This Carpenter Brings Junked Motorcycles Back to Life

Elias Kirtz of Queens with his 1996 MZ Silver Star Classic Gespann motorcycle. JAMES ROBERT FULLER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

By A.J. BAIME

Elias Kirtz, 44, a carpenter from Long Island City, Queens, N.Y., on his garage full of wheeled oddities, as told to A.J. Baime.

My garage space is full of weird objects. I have the bicycle I used for my fifth-grade paper route, and an engine from a 1966 station wagon. But mostly, I keep my motorcycles in there.

I own the dregs of the motorcycle world, the kind that are completely worthless unless you put a million hours into them. I try to get them for nothing and get them running, and I don’t care what they look like—mostly 1960s Hondas, since so many were made. I’ve been commuting to jobs all over New York for years on bikes with less horsepower than two weed whackers, in rain, snow, or sunshine.

I have six bikes in the garage now. My helmet is a police helmet, and it cost more than several of my motorcycles.

The MZ Silver Star Classic Gespann, however, is an exception. It defies my logic, because it’s actually a nice bike. It’s an oddity—a big angry machine—but it’s also practical. It was built in eastern Germany in 1996. That’s after the Berlin Wall came down, but in the same old factory where MZs were built for years before that. I found it on eBay this past summer and bought it in Latrobe, Pa. The whole rig fit in the back of my pickup truck.

A look at the motorcycle’s instrument cluster. MZ was an East German company that has since all but disappeared from the motorcycling world. JAMES ROBERT FULLER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

The bike’s got a 500 cc single-cylinder—a thumper, as they call bikes with one big cylinder, because of the sound. Not a lot of these bikes were imported, and MZ has since all but disappeared from the motorcycling world.

A lot of times, sidecars are thrown on bikes [haphazardly], but this sidecar was built properly with the motorcycle at the factory. Mostly, my girlfriend rides in the sidecar. But people from the neighborhood are always asking—especially kids, and they’re not allowed unless they ask their parents first.

At our block party last summer, I gave rides in the sidecar until the clutch cable broke. I was literally not allowed to stop. Giving all those rides made buying this bike worthwhile.

According to Mr. Kirtz, this 1966 Honda has a top speed of 49.41 mph. ‘I have a little electronic speedometer on there,’ he says. JAMES ROBERT FULLER FOR THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

Contact A.J. Baime at Facebook.com/ajbaime.

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