Reunification reminiscence
In the summer of 1990, 30 years ago this year, a pair of Vincent enthusiasts set out on a trip to the new, united Germany.
It was May 1990 and therewas Pete, onhis knees, gazing at the dismantled timing side of his Rapide. We were in a campsite at Schmockwitz, just outside Berlin, five months after the fall of ‘TheWall.’ Pete said: “Now I remember why I sold my last Vincent twin…” Howhad we endedup there?
In May 1989, my wife Kath and I had beenon a trip to East Germany on a modern BMWand had a very interesting, if different, time. We had made some good motorcycling friends in the Harz region of East Germany and had great memories of the trip. At the end of that year, the wall came down.
Agood friend, Pete Lee, a partner at Unity Equipe in Rochdale, had been very interested in our trip toEast Germany. On hearing of a rally in Berlin to celebrate the occasion of thewall’s destruction, Pete suggested that we go on our Vincents. Pete had a seriesCRapide and mine was a seriesCComet.
I’donly had the Comet a few months so began toput in a few miles through the Pennine hills to shake it down and generally get the feel of the bike. The first thing to shake downwas the magneto… Fortunately Dave Lindsley, the magneto and dynamo specialist, was in the next town and did a timely job on it, and all waswell.
Due to the rear suspension arrangements on Series C Vincents, luggage racks are not as straightforward as on some other makes. Pete hadmade himself a rear carrier for the trip and borrowed one for me from an HRD/VOC club friend (EricGee?). Pete and I kittedourselves out with throw-over saddlebags, insurance green cards etc andbooked ferries from Harwich to Hamburg return.
Living inRochdale, near Manchester, we had an early start, about 5am, which got us down toHarwich, Essex, in good time. Theweather was fine and stayed that way for the whole trip.
The next afternoon, we rode through Hamburg in dense traffic to the autobahn and started covering a few miles. At an autobahn service areawemet up with some other riders whowere going to the rally, so tagged on behind them. They took us through the centre of
Berlin andpassed the old Checkpoint Charlie American border crossing fromWest toEast Berlin. It was being removedby crane onto a low loader to be taken to a museum. Obviously nobodywas taking any chances on the authorities changing theirmind about the wall coming down!
At some traffic lights, Pete looked at me withaworried expression on his face. He had heard lots of suspicious sounds over and above the normal Vincent noises from his Rapide. I pointedout that his carrier was breaking up but he claimed not to have heard those due to the clattering from the timing side… We rode on.
On arriving at the campsite, we openedour toolboxes and had a look inside the timing chest. The cam spindles had come loose in the crankcases! With daylight failing, we put the tent up and retired to the beer tent todrown our sorrows.
The nextmorning things didn’t look much better. However, we were lucky in having the help of Jaqueline Bickerstaff, a Vincent rider, and Robin James, who was there in a van with lots of tools in the back. After a few hours’ work, with lots of help from other rallyists, the Rapide was back together. The spindles were refitted with copper wire wrapped round them to take up the play and the holes in the outrigger plate, which hadworn oval, were similarly packed after having been filed round and with washers on either side to retain the copper packing. Jaqueline had even lent us her nail varnish during the stripdown sowe could mark the timingwheels correctly for reassembly.
All our rally activities for the next twodayswere carried out two up on theComet to preserve the Rapide. This included a ride in convoy round the local area with a stop atawater pumping station, which hadbeendisguised as an English country house by the English engineer who had completed the work. The convoy consistedof a great variety of bikes, including a racing Rudge and Manx Norton on open pipes. We had police cars at the front and rear of the convoy and all other traffic had to pull over out of the way. This includedaRussian army convoy.
The facilities on the campsite were a bit basic. The washing facilities were a long pipewith multiple taps and no sinks over a drain channel. It was all situated in a pine forest and Pete was heard to say that it ‘was rather military-like’ (or words to that effect...) whichdid attract a couple of odd looks from our Germanhosts.
Our friend fromthe Harz area, Andre, had travelled up to meet us and invitedus to staywith him for a few days. Even though it was in the wrong direction, i.e. away from Hamburg, we thought, why not. What could possibly go wrong?
We set offMondaymorning and had a good ride down to Andre’s home town of Wernigerode. I was doing the navigating and was under strict instructions to keep the speed down. Therewas a 50mph speed limit on the East German autobahns at the time, with good reason. Road repairs seemed to be done with whatever was onhand at the time. In some places, the surface went from tarmac to granite setts and back to tarmac several times in a couple of miles. The surface also seemed tohave been scarified to groove it to helpwith drainage.
Summit
Over the next few days, we explored theHarz region with Andre as our guide. It was and still is beautiful country with seemingly endless forests and mountains. The tallest of these is the Brocken. On our previous trip, it was strictly off limits due toWarsawPact radar and listening stations at its summit. This had been scaled back to a small facility, so we enjoyed a hike to the top with many locals, who were also doing it for the first time.
In the various small towns, therewere lots of fine old half-timberedbuildings, many inneed of renovation, and the roads were relatively traffic free. This was because, then, therewas no close border crossing to the West so it was a bit of a backwater.
Andre showedus round a luxurious Stasi (secret police) hotel that was offlimits to the ordinary citizens but where the top officials hadweekend breaks. The interior was stunning evenbyWestern standards. Therewas a great deal of animosity towards the old regime as the common refrain from their government had been that therewas no money for lots of things. Sound familiar?
Andre also introducedus to the local tipple, Shirker feurstein, a spicy fortified local wine. We definitely had to take some back for our wives.
One evening eachweekwas set aside for a club night which we attended and met upwith lots of local fellow motorcyclistswho seemed to be able to fix anything, probably from necessity.
The official second language in East Germany had been Russian so, unlike inWest Germany, Englishwas not widely spoken. However Andre did sterling work as interpreter andmotorcyclists seem to be able to make themselves understood to eachother despite language barriers.
I was asking a friend of Andre’s what hadhappened to the Stasi operatives. It had been reported in British newspapers that they had all been sent down the coal mines. Not so, he said. They are all taxi drivers. You go out and have a few beers, get in the taxi, tell the driver your name and he knows where you live…
All too soon it was time to head home. We decided to get as close to Hamburg as possible so that if we hit problems with Pete’s Rapide we were reasonably close to the ferry. Another good ride got us to about 15 miles South of Hamburg and we found a farm/guesthouse for the night.
Pete and I were the only guests and had an accommodation block to ourselves. We hadawander round upstairs and came across display cases full of wartime memorabilia. Wondering if we should have been therewe cleared off down to the town for our evening meal. At breakfast the next day, we sawawartime photo of the owner’s father with General Dietl, commander of the German Second World Warmountain troops, in front of a Junkers 52 aircraft. We guessed the displayswere something todowith reunions.
As usual, theComet started second kick and we were just leaving the car parkwhen it clattered to a halt. A quick check revealed the magneto wasn’t turning with the engine due to three missing teeth on the auto advance fibrewheel. Fortunately our host was able to lend us a driver and trailer to get us up to the ferry.
Back in Harwich, I was pushing the Comet towards customs and chose the red channel as I wasn’t sure of the status of the Feuerstein in the saddle bags. The customs man asked why I was pushing the Comet, so I gave him the tale of woe. He then asked why I was in the red channel. I was the only one in it! On hearing about the Feurstein he said: “Oh, don’t worry about that, you’ve got enough to worry about with the bike.” Who said customs officers have no sense of humour?
I waited for the RAC to come and collect me, as Pete headedoffhome on his Rapide, he got there okay but he wasn’t revving itmuch!
We didn’t cover really high mileages onour trip but did enough to feel it by the end of the day. Even with our mechanical troubles, Pete summed it up nicely, ‘ Vincents, there is nofiner way to travel!’
Even now, 30 years later, any time I ride aVincent with the girdraulic fork links moving up and down in front of me, it remindsme of setting offto Berlin.
“You go out and have a few beers, get in the taxi, tell the driver your name and he knows where you live…”