Anybody ever own...

No

the carb goes into the clutch? Damn I must be drunk and seeing things...

That would be a rotary valve I believe

My dad used to own a Maico. Still one of his all-time favorite bikes.

Something about a petite little redhead that just does it for me.....

...and great ideas like that are what has kept Maico on top for so many years..

What is the saying, if theres no oil under it, there's no oil in it?

My grandfather did

Question should be: anybody want to ride....

I know I would!!!!!

Because of crazy folk like Newmann, I got to ride one...

The throttle is an "on/off" switch.

Saw a guy in the early 70's show up on a new rotary Maico 125 in the foothills of Bakersfield. It ran for about two hours, then lost spark. Pulled the ignition cover, and the flywheel dropped out onto the ground, with the end of the crank still in it.

I owned a 74, if you layed it over on the right side you bent the brake pedal, too far over on the left side and the shift shaft was toast, learned to ride only the insides and avoid the berms
here is a pic of my brothers, the first bike on the right is a 77 125 and the orange one beside it is a 73 125

sorry i may get clickied for that

A friend of mine has one.

I rode one, but was not tall enough to touch the ground. It was my dads....Occasionally (daily???) he'd be known to drink a bit and let me ride it. When I was finished, I'd turn into him, and he'd catch me. Not such a bad idea on this bike. It was a little more scary on his z1900.

My perspective may be off some due to my normal ride then, a Yamaha jt1 80 (non yz).

The bike was as fast as the Space Shuttle, and VERY tall.

Thanks for posting the picture. It brings back some gre t memories. I do remember talk , back then, and the rotary valve motors were supposed to have incredible low end. The Can Am, from a similar time, used this too.

I remember never leaving the garage without a full assortment of tools. Also, I'm not sure if it was this specific bike, but it needed the primary chain (not drive) changed on what sounded like an hourly basis...

Don't see too many of those, a maico 125 with a rotary valve, a friend of mine was working on one not too long ago, that motor is based on maico road racing back in the day, they were very fast, but hard to ride, all top end, didn't make a good motocrosser, but still cool

I had a 1974 one , the carb on those was inside the casing and was a real problem to set up as you had to take the casing off to do it which meant when you were setting it wasn't breathing through the air filter , so as soon as you put the casing back on it altered how it was breathing.
Ripping off the rear brake pedal was a common problem as was ripping off the underslung exhaust , rotary valves used to burn out and the crank used to twist , spent more time apart than together , but out of the gate they were the fastest 125 out there , Maico used the same motor for their road race bike . Have to say I wasn't sad to see it go .

Here's mine back in the mid 70's

Had one...no. Rode one...yes. When I was one of the only riders to be racing a Euro bike in '74 around Texas (had a '73 Husky 125) because of everybody going Japanese...I remember a guy showing up at Cloverfield race track on one of those Maicos, and pulled the holeshot of the day with it. He didn't win, but it sure wasn't because the bike wasn't fast. I got to ride the bike a little after the race, and even stock it was way faster than my super-modded Husky. It was super pipey, and not a lot of bottom end, as I remember...but when you revved it, it was a rocket.