CHAPTER 17
Laverda jota
1983
I always fancied one of these Italian bikes, not just because of the performance that it out-putted, which is very impressive and at the time when they were first introduced to the UK, the JOTA was most likely the fastest production bike you could buy as a standard bike in a bike showroom.
The style of the bike was different from the ordinary Jap bike that was everywhere on the streets of Britain and in my eyes it stood out amongst the crowd and it was Italian which made it different in every way to the other bikes that dominated the bike scene in the 70s.
The Jota was first produced around the mid 70s, the Laverda model I like best was the one that was available in around 1976, the jota.
The first one I saw in real life and not in a bike magazine, was in City Road in Cardiff, I can't remember the name of the bike shop there now, it completely escapes me.
It was literary a lifetime ago.
I remember the asking price for the Jota which was around the £2000 mark, which was way out of my league at the time.
All I could do was look at the bike.
The salesmen that were guarding the bike would not let anyone 'go near' it, they hovered around it like a mother protecting its young, I can understand why they had to do this, the bike drew a lot of attention form all the young bikers that were itching to climb on her to see how she felt, just to get a feel of the bike, the sitting potion and the clock layout and have some idea on how it would feel to actually taking her out on the road, me included.
There were no road test offered on this little beauty, so we all had to just stare at it in frustration.
The jota in question had the standard nosecone faring which made the bike look very sporty and with its in-line three-cylinder engine made it an awesome machine, not to mention the performance that the Laverda manufactures claimed it could archive.
The Jota had a 1000 cc in-line Triple Cylinder air cooled DOHC engine, slotted into the frame with no space to spare.
It weighed in at 234 kg / 551 lb and outputted 90 BHP ( brake horse power).
The Laverda people say a standard Jota straight out of the factory with no Mods could hit 146 mph, this may not seem that good for a 1000 cc bike today as some modern 600 cc bikes can archive that speed and more.
All you have to do is remember this is 1976 and that kind of speed was impossible for an unmodified bike back then and by the way, it still gave you 35 – 45 mpg which was more than my RD 350 did, which was the bike I was riding at the time.
As you can tell I liked the looks of it and the performance gave the bike an elite status, well in my eyes it did.
I wasn’t to fussed on the colour choice, but I grew to like it.
I knew I would never be able to afford the asking price for a new one, and second-hand Jota’s were like rocking horse shit.
I would have to stick to my YAMAHA RD 350, don’t get me wrong, I loved my RD it was one of the most fun bikes I have ever ridden, but you have to set yourself goals in life and my goal was that one day I would be riding a Laverda jota.
We are all allowed to dream.
( Photo 1 ) . Lavender Jota.
The first time I ever seen a JOTA on the street was in the middle of Cardiff city.
It was waiting inline at a set of traffic lights near to the castle opposite Queen street.
The year was around 1978, I was not on a bike, I caught a train from Bridgend with some mates from the Garw valley.
We were off to the Cardiff Capital Theater in Queen street in the center of the city.
We had a drink in the Globe Pub opposite the castle, and then we were going to make our way on to see the rock band QUEEN, you may have heard of them they have played one or two popular tacks in their time.
As we were crossing over the road the Jota was at the lights, it looked and sounded like a great bike, I know this bike is not everyone’s cup of tea, but I think it stood out amongst a lot of bikes that were around at the time.
I did not cross over the road with everyone else as the pelican crossing made it’s annoying beeping sound, I stayed on my side of the pavement waiting for the lights to change to green for the traffic to move off.
I waited for the lights to change, so I could watch and hear the bike pull off.
This Jota was in the typical orange paint job that became very common for these bikes.
I’m not sure if the rider had a custom exhaust system fitted, but this was one loud bike.
The lights changed to green and the bike pulled away, the sound from the exhaust bounced off the high walls of the castle, I watched the bike disappear out of view up towards the court's area of Cardiff, I could hear every gear change.
Cardiff is big, a big busy noisy city with lots of traffic, but I could still hear the bike even after it disappeared out of sight.
This sighting of a Jota blasting up the road kept my dream alive of owning one of these iconic bikes one day.
As the years rolled on I saw a few more Jotas around with different paint jobs, they were not a very common bike in south Wales, it was always a welcome sighting when I spotted one.
A couple would turn up at some of the bike rallies, but they were never really a common sight on the roads, well not the roads I rode on anyway and I always spotted a jota.
I don’t know how many Laverda’s were made, but I don’t think they made enough of them, I know they made a number of different models, but they were never as common a sight on the road has Jap bikes.
I think this is because the laverda may have been too expensive at the time, I don’t know for sure but I didn’t see many examples of the jota about, it could well have been the price, it was outside the range of the average biker of the time which I think made the bike more exclusive and hard to obtain for the ordinary biker, unless you had a very good paying job or just been lucky and win the football pools “ no national lottery back then “, they were not a cheap bike to buy, so I’m not really surprised I did not see many of them being ridden around.
Moving on five years or so to the year 1983, I had an opportunity to buy my very own Jota.
There was one up for sale up in deep dark depths of the Rhondda valley, the bike was in my price range now.
I was working as a Technical Supervisor in a Engineering firm, and I was on a reasonable wage.
I only found out about the bike by chance, I was in PANS bike shop on a Saturday morning, I was talking to Fat Mike and Budgie and overheard a conversation.
There were two guys in the show room of the bike shop that I didn’t know, and they were talking about a jota.
So I eaves-dropped for a little while, one of the guys just happen to mention to his friend about a jota for sale, so me being me, I butted into the conversation and asked them where and how much.
They were ok with me interrupting, and one of them actually gave me the phone number of the guy who was selling the bike, they weren’t interested in buying the jota, they both rode BMW's and just knew the guy selling the bike, they were only in shop to have a look around and were from the Rhondda and were down our way just out for a ride and heading down to the coast.
The Italian manufacturer Laverda had stopped production of the jota two years before in 1981, they had been knocking out these big beauty’s since 1976 so there were a few second-hand jotas available on the open market, it looked like people were upgrading to newer models as the Japs had started to compete with Laverda, so there was more choice in the same type of bike and the performance.
I phoned the guy and made an arrangement to see the bike at his house, so the next day on a Sunday I rode my LTD Z 1000 up into the back of beyond which is known as the Rhondda valley.
( Photo 2 ) . The Rhondda valley.
I found the address the guy had given to me on the phone with no problem, when I pulled up outside his house he had the bike outside waiting for me, it was all set up ready for me to take a look at it, as I dismounted my Kawasaki, the guy was staring at what I was wearing.
I had my leather jacket on which had seen a lot of road miles and I had my denim cut-off on and going by his expression he didn’t seem to impressed by what he saw.
I don’t think I was his kind of biker, he looked me up and down when I dismounted my Kwaka which I ignored for the moment.
I was here to buy a bike, I didn’t want to piss the guy off right at the start without looking at the bike, it may not sound like much, but this guy looking me up down and making a judgment on me without knowing anything about me, annoyed me a little, I didn’t judge him, so why judge me on what I was wearing, I found this first impression from him very disrespectful, I counted to ten and bite my tongue.
Now before any of you who knew me back in the day start saying that you don’t remember me having a Laverda jota, you would be right and the reason you have never seen me riding one was because I never bought it and the following reasons are the main points why.
The bike was in excellent condition I couldn't fault it, it had been well taken care of.
It was painted in the standard orange colour, just like the one I had seen years before in Cardiff, the only difference was there was no nose-cone fairing fitted to this bike, in fact it was immaculate and in showroom condition everything was bright and shinny and looked brand new, I think it was good enough to put on show in a museum.
The first reason why I didn’t buy the bike was because the bloody thing was too tall for me, as some of you know I’m not the tallest biker in the world.
As I sat on the bike the bloody seat was one of the widest I have ever come across, it was impossible for me to put both my feet on the ground.
I tried with one foot, but I was practically off the seat and a bike this size and heavy I needed to have both feet on the ground.
It was necessary for me to adapt a GS 1000 seat on my Z 1000, so I could put both feet on the ground.
I checked the mileage, it only had 9,000 on the clock, I asked the seller if the mileage was accurate, after all this bike had been first registered in 1976 and 7 years later it had a very low mileage.
The seller said it had just under 7,000 miles on the clock when he bought it in 1980, I said to him “ you have only ridden less than 2,000 miles in the last 4 years “.
His replied was “ yeah. I only take it out on weekends and never in the rain “.
He said this as if he was proud of the fact the bike never got wet.
I replied “ that must be once a year then, when doesn’t it rain in Wales “.
He didn’t laugh or even crack a smile.
I don’t think he appreciated that last comment, it was meant as a joke with a little underling sarcasm.
Someone selling a bike and saying that it only has low mileage because its hardly ever ridden and as never been taken out in the rain, may have been a good selling point to some bikers, too me the guy just sounded like a dick and should not have been allowed to own a push-bike let alone a motorbike.
Telling a potential buyer that it had never been out in the rain may have been a positive thing for certain types of bikers, but it was wasted on me, I just thought the guy had wasted his time having a bike like this, wrapping a high performance iconic bike like the jota in cotton wool was a sin.
I asked him why he was selling it, he said he had bought another bike and didn’t need it anymore and only had the time to ride one bike, he opened his garage door and showed me his new bike, the fist thing I said when I saw it was “ make sure you have recovery service, if you go more than 50 miles on it ”.
He said “ what do you mean “, sounding a little offended.
I replayed, I said “ you're selling your jota and you bought a Harley, best of luck with that choice “.
He didn’t seem very happy with this comment either.
I don’t know where this guy was getting his money from, but he seemed to have a lot of money for someone who lives in the Rhondda valley, I think it was better not to ask, maybe he was in the pharmaceutical trade, if you know what I mean.
This guy is what I would call a Sun Shine Biker or a Weekend Road Warrior, this type of biker would wear all the matching bike gear and ride down to some café on a dry sunny day and pose around for an hour or so then go back home.
So maybe the mileage on the bike was correct.
He was definitely not my kind of biker.
This bike buying negotiation was starting to go south and it wasn't getting any better.
This bike was not built for small people, this was no real problem for me, I have ridden taller bikes before without too much of a problem, I could cope with the seat height.
Another reason for me not to buy bike was the weight the jota was very heavy, I’m used to bikes being heavy, but this bike felt a lot heavier than other bikes of it’s size, if I had bought the bike it could have caused me some real issues weight wise, if the bike started to lean to one side there as no way I could have held it up, it felt much heavier than my Z 1000.
The following and third reason was a deal breaker for me, I sat on the bike while it was on the main stand and turned the bike over and it started up immediately and ran sweet as a nut.
The bike ticked over with no effort and not a rattle came from the engine, there was a standard silencer fitted to the bike, most likely the original one from the factory.
I gave it a few gentle revs it sounded just like the one I had seen in Cardiff all those years ago and just has loud, why the guy wanted a Harley instead of this jota, I will never work out, I don’t see how he could have had a better bike then jota.
The next thing I did was to try and pull the clutch leaver in, now this is not as easy as it sounds, I dare say you are thinking this is not worth noting because a clutch is a clutch, well that was what I always thought until I tried to pull this clutch in.
It was so tight and heavy I could hardly pull the bloody thing into the handlebars.
The clutch was ridiculously hard to pull in.
I asked the guy if he had replaced it with an aftermarket sports/racing clutch.
He said “ no, it is the standard clutch “, he also added that all jota’s were the same and the strong clutch was an issue with most jota riders.
I didn’t say anything but thought “ fuck, that’s killed this bike dead in the water for me “, I had already decided that I was not buying this bike.
The issues were stacking up against be buying this bike, not that I told the guy yet, I wanted to have a go riding it first before I told him I didn’t want to buy it anymore.
I said to the guy referring to the clutch “ that’s ok, I can sort that out some way “ I asked the guy if I could take the bike out for a ride around the valley, I offered him my keys to my Kwaka, or he could ride my bike and come with me.
He said ”. No, you can't ride it, unless you buy it “.
I though this was a strange thing to say, it was and still is a standard practice to take a bike out for a spin, if you intended buying it.
I replied “ I don’t know if I want to buy it unless I take it for a ride, I'll give you the keys to my Z 1000 and you can ride my bike, I will only take it up the road a little way to see how it handles ”.
He answered “ no thank you, you have bungees holding your bike together and your to small to ride it any way “.
Yes he was right, there were bungees holding my seat on and my main stand up off the road, but I couldn’t see an issue with that.
This guy had already decided not to sell the bike or maybe just not to sell it to me.
He just didn’t want to say it out loud, I think he would have been quite happy if I gave him the money for it, but he didn’t want me to ride it, maybe it was just in case I fell off or didn't come back with the bike or some other trivial reason, like he didn’t like me.
His last comment may have been the wrong thing to say to me and from here on, everything went down hill very fast to the point that he threatened to call the police on me.
The guy was twice the size of me, he could have/should have thrown me off his property, but he was a pussy.
He gives bikers a bad name.
I said ” fuck off, who the fuck are you to make judgments about me, you don’t know me from fucking Adam “, I added, ” take a good fucking look at the bike I rode up on, it’s a Kawasaki Z 1000, if I can ride that I can ride that jota “.
Ok, I lost it a little bit, but I don’t regret it, the guy was a Nob jockey.
And this was the point that he did call the police, I left before the cops turned up, if they ever did turn up, I don’t think they were going to arrest me for not buying his bike, threatening behavior yes, not buying the bike, no, I also didn’t want any issues with Rhondda cops at this time, as I was in trouble with coppers in Cardiff, I was trying to keep a low profile.
I do know gentle reader that the seat height on my Z 1000 was lower, but there is more to riding a bike then how tall you are, and I have a lifetime of biking experience and not just riding for an hour on a dry Sunday morning twice a year.
And that in a nutshell is why I didn’t buy the jota.
To be honest, I think the jota is built for a large rider to ride comfortably.
The bike may have been a bit of a challenge for me to ride every day and this would have worn down my love for this type of bike, especially if it was a pain to ride.
I was amazed at the clutch, I’ve never come across another one like it, except on another jota, the guy was right about what has been said about the standard clutch, they were all the same, incredibly hard to use.
The last time I saw a Laverda was at Netlely Marsh auto jumble near Southampton, myself and my mate Phil George were on the hunt for bike bits or a bargain bike and as we were looking around the Auto Jumble, I saw a 1200 cc Laverda leaning up against a long van waiting for someone to make an offer on it, it was still there when we left, I’m not sure what model of Laverda it was maybe a mirage model.
But they do tend to look very similar, it was still good to see a laverda all the same, but as we wandered around the auto jumble, I discovered my liking for little two-stroke French bikes.
We came across a couple of French guys selling about a dozen different French models, I didn’t buy any, but I wanted to give them all a good home.
( Photo 3 ) . The 1200 cc laverder at Netley Marsh auto jumble
In 2018, I checked the prices of the Jota just to see how they have fared over the last 42 years.
The asking price for a Jota that is running, but needs some TLC and just a standard model, you would be expected to fork out up to £10,000.
If the bike was in a showroom condition, you would be expected to hand over up to £20,000.
I would still like to have a Jota, but £10,000 for a 30-40 year old bike that needs some work on it, is still outside the range of my pay packet and I’m still no taller than I was in 1983.