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Montesa Cota 348. A more unsuitable about town bike there
never was.... |
Here's another machine that I was custodian of for a while, quite a short while in this case. Notable for being the first Montesa featured on the blog, this machine I owned for a few months around fifteen years ago.
The Cota came my way largely on the merit of it being offered for sale very close to my home and at a reasonable price. The bike needed a small bit of fettling but after that it was a very good example.
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Classic engine. Used in many different sizes and roles from
commuter to road racer. |
Bizarre as it seems with hindsight I never used the Montesa off-road, rather as a runabout around Bournemouth where I used to live. For town riding it was good fun, with such low gearing and plenty of power it shot away from the lights but you had to be ready for some rapid fire gear changing. Once underway it would hold a slightly buzzy 50mph easy enough. Though surprisingly adept at being an urban hooligan the Montesa was quite brutally uncomfortable to ride in the seated position as obviously enough it was designed to be ridden standing up at low speed off road..
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| Easy starter and beautifully made. |
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| Can't for the life of me remember what year the Cota was... |
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| Road legal, just. |
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Neat q/d seat unit and tank trim (underneath there is a regular
alloy petrol tank). |
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| Happy to have owned it. A sweet bike but, do I miss it? Not much. |
In Caracas where Trials were big in the early 70s Cotas, OSSA Mars, and the Bultaco Sherpa Ts abounded. Mine was the Sherpa T350. The Yamaha TY's and Honda TLs made the scene a bit later.
ReplyDeleteThanks for the comment. Always stoked to find out that there's folks from around the world looking at my humble blog. Checked your profile and see you're from Maine. Beautiful part of the world.
DeleteAwesome picture in the link. Mind if I post it with due props to you of course? Thanks, Richard
Yea, you can post the picture. I am originally from Venezuela but live in Maine now. I think that was taken circa 1978 in Caracas? I would have been about 16 yrs old then. Way braver than I am now. I can say I rode in the nation with the highest mortality rate in the world and survived just barely. No motorcycle weather here today. It's about minus 10C and we just got dumped with about five inches of snow.
DeletePS, your Cota would have been a 1976 model at the earliest. That was the first year of the 348. By 78 they were doing the same body style but white tanks with the red stripe. And by 1982 they had joined forces with Honda and gone to the more modern present style.
Deletehttps://www.trialworld.es/montesa-cota-trial/
Michael
Sorry for not replying sooner - been travelling around for work and a bit too busy for blog stuff. Kicking back a bit now and catching up. Thanks for permission to post your pic. It's just gone up: https://reddevilmotors.blogspot.com/2019/01/montesa-cota-in-caracas.html
DeleteAll the best, Richard
ahh, but I guess it all got lost in the translation.. mine was the Bultaco Sherpa-T 350
DeleteBack when we were immortal or was that just ignorant?:
ReplyDeletehttps://3.bp.blogspot.com/-Lz1OJ4UK7To/W_RyQQ0Fj7I/AAAAAAAAKNc/w5WxAwpLz0k7j0bdDMZqeOa3TUik88fSACLcBGAs/s1600/Scan10013.JPG