Desperation

That's the first and last time I trust to luck in an Alpine winter. Next year, or rather next winter, the Beast is getting stationed in the parental garage at the first sign of snow up here. Seven weeks with no biking - never again.
They predicted rain at 3°C for Friday and a 3° sun for Saturday. Friday evening I worked for Opa, but on Saturday morning I drove back up to my house, hoping to find my driveway at least partially visible. All I needed was a thin strip of dirt and gravel down to the pass road, enough to give the Beast's front tire a bit of grip.

But nooo...



So now what? The weather was mild, the sun was beautiful, and I had myself all hyped up thinking I'd finally get a Buell fix after so long. There was nothing for it but to start hacking away at the ice.
I had Beretta, my dog, along, and she made herself useful chewing on the ice slabs I threw up. Some of them were over three inches thick, but with enough doggy slobber they melted.
I spent the entire sunny afternoon breaking ice, tossing the chunks aside and salting the cleared areas.
Finally, shortly before dusk, the driveway looked a little more promising:

But I still didn't have access to the pass road. I salted the strip and had to let it be; it was too dark to work anymore. Anyway, there would be a warm wind blowing that night, so I dared to hope.
Sunday morning dawned breezy and dry... But the ragged edges of the ice and the puddles on the asphalt had frozen smooth. The unbreakable three-foot-wide ice patch at the foot of my drive was as slippery as ever.
Giving up and resigning myself to more waiting wasn't an option. It was going to snow again Sunday night; the next chance to get the Beast on the road was far off in the future.
I could barely remember how the Termignoni sounded; I only had Bacchus' V8 in my head. A clear sign I'd gone bikeless for much too long.
So I grabbed the bag of salt again, salted, hacked, shoveled, and finally ground up blocks of compacted sawdust actually meant for burning, sprinkling the wood on the areas of ice that I couldn't remove.
After 45 kilos of salt, four sawdust blocks and about seven hours of work (in all), I finally had my tiny path down to the pass road.


I slipped into my gear, thick gloves and neckerchief, put Retta in the house and grabbed the keys and finally, finally brought the Beast back out into sunlight.

My precious, how I missed you.

Abstinence

I haven't posted in three months. That's terrible. It doesn't, however, mean I haven't driven in three months. Until mid-October I was able to take the Beast to work. Then the first snow arrived.
Early this year, said those who'd know.
Well, it melted, and for another two weeks I was, at least partially, able to commute on two wheels. Then for another two weeks I reduced my riding to the weekends, before the snow came to stay. Our last tour was short, one hour, crisscrossing the Appenzells. It was cold too.
The next morning my driveway was snowed over.
This morning it looked thusly:


Oh yeah, allow me to introduce my guardian angel of winter: Bacchus. A '97 Dodge Dakota, nearly 100,000 km, average gas mileage 20 liters per 100 km. A treasure.
The V8 is joy to listen to, but after four weeks of abstinence, the longest I've ever gone without taking the Beast out, has me skittish and getting impatient.
Please go away after Christmas, snow. All I want for Christmas is a 10°C weather forecast for the mountain.

Customer service, capitalized

Monday morning at 6 a.m. the Beast rolled out with torn drive belt. Ronny’s words from the previous Sunday were fresh in my mind: “Keep an eye on that; it’s not going to last much longer.”

I shouldn’t even complain, because 34’410 kilometers on a single belt is a record for me. So far they’ve ripped at 18 and 20 thousand klicks, respectively. But 12 kilometers from home and a good 70 from work, I couldn’t help feeling a little frustrated. Even more so when I discovered that the nearest Harley dealership, where Buell Assistance had my bike taken, was closed on Mondays.

I called them Tuesday morning and discovered that they didn’t have drive belts in stock. An “urgent” order placement would only have the belt there on Friday.

Five days without my motorcycle – factually without transport? I was half-panicked when I called my mechanic in Zurich to ask if they had a belt in stock. And as so often, they were my salvation. They had a belt, and they’d send someone out to the dealership in Weinfelden with it. I could pick up the Beast that evening.

Proof again that I have the best Harley mechanic in the entire world.

Metal side down

August 25-29 August: Alpengrollen, yearly Buell meet in the mountains.
I put the fairly detailed record of the meet on MySpace; this is here is a wreckage recording. Which isn't as bad as it sounds, because the Beast still lives. I'm bruised and it's scarred, but this isn't a case of having to procure my fourth Buell in my fourth year of motorcycle driving.

Before:


And after.
On August 30, I discovered that the Pirelli Angel ST tire is useless after 6500 km on a wet road. It still had plenty of profile; I wasn't even down to the minimum marks. And the road wasn't flooded; just a little damp (and nearly dry ten minutes later).
The Angel flew off, and it took the Beast and me thirty meters of sliding before we hit gravel and stopped. Now I kinda know what GP pilots feel like.
And a Buell looks like this after 30 meters of sliding on its side:

Squashed manifold.

Bent rear brake lever and scratched belt tensioner which can be rotated by hand now. I had that on Silver; it's not serious.

A badly bent handlebar which we replaced that same day with a carbon-look cross bar. I realize, though, that I'm oging to need a superbike handlebar sooner or later, because on long rides my shoulders really notice my lower, wider, farther forward sitting position.
Also, for the, oh, fifth or sixth time I'll need new Rizoma grips and bar ends. The Pazzo brake lever is ordered and will be replaced on Friday.
The frame puck is half sheared away but the frame is completely unscathed. I'm beginning to wonder if there's any way to put frame pucks on a colored frame without ruining the color concept, because I'm really worried about anything happening to Silver...
A dreadfully scratched and sheared swingarm, which I've sprayed black to hide the marks from casual glances. The rear pulley is dented and scratched too and isn't perfectly aligned anymore, but the belt doesn't strafe and I won't replace it just yet.

Beat up front spoiler.

But the Beast still lives, and we've added 1000 km since then.
On Friday it'll go in for its 32,000 km service - at over 33,000, but no matter. The Pazzo lever and the righthand frame puck will be replaces; the Angel gets replaced with a Continental Road Attack. (I do believe I'm settling on a favorite tire.) For financial reasons I'm going to leave the handlebar and Rizomas as is for now, unless they happen to have an LSL in stock just then. Come Saturday the Termignoni with its manifold will be mounted, thanks to Ronny, so that nasty dented piping will disappear too. Whenever I've got extra money I'll invest in new foot levers, probably from Pfeffi, the belt tensioner and rear pulley from Free Spirits and all the Rizoma shinies for up front.

I made it through a year with no crashes or problems and now this Buell is showing scars too. It's a pity, but at 33,000 km it's not a disgrace.

First steps

Not two weeks had passed since I'd brought Silver up to Keppi and dumped the entire wreck into his competent hands. He didn't even wait for the first payment to come in before getting to work.
We still have no idea how the machine is supposed to look finished, but I think it's off to a good start.

Bike transport by station wagon

Last weekend Silver, wreck sind September 20, 2008, finally came out into the daylight again. Keppi, a Buell customizer in Germany's Hallertau, 45 minutes northeast of Munich, will resurrect it. But in order to do that, I had to get it to him.
Since Silver was half disassembled and the front wheel was removed, Dad said it'd be smartest to load it into the back of his Skoda Octavia station wagon, instead of using Uncle Andy's trailer and having me drive to Germany with a trailer.
Aleks was kind enough to show up at 6 p.m. sharp, and with his help the loading went precisely as planned, to my immense surprise.
Guys are great to have around.
But Silver wasn't the only thing that needed to get to Keppi. I had a 12er engine in the back of the Bonnie that needed to go to. The transfer plan for that took almost more discussion than the loading of Silver had.
I wasn't much of a help, even I do look like I'm saying something really important.

Consider all options...
After all, a 1202 ccm Thunderstorm Motor is pretty big and heavy.

But guys are good at that sort of thing, and the engine joined the bike for a cozy and safe ride up to Germany.

Guys are awesome.

Workshop

Gray, rainy, not very warm - not really biking weather, but about 30 Buells found their way into a backwater town in the Allgäu, southern Germany. Peffi, maker of beautiful things like filigrane gear shifters and machined heel guards, had extended an invitation for a Buell meet and workshop at his manufactory.
One set of Buellers, myself included, met in Wattwil. We picked up the second contingent on the border. It drizzled the entire morning. I was pleasantly surprised by the water resistance of my Rokker jeans. Except the seat and knees, they stayed dry inside. They were definitely worth the 600.- price tag.
At Pfeffi's, the first patient was soon chosen. A Zuricher's XB12 had the bad habit of running on one cylinder when the rpms fell below 3000, so it was rolled into the shop to be worked on, cursed at and talked about until the problem went away.
I didn't witness the actual repair, because as soon as the rain stopped and a rather watery looking sun appeared, half of us geared up, mounted out bikes and ook off to discover the Allgäu.
Our tour guide was an elderly gentleman, probably around 60, who drove an old Honda C500CX which was promptly christened "manure pump." I seized the position behind the leader for myself and off we went.
Byroads, narrow paths, through a forest where the Honda crawled around every curve because the roads were still wet and covered with gunk. It was pretty slow for my taste, but I figured that since this was my first time in this area driving slower wasn't so bad.
Well, after we stopped to refuel things changed. The roads were drying, and that old Honda suddenly sped off like greased lightning. Right, left, up, down - those roads are better than the ones in the Black Forest! And to top it off, I'd never have guessed that one can get that kind of handling and speed out of such an old junker of bike.
Kalle led us over a very bumpy stretch of gravel to a restaurant where we had lunch, and then the tour went on. Somewhere in there I lost my mirror, which had been loose before. A Zuger had two and very generously offered me one to use until I can get a replacement.
At the second watering hole we met up with the Buellers who'd left once both the Zuricher's cylinders ran properly. We went to refuel together, and then the entire convoy headed back along the route we'd already driven with Kalle.
Werni and I let them go and followed the Honda, whereby we learned that in the Allgäu, one can ignore "no access" signs if one doesn't mind driving a couple kilometers over the sand and pebbles of a road construction site.
We arrived at the Biker Mill, our night quarters, around 8 p.m. The roast pig was long since done being roasted over an open fire and an X11-meet was in full swing; somehow we still managed to squash all our Buells onto the gravel lot.
After beer and supper we joined the sewing machine pilots. They were showing off with burnouts, but when you've got the engine at twenty thousand rpm and it's still only humming instead of roaring, it kind of detracts from the show.
After we'd watched three burnouts Kalle suddenly appeared on his old Honda, placed it on the burn board and let that tire smoke. What had gone up in wisps from the X11s rose in swaths from the 10-year-old tire of the 500er; we got so smoked up the fire alarm went off! We were laughing so hard we could barely stand up. After that show, the ice was broken between us as the Jap lovers.
The next morning, I and three Zurichers left fairly early. I got home to the Schwägalp dry; they got a bit rained upon but not nearly as much as those who left later. I was kinda sorry I wasn't able to personally say goodbye to many guys, but we'll meet up again at the Grollen in August and man, I am so looking forward to that.