Maico Brothers Archive

1990 Maico MX 500 liquid cooled

We had a chance to test the 1990 MX 500 over the Memorial Day weekend at California City in the Mojave Desert. After adjusting the compression damping and pre-load we were able to dial in the suspension for any terrain. The bike handled well and that old Maico Magic is still there. The power of the bike comes on Strong and Smooth and accelerates like a Electric slot car. Before you know it you are doing 60mph +. The front end is hard to hold down during fast acceleration as you can see in the photo's below. Brakes WORK very well not like the old Maico's. I hit the front brake and almost went over the handle bars. It is best to use both brakes to avoid doing cart wheels. The White Power forks worked very well, they did not dive in tight turns and were stable at high speed, And ate up small stutter bumps like they were not there. Over all handling was very good. We feel after we throw out the Cheng Shin rear tire and install a new Metzeler the bike will handle even better. We will be installing a new Dutch Power Pipe in the near future and that should really add to the already awesome power of the 1990 MX 500.