A lovely ride: How loss brought one Lincolnshire local’s passion to life
Many of us will discover new passions later in life, but for one Claypole local, the tragic circumstances surrounding how he found his favourite pastime were truly unexpected.
Ned Cooper, 69, has been riding motorbikes since he was 11 years old, whizzing around the fields in his hometown.
He spent his teens enjoying them, barely thinking about the scooters some of his friends owned.
“A gang of us used to go to a place we called Newton Cliffs, with bumps and hollows between trees,” he told Bikesure’s Scooter Stories.
“We’d spend all week getting our bikes ready, then wreck them at the weekend, come back and rebuild them.
“Some of the lads in the village had a Maicoletta with a sidecar on it, took it round the field and destroyed it, of course.”
He would own several road bikes over his lifetime, tinkering with many of them as a hobby.
The Lincolnshire resident changed his mind about scooters when, 15 years ago, his good friend, Phil, sadly passed away at just 62 years old.
“I’d seen him messing about with this scooter,” he recalled. “He was doing it up for someone who hadn’t paid him for the work.
“Another friend, who was executor to Phil’s will, phoned me up and said, ‘There’s a Maicoletta scooter in Phil’s garage, it wants quite a bit doing to it, a few bits missing, but the only person I can think of who can perhaps do something with it is you’. So I was given it.”
Malcolettas are considered to be one of the heaviest and most expensive motor scooters on the market, so this was a rare opportunity.
“I tried to find the bloke who hadn’t paid Phil, to offer him some money for it, but I never found him.”
With nowhere else for the scooter to go, Mr Cooper decided to restore the 1950s classic. It would need a lot of work and had many parts missing.
“The good thing was that the wind-up eight-day clock was there, and they’re very sought after now,” he said. “The frame was painted, and the engine was in the frame, but all the bodywork was rusty and scatty. They do go rotten in various places, but they are very repairable.”
“It’s a great piece of engineering, and I suspect every Maicoletta out there has probably still got the original tub.”
He soon had it back in working order with help from the Maico Owners Club when it came to sourcing parts.
Mr Cooper would then admit: “I was quite impressed, and it was a very good quality scooter for when it was made.
“I was impressed with how fast it is – it’ll cruise at 55mph no problem, and on a good day it will do 70mph. They always said it was the best seat on any two-wheeled vehicle of the time. It’s a lovely ride, including for a passenger.”
The scooter had won him over, and he would soon enough begin the process again with a second Maicoletta and then a third, and now, he’s restored five of them. Each brought new challenges, especially as the parts weren’t always easy to come by.
He also remains part of the Maico club.
“I’ve been messing around with these things for a long time, and I like to go to the shows,” he said. “It’s more about meeting the people, some of whom have been going for donkey’s years.”
“We’ve got a good gang of people, and we have a good craic. We have a German scooter weekend every year, and we’ll get somewhere between 30 and 40 people, which for a little tiny club is good. It’s good fun.”
All of his Maicos get a spin from time to time, with the scooter convert enjoying each one for its unique attributes. He’s even been offered good money for of them in the past.
“Even if I’m on the standard one, it’s always quite a talking point because it’s an unusual scooter.
“But when you put the 650 in with a bit of noise and performance, at bike meets there’ll be as many people look at the scooter as the new Aprilia V4 or whatever.”
Despite the sad circumstances that led to the first scooter, Mr Cooper is now fully converted and plans on continuing to own and ride them.