If you ask any enthusiast these days what they think of ČZ you might receive a look of inquisitiveness and then perhaps a few words would be pronounced: cheap, reliable, but perhaps not very exciting. That might be true but those pronouncements make no allowance for how the Čzechoslovakian manufacturers (of Jawas too) increased their quality and materials over time. Indeed Jawa still produce modern examples of this sort of machine.
I hadn't ridden a ČZ before this one, but long ago an uncle used to swear by them (no, not at them!) as he commuted from the suburbs in London to High Holborn on what may have been a 175 single. Thinking back to when my machine was new in the late 1980s, my mind was filled with recollections from various motorcycle magazines of the time. The ČZs were perhaps unfairly compared to offerings
