Trail Rider Magazine

36 Trail Rider The Mythical Maico 700 By Toby Opferman A li le over 10 years ago the internet was abuzz with the emergence of the Maico 700. A two stroke dirt bike that became legend. Where did it come from? Does it actually exist? What is it like to ride it? The answer is more complicated than a simple yes or no. Super big bore Maicos aren't anything new. The very first was a Maico 504 that was hand cra - ed to a Maico 750 by Egert Haas who used it to win the 1979 ISDT World Championship. In the 1980s Maico worked with Zabel on further de- veloping the Maico 490 engine for use in sidecar racing. The first a empt as a 530cc engine re- leased as a side car in 1986. They incrementally went to 570cc and eventually se led on 610cc in 1987. However by 1990 Zabel was manufac- turing their own 620cc and 685cc Maico engines due to Maico's bankruptcy issues and ownership changes. Zabel has separately con nued their R&D to today now releasing a 4-speed 700cc engine for side car racing. Maico would also con nue their sidecar venture under Lorenz Merkel in the 1990s. They would sell a Maico 620cc engine and they produced several other experimental engines. This would include the Maico 660cc as well as producing around 10 dual cylinder (320ccx2) 640cc en- gines before running out of funds. Aside from the sidecars Maico also built a 545cc MX bike in 1994 to compete with the KTM 540/550. By the late 1990s Maico had changed ownership several mes and by 2000 were being produced by Axel Koestler in Germany. They had no longer been into side cars since the Merkle days and were only producing up to a 500cc en- duro and mx bike. This changed in 2003 when Axel started to sponsor a supermoto team in Germany. The team want- ed more power than the 500 had to offer so Axel had a 620cc and 685cc engine built by the late famous side car and Maico tuner Hermann Walgenbach aka "HEWA POWER". This was the birth of the modern day "Maico 700". ATK started to import the Maico 685/620 and rebadge them as the "ATK 700/620 In midator". This was the beginning of the legend of the "700". Many are con- fused between the Zabel 700, Maico 700 and the ATK 700. The ATK 700 was the Maico 685 built by Koestler. The Zabel 700 is a completely different beast and is only sold as an engine. It was never sold by ATK and as of today ATK has not imported a Maico 685 nor sold an ATK 700 in 10 years. Then came "Maico Interna onal" from the UK which s ll be cause for confusion to people to this day. There was a lot of buzz about this new company who was go- ing to bring back Maico. Ini ally they were partnered as a distributor with Koestler. They would get the bikes from Koestler and they would develop new compo- nents such as the swing arm, tank and updated graph- ics. This partnership eventually soured and Maico In- terna onal started to build their own bikes. They were looking to develop a true Maico 700cc engine however they never released it. This is the second source of where the legend of the "Maico 700" sprouted. The images online of a modern red and white graphics bike with aluminum tank and shot gun style swing arm is the product of Maico Interna onal's R&D. Due to legal issues with the Maico name they changed their brand to "Berkeley VLN" in 2014. These bikes have yet to be released. This brings us back to the Koestler Maico 685 which is now technically known as the Maico 700. This bike

• Cover