JAWA 350 RETRO
More about the manner of going than the going itself. Frank Westworth has been riding along memory lane with a reincarnation of an old friend…
More about the manner of going than the going itself. Frank Westworth has been riding along memory lane with a reincarnation of an old friend…
The doorbell of my parents’ house in Taunton chimed. I answered it, sure it was for me. It was for me. I can read the future. ‘Hi Frank,’ a policeman in uniform, complete with sergeant’s stripes on his sleeves was standing there, grinning. He’d been in my class at school. I suggested that he’d done well, attaining the three stripes of superiority so soon – it was only five years or so since we’d all left that educational establishment. He grinned more, and we chatted with animation for a while.
‘We’ve found your bike,’ he revealed at last. I grinned back, and wondered whether he’d give me a lift in his panda car so that I could collect it. He shook his head, the smile fading. He shrugged.
‘It was dumped in the canal.’
I stared. Not a little bewildered. ‘Doubt it’ll run,’ he added, and I just nodded. Moving backwards in time only a little, I can reveal that the previous day I’d ridden my bike down from North Wales, where I was resident at the time, to visit my parents, as a chap should. It had been a spectacularly dull trip, barely bearable until I rolled along the nearly new M5 south of Bristol, rapidly gave it up as a bad idea, and saved my sanity by proceeding along the almost empty A38, blessing the fact that all the through-traffic had migrated to the motorway.
Arrived at the family house, did the friendly son routine, popped out for a brief evening with a long-time pal and rattled back nice and early so I could catch my dad as he returned from his evening shift. He arrived home – aboard his Honda scooter-thing – and looked surprised to see me. ‘Where’s the bike?’ he wondered.
We shambled out to admire and indeed inspect the driveway, where it had been. And where it wasn’t. My dad called upon the constabulary, with the result you already know. Someone had lifted it, despite the steering lock, and had plainly ridden it as far as the canal, where they’d parked it. I could understand that, and remarked in one of my very earliest excursions into the world of print that if I ever met the crook I’d stand him a pint. The bike? A 350 Jawa. Nearly new. This was the roasting summer of 1976. With parental assistance I rode home a few days later aboard a near-new Triumph 750 Bonneville, which was at least capable of motorway cruising…
Imagine, if you can, my surprise and delight when I observed that North Cornwall
Motorcycles – based in sunny Bude – had a 350 Jawa in stock! I was genuinely amazed – even more amazed when I understood that this was no seventies relic. No, this was an almost new one, although to be honest it resembled my old one to an almost uncomfortable degree. Of course I was intrigued. Of course I instantly asked to borrow it, and of course Steve at NCMC agreed. I was aware that David Angel’s F2 Motorcycles imported these machines, and indeed he and I had actually talked vaguely about my borrowing one, but he’s a long way away from RCHQ Bude … unlike NCMC and their intriguing example.
And unlike most ‘retro’ machines, this is actually extremely close to the earlier Jawa twins. Uncannily so, in fact. I walked around it, taking in the modern version while my memory automatically compared it with the machine from the remote past. They are very close, much closer than, say, a modern RE Bullet in retro guise is to a 1970s survivor of that ilk. Every component is probably different, but the core of the machine is still the 343cc twin-cylinder 2-stroke engine. It still drives its 4-speed gearbox by chain, and the gearbox also supplies power to the rear wheel by another simple chain – but a fully enclosed and lubricated chain, which should last for a very long time, given the engine’s smooth power delivery.
The most obvious changes between my 1975 machine and the 2014 model seen here lie in the important starting and stopping departments. Whereas my old machine required the operation of the slightly unusual kickstart lever – more on that later – the new one has an electric start. And very effective it is too. Whereas the old Jawa had a totally unremarkable 2ls drum to handle the stopping, which it did only grudgingly, the modern machine boasts a single disc, which boded well for my ride, I decided.
Steve from NCMC confessed that he knew little about the bike, but showed me where the mixture enrichment device lives (at the side of the single carb – a simple flick-up lever), as well as apologising for the entirely bizarre mirrors. Which are presumably a previous owner’s idea of the high style, because Jawa fit their bikes with entirely conventional round mirrors on sensibly long stalks! Not to worry.
Starting is simple. Enrich the mixture (lift the little lever), prod the button and marvel at the unmistakeable classic cadence of a 2-stroke twin burbling away. We all know what the exhausts sound like, of course, but a minor delight is the almost total absence of mechanical noise from the engine. Pull on gloves, follow the instruction to shut off the ‘choke’ as soon as I’m ready to ride off – because it’s not easy to do this from the saddle while riding along – and observe with a little relief that the engine slows down and settles at once to a delighted poppop-popping, just like strokers did before the fiendish Orientals started extracting insane levels of power from them. Pop-pop-pop it went. I smiled.
Clutch time.
Do you know about Jawa (and CZ) clutches? They are fascinating devices – at least their release mechanisms are. You can see the lever
on the left-hand handlebar? Great. That does exactly what you expect it do; the clutch is a conventional multi-plate design and performs as you’d expect it to. Except…
The very first Jawa I rode was back in the mid-1970s, and was a 2-stroke 250 single of enormous charm and resilience. It was also free, which was part of that charm. The first time I rode it, after getting it running, a simple process involving cleaning the points and cooking a spark plug, as I recall, and a certain amount of running and bumping (I was a lot younger then) because it boasted neither an electric hoof nor a lever for conventional kick, I burbled along in a series of wild and tuneful swoops because the clutch was slipping like a well-oiled eel and headed for the doughty Ted Williams, bike shop proprietor in Wrexham, where I lived at the time. I arrived, puffing, panting, a tad terrified, and begged him to take a look at the clutch. Preferably a free look if at all possible.
I described the symptoms. He stared at me pityingly. Nodded. Remarked that I’d plainly never encountered such a fine eastern European marvel before. I agreed that I had not, but I had briefly owned a 250 Puch split-single so was no green onion, me. He just laughed. And smoked.
He did both of these things with the ease of long habit, down there in that long-gone Cambrian Yard hideaway. Then he walked to the Jawa, applied his right foot to the gear lever, twitched an ankle and flicked the lever upright. ‘Kickstart,’ he said, gently. He operated it. The engine started. He flicked the lever back to its horizontal position. ‘Gearlever,’ he said, gently. I was amazed. Youthful innocence takes many forms.
Grasping my tenuous grip on reality with gritted teeth, I enquired about the slipping clutch. Ted sat on the bike, ticking over like a 2-stroke metronome, and folded his arms. Then he put it into gear. I stepped back. The Jawa stayed where it was. Ted pointed at his foot, resting on the gear lever, and raised his foot slightly. The bike pulled away. I was more amazed. Life is like that when you’re young.
The modern Jawa retains both of these apparently pointless but plainly popular features. I had of course forgotten about them and have plainly got back into that old bad habit of resting a toe on the gear lever while riding – which makes the clutch slip, producing progress in a series of insane but entertaining swoops. By the time I remembered my long-ago lesson from Ted Williams I was heading south on the Atlantic Highway. And I was enjoying myself.
The engine is exactly as my memory remembers my own 350 Jawa, back before it was a retro. It pulls really well. It is remarkably smooth. The virtues it possessed back then it still retains. This is not a bit like a Japanese sporting stroker – the engine pulls from nothing and simply four-strokes once it’s reached whatever it considers to be peak revs. It is … timeless, somehow. This is not actually a retro
– it is a relic. And that is not said unkindly. This is – apart from the electric hoof, sundry oddities which I’ll get to in a minute and the disc brake – functionally almost exactly as it was in the 1970s. It is immensely likeable, too.
The unusual gearchange mechanism – where the lever also operates the clutch – means that you never need to use the handlebar lever to shift ratios when on the move. I am assured that experienced riders can pull away using the gear lever as a foot clutch, although I doubt that cable snappage is sufficiently common for that to be a selling point.
And there are just four gears. They’re wellspaced, and the engine needs no more of them, given its wide spread of both torque and power. Engagement is brutal – but you are left
in no doubt that ratios have changed, and I am again assured that with practice comes perfection. What is also a little remarkable is that there appear to be two neutrals, one in the usual place between first and second gears, the other between third and top. I was chatting etherically with David Angel of F2 Motorcycles and importer of these remarkable machines, and he suggested that the neutral between third and top gears is to enable the engine to idle when on a long descent, where as the throttle is closed, thus limiting the oil feed from the pump, damage could result from loading said engine while not oiling it properly. Which makes perfect sense, so long as you understand the engineers’ thinking. Again, familiarity breeds content.
I mentioned sundry oddities a little earlier. The traditional – and indeed handsome – analogue clocks of the older machines have been replaced by a seriously strange digital dash. I have no idea why. The speedo worked perfectly, but the tacho (a sort-of bar chart) didn’t, not that a tacho is important on a machine like this. And this particular example was sporting a very silly set of mirrors. They flapped around in a pleasantly entertaining way, but
were no use at all for that looking behind thing, where mirrors are so often helpful.
Comfort is excellent. The rider’s posture is exactly as you would expect from a motorcycle intended for daily use, year in, year out, whatever the weather, day or night. Although the quoted seat height is a lofty 34 inches, the machine is light and very narrow as well as boasting almost no bulk at all, so it feels lower than it is. Remember at this point that Jawa / CZ were long-time builders of great off-road motorcycles, and they have plainly not forgotten how to do this. So you also get superb steering – really, that’s not being flippant at all – very good braking at both ends, and you get that rarity, a fully enclosed, and indeed lubricated, rear chain. The Jawa is truly a fine example of the way most motorcycles were back when they were designed, intended and indeed built for longterm all-weather transport.
Conclusions? At the end of my time with the bike I was thoroughly enjoying myself – the riding experience is decently unique. Although no modernist is going to feel a crazed adrenaline thrill at the thought of 23bhp @ 5250rpm, remember that this is as much as a decent classic ohv 500 single, and matches really well with the 32NM @ 4750rpm – torque spread and power ‘band’ overlap excellently,
providing a very ‘classic’ engine feel, with steady performance delivery from very low revs. Except that this is a 2-stroke twin, not, for example, an RE Bullet.
And yes, that is indeed a carburettor, not a fuel injection system. And yes, those are removable baffles in the exhausts, so you can clean them, just as Villiers pilots did all those years ago. Although modern 2-stroke oils are pretty good, very low ash, and so long as you let the autolube device get on with it, I’d doubt that the exhausts coke up much – if at all. There was no smoke from the exhausts, either.
Although I expected nothing more than a fun trip down memory lane, I found myself amused and entertained by this, the Jawa 350 Retro. It demands to be understood – you’ll not enjoy riding it unless you’re prepared to learn how and why it does what it does – but like almost all 2-stroke twins, it is in fact a real charmer. Classic, almost…