dad stuffed a Trail 90 engine. While owning this bike, Dad opened a motorcycle shop in Mt. View, Don Anderson's Cycle Center. We had demo bikes for most models, including the Ducati RT450. One weekend we took all the demo dirt bikes to Hollister Hills motorcycle park.
Needless to say, I took advantage of having all these bikes to choose from and rode the 125 Zundapp and Monarch quite a bit.

But I'd loved the sound of the RT450. Coming back to camp, I saw it leaning up against the old clubhouse. I went in and asked if I could ride it. Dad said if I could start it, I could ride it, getting a laugh from everyone. To those weaned on today's Japanese thumpers, you're spoiled. Old school thumpers do not suffer lighty half-assed attempts to light their fire, and will royally bite a less than proper approach. And I was a rather skinny lightweight then... (oh, the good old days...)

Well, I'd watched Dad start it a number of times. I checked that it had plenty of gas, observed the proper ritual, and lit it off on the first kick. Geez Louise! Talk about torque! This sucker ripped, and made my poor 90 feel like it was powered by a couple geriatric gerbals. From that day on, I've been a thumper fan. My next bike was a 350 Ducati. Prepped for dirt, which meant taking off the lights, installing Preston Petty fenders and a spark arrestor, it weighed in at around 300 lbs. And it handled like a 300 lb street bike with knobbies...

At this time, I belonged to an SF Bay Area MC club, High Gear. On various campouts, rides, and club races, I got to ride a couple different model Maico motorcycles owned by Frank Vest. While I wanted a Maico, my budget didn't allow for two bikes, plus I had a reputation to uphold as "one of those 4 stroke nuts".

One day  I was inspired to try to improve my beloved Duc by grafting the engine into a Maico chassis. Long travel was just showing up, but there was no way I could afford a current chassis. With long travel though, racers were upgrading and it wasn't too long before I located a '71 rolling chassis from Trophy Cycles.

While at this point I'd spent several years at NASA Ames Research Center in a work experience program, working in the fabrications shops, my skills were still pretty limited, and while Dad had a lot of tools compared to most folks, it was an oxy/acetylene rig, drill press, hammer, hacksaw, and files that I had to work with.

Oh, how I kick myself for not documenting this project in detail, as there was a lot of fabrication I'm still proud of. I abandoned the lower frame rails, terminating the lower frame tubes just below the swing arm pivot, into bosses that mated with the lower case mounts. I mimicked the Ducati foot peg mounts with an aluminum plate running from the rear motor mount to the bottom center mounts, and hand fabricated new foot pegs and mounts from 4140 tube, these attached to the aluminum plate. Not happy with trying to pass the exhaust through the right downtube, I went with a single downtube. I used the Maico rear wheel, but since Ducs shift on the right, I fabricated a brake pedal setup and converted the rear brake to cable. And since I could weld, I of course set it up to approx. 1975 long travel specs in the rear, going with Koni shocks and MCM finned reservoir shock bodies.

I got it finished well enough to race it in one club event at Hollister, and did reasonably well for myself considering I'm not a terribly fast rider. But I did a whole lot better than I could have done with the stock Duc chassis! All in all, it worked very well. Since the Duc had been street legal, I just moved the plate over to the Maicati, and rode it on the street. Where it met up with a Buick in a manner I'm not exactly proud to relate in detail. A moment of stupidity and my creation was totaled. At least I limped away, sore but alive. End of story....

Locating a suitable Ducati engine however, proved more difficult. And expensive... Danged things have become collectible and are no longer available for $50-100. Damn, wish I hadn't sold that shed full of Duc parts 20 years ago! After watching ebay for several weeks, I spotted, bid, and lost out on a clean looking 350. I was bemoaning the difficulty of finding an engine when a friend told me about a TT500 I could pick up for free, with title. Well, I like the TT500 engine too and it was my backup if I couldn't find a Duc engine, so I grabbed the bike. Got home and what should come through in my email but a 2nd Chance offer on the 350 engine!

After a bit of soul searching, I bought the engine. A few days later the 350 engine showed up, so I'm now just waiting for enough free time to get in and do this right.

Here's what I'm starting with:

Fork tubes are rusted, and I need rear shocks, tank, plastic, and seat cover.
And labor. Lots and lots of labor....

Contact me
Updated 06/02/2008