Today, Thursday, is the day of the motorcycle contest. In previous years, it was a test of skill in negotiating obstacles and following a tight path, similar to the 49er Asphalt Trials. This year, the BMW club decided on something different, for various reasons I began to suspect later.
Last year, they initiated a parallel slalom run for cars, with two drivers running different parts of the same course at the same time. This year, they decided to do it again but also for motorcycles, replacing the older skill course. I had some trepidation about the new test, as it was a real race and seemed an invitation to motorcycle carnage. Nevertheless, I showed up at 9am with bike and rider ready to give it a try.
Of course, like every event organized by the local club at the Euroclub meetings, the volunteers were late and nothing worked as announced. (And this was a brand new event for the motorcycles.) Starting times of racers were not announced, and neither was where we were supposed to register, and furthermore, no one seemed to know. But that's the charm of the clubs. Nevertheless, ultimately, everything got figured out, the races were held, and the actual heats and results were handled well.
We raced in pre-assigned pairs, and the winner of each heat got to race someone else in the next heat. Results were announced after being printed nicely on a local printer in the tent. The sponsors were Metzler tires and D2x catalytic converters for mufflers. Both had booths and D2x had give-aways, including caps and cigarette lighters, which were to figure prominently in my trip on the way to Hamburg.
The track was on a parking lot convenient to a restaurant with outside seating. The organizers also had a booth where one could buy souvenirs. The weather was sunny and warm and overall perfect.
Watching the first heats, I noticed that everyone seemed to prefer F650s. Then I realized that we were all supposed to ride the same machines. Checking with one of the helpers confirmed this. So I put the bags back on my bike, and waited for my turn.
The course was not long. It consisted of two sections of curves. One ran one section and then crossed over and ran the other side while one's competitor did the same on the opposite side. One section was much shorter to guarantee that there was never a danger of a crossover collision. But since both were running the same course eventually, when one crossed the the finish line, whoever crossed first was faster. It really only took a short time to finish the the tight course. 2nd gear was fast.
The announcer gave up on English after making a rhetorical query of the audience to see that everyone spoke enough German to understand him. But after it was clarified that I really did come from California and was not Dutch, the guys on the field frequently repeated instructions for me in English. We got one test run and then we would run with each other for time. My number was 15. I am not sure about the number of competitors, but it seemed to be more than 20. I handily won my first heat. My assigned partner was a no-show.
This way of doing things was a bit silly, since there were a few other no-shows, and I could have run against someone else, but, it worked. After a wait, I ran my second heat and did beat a real live rider. We got two turns and the times were added to determine the winner. In the first run, my competitor beat me to the line. I had been taking it easy, focusing on safety on the unfamiliar machine, but I realized I had to go faster on the second round. I did and apparently I was sufficiently faster that when the two runs were added, I got to advance to the third heat.
One (standard) trick to the course is that there are some very tight turns followed by turns that allow substantial acceleration and speed. One must know which these are and get on the gas while still leaning, just like in real racing. And then be prepared to brake. The F650s actually ran just fine. We were not going slowly enough to feel the twitchiness that I don't like in dirt and their overall handling was just fine.
There was only one woman competitor. There had been another, but it was announced that she had hurt her ankle the previous day, and did not want to risk competing. I made friends with the couple that both raced the first heat. The woman, Ute, won her first heat, but against the protests of both her husband, Ralf, and myself, she elected not to compete further. She had had her fun.
I had asked Ralf to take a picture of me when I competed next, but it turned out that we were to compete against each other. So Ute took pictures of both of us. I won the first run by about a meter. The 2nd run, Ralf was much more competitive. The race starter swings his arm down while switching on the green light. Ralf watched the arm and got a better start then me. I realized this and made up enough time that I managed to cross the finish line ahead of him, but only by my front wheel.
I did one more heat and won that one too. I was now in the competition for 3rd or 4th place. Ralf, Ute, and I had been watching and there was one young guy with a Ducatti racing suit who we didn't like much. He was way to aggressive and occasionally knocked over a cone and generally was not smooth. But he was fast enough that he turned out to be my competitor. I really wanted to show him up.
It was not to be. Perhaps I was still trying too hard to be careful not to hurt anything, but he just flat beat me. I didn't feel too badly, as I really had done my best within in bounds. I had made a promise to myself that I would compete only if there was no danger of injuring my leg. So I did drag my feet a bit and got a little swerve from a rear tire once accelerating out of a turn, but it was all very controlled and I was satisfied about my smoothness. So I ran as fast as I could, running well, and he was simply faster, by about a meter both times. No complaints then. Besides that, I know several people back in CA who could have ridden rings around anyone there that day.
But the competitors were no slouches. The first and second place winners held up the end of the old guys like me. They were grizzled veterans who got out there and just flat rode fast around the cones and made it look easy.
BMW had an official photographer covering the event - a very pretty young woman who smiled winningly and winsomely, like Gywneth Paltrow, nearly all the time. She had taken a picture of each pair of finalists as they prepared to race. I asked her if I could get the picture of me. She said that BMW had the rights to the pictures and I would have to ask Andrea Nagle. There was a young man hanging about who seemed to have a proprietary interest in her. He then stepped in front of her and gave me a long talk in rapid German of what seemed like an unnecessarily long and authoritative discourse on who owned the rights to the pictures and why I couldn't ask the photographer for them. Fine.
(There are some pictures that BMW sent to me at
ready-right
waiting for the light to go green
ready-left
racing
but something is wrong with the jpg they sent me so they don't show
well.)
After the event, we were all invited to run the course on our on bikes. The Ducatti guy there was on a Duck, not a BMW, and he went out and zoomed around. I took my old ST out and I swear I went at least as fast as the F650. One difference though is that the ST back brake is less useful. I had been using the back brake a lot to control the speed on the tight turns on the F650, almost never using the front brake, but the ST just breaks free easier. Of course, the ST's tires were cold, but even though they were the same, I slid much more on the ST. But I could also get up more speed on the ST (using the front brake in the next turn) in the less-tight curves and felt more comfortable leaning more on the tight ones. I just knew it better.
Some comments about this event. First, it was a LOT of fun. Second, I could never do this in a normal motorcycle meeting in the US because of liability issues connected with timed races. And the idea of paired heats worked really well too. What I didn't like was that women tended not to compete in this kind of event. My experience is that women will compete in a slower-speed skill event, like Asphalt Trials, but not in a simple timed-race. So I think the switch to this event is unfortunate in that respect.
But I began to understand more about this switch as the event continued. First, it was just simpler for the club to hold the event because they just used exactly the same course for the motorcycles as they had for the cars. But also BMW was trying something new.
The Club meeting was all week. Starting Friday, for the weekend, BMW was organizing the first "International Bikermeeting". I have also found out to my dismay that these events are sponsored by two differnt parts of BMW and in 2002, they are scheduled at the same time in different countries.)
There were big banners all over town and a separate set of sites being prepared. This was a little confusing to us Club meeting participants, as both events were being organized by BMW in the same town at the same town, and no one connected with either event seemed to know anything about the other. But one of the Bikermeeting events was the same parallel slalom we had just run. And the obvious purpose of the Bikermeeting was to introduce riders of other marks to BMWs, and thus they had to compete on F650s, BMW's intro bike. Thus the break with club tradition, so that instead of competing on bikes we rode there with, we rode the bikes they gave us. BMW also spent more money on the Bikermeeting and it was better organized. More about that tomorrow.
After the competition, Ralf and I exchanged email addresses and they went riding. I went off to lunch and some errands, including clearing up some things with the club organizers. They hadn't included the plaque for which I had paid in my envelope. I needed to sign up for the Friday night dinner. And I needed to talk to Andrea about the photograph. I got my plaque and looked for Ralf and Ute on the dinner list so that I could sign up for the same table. At least that's what I thought I was doing. Every year until now, the dinner was held in one large hall and you sat at a table with your club, or at least someone you knew. I couldn't find their names, so I just signed up for table 33, I thought. I waited for Andrea, but she never came back to the club office. So I wrote her a note. The photographer was there and I asked her to give Andrea the note, to which she gladly agreed. Upon which agreement, the young man stepped in to clarify everything for me again. Fine.
Afterwards, I made a small ride over to the Mittlewald, just over the German border, and back. There is a really beautiful church on the way. Also some construction detours, which seem to be endemic in summer. The short mountain road to Mittlewald is very nice and one actually crosses the border in the middle of the woods. Really, these days, there just isn't much difference between Austria and Germany. The inhabitants can both speak the same official language if pressed, and the currencies have a fixed ratio between them, and will be replaced by the same currency, the Euro, next year. And there is no more border. They are now much more like US states, than ever.
I had to get back because when I registered in the states, I had signed up for the afternoon picnic today. I had no idea what to expect, but I had skipped lunch in anticipation of this 3pm meal and wanted to be back from my ride in time to arrive promptly for the picnic. I seemed not to learn that club events were never prompt.
The bikes and cars started assembling at the bottom of a ski lift on the edge of town, including two vintage BMW cars. After a bit of confusion about where we should park, we waited and milled around. Finally, the helpers said everything was ready and we could go up. It looked like were going to a nice meadow just above. But no - we were just going to the terrace of the ski lift.
It was very very hot with a bright sun shining on the terrace now filled with people. Now we had all bought tickets months in advance so they knew exactly how many people would be attending, and it seemed that there were more than a hundred. But there were not enough benches set up and they started bringing them up from the cellar. Meantime, people are standing around in very hot sun looking for any shade at all, of which there is little.
And there were only two servers. So no one could get anything to drink. I finally found a table amidst a group of Scandinavians who were happy to join with me in complaining about the poor organization of the club in English. I promised to speak to Andrea about this when I saw her next. She wasn't at the picnic.
The photographer, her friend, and a few other young men were hanging around the shade by the door. She would occasionally roam around looking for shots of people enjoying themselves. She was out of luck. But she herself kept this charming smile on her face as if everything was nice and she was comfortable. I was impressed with her poise. Also, the organizers kept trying to entice people to play organized picnic games. No one was interested. I didn't see anyone play, but someone must have, because they gave out prizes for the winners at the ceremonies Friday night. It was all very strange.
I was staying really to see if Ralf and Ute would attend, but they were clever enough to go riding instead. Finally, after an hour of sitting in the hot sun, we got a drink. Even tepid beer tastes good in this situation. Eventually, they had the picnic lunches ready. Now we had to line up with our tickets. They were making platters of Tyrolean lunches inside. Again, they had simply not prepared enough.
The lunch was a selection of sliced wurst, with one thin slice of cheese, and a shot of schnapps. We all ate and left. Feeling very foolish for having attended.
I went back and had a swim in the hotel pool, which was so small that I could only get 3 strokes for the length of the pool. But since I was the only one there, I could exercise as I wished. Then I went to dinner. I sat with my laptop and wrote some of these notes, watched people, and had a nice meal of special mushrooms and wine. I was sitting at dinner near a place in the pedestrian zone where a picture was projected on the ground, which changed often. People would come by and play with the projection. I noticed that old people and teenagers on vacation act much the same except the teenagers move faster. I also looked at the mountains up above in the night. There is something very poignant about a light high up on a dark mountain.
Part 4: A Harder Day
