Rickman Zundapp Micro Metisse 125cc / 1971

At the beginning of the ’70s, motocross was beginning to boom in the U.S. and many manufacturers, including American Eagle, CZ, Sachs, Penton, Maico, Bultaco, Dalesman, Montesa, Yamaha and Carabela, all jumped on the bandwagon. The Rickman brothers saw this as a great opportunity to increase their U.S. market share and developed the beautiful little gem you see here. Unlike many other manufacturers, the Rickmans developed a smaller, lighter chassis specifically for their 125 class weapon. Components were of the highest quality, including Ceriani forks, Girling shocks, Magura levers and a potent Zundapp engine. This led to a very high asking price of $895 in ’71 and this, along with problems with its distribution network through Steens’s and later the foundering BSA concern, limited the bike’s commercial success.

Graham Noyce was an employee at the Rickman factory and sponsored rider on the Micro Metisse during his school boy days in the early 70’s. After leaving Rickman, Noyce joined the Maico factory team in 1976 and went on to win the 500cc World Championship in 1979 on a factory Honda.

This machine was donated to the Early Years of Motocross museum by Jack Martin of Austin, Texas in honor of his friend, Carl Keller, and Carl’s son, Curtis. You can read Jack’s thoughts on the bike and Curtis’ story below.

I raced motocross around central and south Texas in the early 70s; starting on a Carabela 125 that I purchased myself new for $595. At the time, there were better bikes on the market, all of them far more expensive than my Mexican-built Caliente. The finest of these, and the most expensive, was the Rickman Micro Metisse. It cost $300 more than the Carabela and was probably worth every penny, but in 1971 that $300 would have bought you 1,200 gallons of gas! At the age of 14, I had not learned the value of delayed gratification and my results on the track suffered for it.

After the Carabela, I rode a succession of Czech bikes with modest success. My motocross career fizzled out in the mid-70s when my earnings couldn’t keep pace with the rapid changes in technology and college beckoned. But during that period of time, I got to see Steve Stackable, Kent Howerton and Steve Wise rise up from our local tracks to win at the national level. I got to see Ake Jonsson win at Rio Bravo on his way to 9 straight Trans-AMA triumphs. And I got to see Jimmy Weinert become the first American to beat the Europeans at a Trans-AMA two years later. I became a motocross fan for life.

Nearly thirty years went by without a dirt bike in my garage, but I never lost my love for the sport. In 2004, I attended an AHRMA national at Swan Motosports Park in northeast Texas. I had the chance to see Howerton and Wise ride again, as well as Billy Grossi, Warren Reid, Jim Pomeroy and, best of all, two-time World Champion, Jeff Smith. I struck up a conversation with Diamond Don Rainey, who had ridden Huskies for the powerful H&H Music Company Team around the Houston area when I was a kid. When I told Don that I was an attorney specializing in liquor law, he took it upon himself to introduce me to Carl Keller, a racer and restaurateur who was catering the event. Carl was awfully fast on his JPR Pursang, and he had some problems with the alcoholic beverage permits for his restaurant. We had a lot of things in common, although the ability to ride a motocross bike at high speed was not one of them.

I helped Carl get his liquor license straightened out, and he helped get me back on the motocross track. He borrowed a ’73 CZ 250 from a friend that he let me race at Cycle Ranch in Floresville. What an incredible track! What a joy it was to be back on a motocross bike. I still remember sitting on the line behind the backward falling gate, gazing up a hill into the first turn with the horizon at the crest, a crystal blue cloudless sky out beyond. It was as beautiful as anything I have ever seen.

I ended up buying the CZ and some modern trail bikes for our two sons, as well. We started riding together and I raced the CZ every now and then. While I thoroughly enjoyed racing the CZ, I never approached Carl’s speed. Nonetheless, Carl invited me to join his Armadillo Willy’s Race Team. He said I met 90% of the qualifications and that was good enough. I figured it out; I had a vintage bike, I was willing to help out in the pits and I brought plenty of beer with me to the races. Even if I wasn’t fast, I was 90% of the way to being a good teammate.

After being around vintage bikes for a while, I developed a hankering to acquire a Rickman Micro Metisse. I appreciated the tremendous role the Rickman brothers had played in the development of race ready motocross bikes for the common rider and had had a friend, Johnny Garrott, who absolutely flew on one of these in the days before the little Elsinore blew everything else off the tracks of South Texas. I couldn’t believe my luck when I found one in Houston, only 2 ½ hours away from our home in Austin, for less than I had paid for the Carabela. The plan was to restore it for Carl’s son, Curtis, to race. Curtis was really fast on his RM 85 and I thought it would be great fun to see him racing the baby blue Rickman, looking like a miniature Carl on his baby blue JPR. Unfortunately, tragedy intervened and Curtis was severely injured in a practice crash at Swan, only three days after I picked up the bike and just days short of his 13th birthday. Curtis survived over two months in a coma and is now doing well, all things considered, but he won’t be riding again any time soon, if ever.

The plan then became to restore the little Rickman and auction it off with the proceeds to be donated towards Curtis’ recovery. Unfortunately, while the bike appeared to be in fantastic original condition, the top end was shot; a broken ring having gouged the Zundapp’s chrome cylinder. Top end parts proved to be impossible to find and the planned restoration ground to a halt.

While looking for parts, I came upon the website for Tom White’s The Early Years of Motocross Museum. Not only was I amazed by Tom’s incredible collection of motocross iron, I was also touched by the story of Tom and his son, Brad, who suffered a severe brain injury in a motorcycling accident. I thought that Tom might be able to provide some insight for Carl in dealing with Curtis’s injuries and contacted him. Tom was very gracious and provided Carl with advice and encouragement.

In September, 2007, Carl and I went to the Motocross of Nations at Budd’s Creek. As we were leaving the track after the two most incredible days of racing I had ever witnessed, we bumped into Tom. Carl and Tom got a chance to meet face to face and I came to realize there was a proper home for the Micro Metisse. It now resides at The Early Years of Motocross Museum, donated in honor of my friend, Carl, who got me back into dirt bikes, and his son, Curtis.

-Jack Martin

Rickman Montesa 250cc / 1971

The Rickman brothers, Don and Derrick were master craftsman of beautiful motocross chassis’s. The Rickman’s realized that for them to grow their company, they needed to be able to supply a complete motorcycle instead of just the frame kits that they had offered up until this time. The problem! Most of the manufactures wouldn’t sell the Rickman’s engines. Fortunately they found the Spanish company, Montesa a willing supplier of lightweight and powerful 2-stroke engines. Montesa’s motorcycle sales were stagnant, especially in America as the Japanese had jumped into the motocross market with vigor, so the alliance made sense.

Initially priced higher than competing brands, the Rickman Montesa’s were a hard sell for many of its dealers. Times were a changing, and in many ways the chassis hadn’t improved over the Rickman’s frame designs from the late 1960’s and the engine hadn’t changed either. Unfortunately, it took deep discounts the sell these machines.

This motorcycle was restored by Steve Donovan.

Rickman 500 Triumph / 1969

The story of Derek and Don Rickman and the line of scramblers that they created is unique in the annals of motocross. The Rickmans were both world class competitors and innovative designers and developers of extraordinary machines. After riding less than competitive machinery for the Royal Enfield factory, the English brothers decided to develop a motocross hybrid of their own. Older brother, Derek, called the first machine a “Metisse”, French for mongrel, and it was an apt description as the machine was a mixture of mechanical bloodlines; Triumph 500cc twin engine, BSA frame, gearbox, clutch and wheels, and Norton forks. Derek rode the bike to victory in its first competition in England in 1959. Later that year, Don led Great Britain to win the Motocross des Nations at Namur, Belgium on the Mark 1 Metisse.

After a second successful BSA-framed version, the brothers developed the Mark III Metisse, sporting a beautiful nickel-plated frame of their own design and construction. Engine oil was carried in the frame and additional weight savings were gained by utilizing snail-cam chain adjusters mounted at the swingarm pivot, reducing the unsprung weight, and extensively using fiberglass for the gas tank and other bodywork. The mongrel had become a potent weapon and a thing of beauty, as well.

So much interest was shown in the Mark III that the Rickman brothers began commercial production of chassis kits, capable of housing a number of different engines, in 1962. The quality and handling of the Rickman chassis, and it acceptance by world class competitors, was well demonstrated by the fact that 24 Metisses were on the line at the Motocross des Nations in 1964. In 1966, the Mark IV chassis was introduced, a refined version of the existing frame.

The Rickman that you see here is a Mark IV chassis powered by a 500cc Triumph twin. This is representative of a combination that carried the Rickman brothers and many of their customers to wins throughout the 1960s, before the lighter two strokes ran them off the tracks of Europe.