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A Quick Description of BMW's Bike Names
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The Windmill Trophy Rally
Fortunately for me, my friend Sascha imposed on his friends, Rolf and Heiner.
Rolf has a collection of 20 or 30 beautiful vintage bikes, the newest of which are from the '50s. (Sascha says anything newer than that is just a used bike. After seeing some of the vintage rallies the Germans put on, I'm inclined to agree!)
Last year Rolf let me ride one of his post war bikes in a rally, an absolutely gorgeous Zündapp KS601 Grüne Elefant. It's certainly a very nice thing to let a total stranger ride your vintage bike. But this year he let me borrow his 1938 Zündapp K500, a machine with a 4 speed handshift and a manual spark advance. And not just for one rally, but for two! (See the next story, below, on Rolf's own rally, the Richard Küchen Gedächtnisfahrt.)
It certainly says something about your level of trust in your fellow man, when you give your beautiful classic over to someone who probably has no idea how to drive it... I still can't thank him enough for the exceptional generosity and sheer trust he has shown to me.
| Rolf and his beautiful Zündapps | ||||||||
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Heiner Rohrwick and his son Timo put on the Keilriemenfahrt Rheinhessen Rally each year, a rally for bikes from 1924 and earlier. (In spite of the name, which means belt drive rally, they do accept bikes with other forms of propulsion.) While running one of these vintage rallies appears to be an exercise in herding cats, this year Heiner was asked to take on the International Windmill Rally. This rally occurs in a different country every second year. It attracts a huge number of entries; there are national and independent teams, too. They compete in timed sections on the course. And it is two days long. It's a huge undertaking! To ease his burden a slight bit, he combined the two rallies into one.
Last year Sascha got Heiner to let me ride unofficially in his rally on Rolf's post war bike. This year I could legitimately enter on Rolf's 1938 bike. There were 165 entries in the rally, and what with 1938 being so late, I got number 158. Bike number one was this lovely Achilles, of 1901, from the then sovereign nation of Bohemia...
| Entry #1: 1901 Achilles | ||||||||
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For me, things began with Sascha suggesting that I could participate in both the Windmill and Rolf's rallies, and that he could arrange for me to get a ride. The timing was convenient so I could go to the spring Veterama as well. So I bought the ticket and anticipated; I knew I was going to have a great time!
Unfortunately, nearly as soon as I had arrived, my R1100RS — which is stored by Stefan Knopf for me in Heidelberg — developed a small problem, which was a bit of a downer. While working to fix this problem, we went over to Rolf's house where I got to enjoy a meal with Rolf, his wife Gerda, a reporter from the Südpfalz Kurier, and of course, Sascha. The reporter took a picture of me on Rolf's bike and talked with me a bit, her English was much better than my German.
Rolf gave me a rundown on the K500. It's a 500cc boxer twin with a sidevalve motor developing about 18 hp. Besides the usual hand controls, on the left there's a thumb lever for the spark advance. On the right there's a similar lever for the choke. And also on the right, inside the rider's right leg and below the gas tank, somewhere down there, is the shift lever. The transmission has an H pattern, automotive style shifter. However, 1st and 2nd gears are on the outside and 3rd and 4th are on the inside. I successfully rode the bike up and down the little farmer's road that goes by Rolf's house, and we proclaimed it good.
Sascha and I loaded the bike into the back of his company van and brought it back. On Friday, we loaded it up again, along with Sascha's 1920 Victoria KR I, and took off for Osthofen and our hotel there.
| Windmill Rally Maps | ||||
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Saturday morning, we got the bikes out of the van and into the hotel's parking lot, and then fired them up to ride over to the fairgrounds/meeting hall where the rally was based. Although the Zündapp fired up easily, it was soon running rough, and quit after a few blocks. Sascha went ahead to find Rolf and ask questions; meanwhile, I pushed the bike. Rolf suggested changing plugs (there was a spare set in the toolbox) and sure enough, the ones in the bike were sooty and fouled. It fired up easily and when I got to the grounds, a worried looking Rolf went over the controls with me again. Sure enough, I had mixed up the spark advance and the choke! After that, the Zündapp performed wonderfully for the entire rally.
The parking lot/start-finish area was a sight to behold. Old bikes were everywhere! Some better looking than when they were first made, others looking a bit roadworn and tattered. Little knots of people were everywhere, admiring some wonderful old bike or another.
| The Parking Lot | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Of course, my most specific interest is in old BMWs. But there weren't many in evidence. It's like Yogi Berra said, nobody goes there because it's too crowded. Sascha tells me that there are so many available, it's just not that interesting. Still there were a few...
| BMWs in evidence | ||||||||||
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There were lots more bikes to oggle. I found that one fellow with a really nice 1924 Harley spoke excellent English. As I chatted with him, I found out that he had 3 Harleys, and had collected them while working in South Carolina. This gave me the hint, so I asked him if he worked for BMW; yes, of course he did. We laughed about our crossed up interests.
| More tire kicking | |||||||||||||
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Before the rally could officially start, we were all called up to the pavilion in front of the Wonnegauhalle. Sascha had warned me about this. The local youth orchestra was tuning up, and makeshift flagpoles were arranged around the place, with the national flags of each participating country. For the first time in 26 runnings, there was an American entry in the rally, and they put Old Glory right in front of the orchestra. Sascha had told me several times that I was expected to sing the national anthem. I will tell you that when my family sings Happy Birthday, people around wonder where the funeral is. Basically, I can't carry a tune with a bucket, and The Star Spangled Banner is not a trivial song to sing. I was more than a bit nervous. After Heiner and several dignitaries made some introductions, the band struck up the song, and I did my best to sing more quietly than they played. That seemed to work. Then I noticed that nobody else was singing their anthems. I'd been had again by Sascha. He loves these little games...
| The Openning Ceremonies | |||||||||||
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Now it was time to start the rally. Bikes were rolled into position behind the Start/Finish line, roughly in numerical order. When your number was up, you would roll your bike forward, let the announcer tell the crowd a bit about your bike, then kick it to life (hopefully), climb on and ride off. There were only a few recalcitrant bikes whose owners were forced to roll them ahead and out of the way when they wouldn't fire up. An hour and a half after the Achilles fired up and rode off, it was my turn.
| The Starting Line | ||||||||||||
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On Saturday it was gray and even drizzled just a bit in the morning, but nothing terrible. The course was a lovely meander along lots of country lanes, covering rolling hills and dales. Although we were given route sheets, these were not at all necessary as Heiner and his helpers had put up little markers along the course that kept us from getting lost. These were marked with the VFV logo (the Veteranen Fahrzeug Verband, the vintage vehicle club of Germany), and in the shape of a square (left turn), triangle (straight), and circle (right turn). Every few kilometers we'd pass through another village. A lot of locals were standing by the road, smiling and waving at each passing bike.
Every 20 or 30 kilometers there was a break. We were directed into a square, or a parking lot, or sometimes a fairly small courtyard. This gave the bikes a chance to cool a bit. The riders got drinks and snacks. There was the usual bike chatter, and soon enough, it would be time to fire up and ride for another hour.
The course looped back on itself and we found ourselves riding along in one direction while a stream of older bikes came along the other way. It was a bit confusing at first, but a wonderful sight nonetheless.
Lunch was provided in the parking lot of a motorcycle tire dealer. The usual German style picnic tables with their narrow tops were set up, and a surprising crowd of bikers were present to watch. Lunch was well received, a generous portion of pork tenderloin in a bread roll with your choice of mustard and/or sauerkraut. The drinks handler had beer and wine, but was doing most of their business in water and soft drinks. The kaffee und küchen tent had some pretty delectible items.
| Mittagessenspause | |||||||||
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There were sections of the course that were designated for time trials. Each motorcycle, according to its age and displacement, was assigned a target road speed. While riding the course, the riders came upon a station with a large, wooden checkpoint sign. The worker would determine the entry number and record the time going through the checkpoint. The idea was to arrive at the segment ending checkpoint having covered the distance at precisely the assigned speed. To make it more difficult, speedometers were supposed to be covered. The assigned speeds were slower than most of the riders would have normally travelled. The Zündapp, for example, was quite happy traveling at 70 or 80 kph (45-50mph), but my assigned speed was 36 kph (23 mph). Needless to say, I didn't come close to that average.
Because Sascha was so far ahead of me, I never saw him on the course, and only ran into him as I was coming in to lunch and he was leaving. So later in the day he rode back to find me on the course and grabbed a couple pictures of me.
| Zündapp on the roll | |||||
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When we got back to Osthofen, the grounds were busy and people were gradually moving in to the hall. Soft drinks, juice, beer and some of the local wines were available and people were chatting, oblivious to the table full of trophies and even the band playing in the corner. I could tell that lots of serious bench racing was going on around me.
Eventually dinner was ready and people lined up to get it. The conversation, perhaps a bit muted, never seemed to stop. After dinner, awards were presented for the time trials that day. The Dutch Women's Team managed, overall, to be within a kph of their targets! I got a trophy and a nice bottle of wine for being the rider from farthest away.
| Saturday Night | ||||||
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Sunday dawned bright and we had a lovely day. Things got started a bit earlier because the starting ceremonies were absent, but otherwise followed the same pattern. Lots of tire kicking in the parking lot before the call to action and the bikes began to be lined up.
| Yet more tire kicking | ||||||||||||||||
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As the bikes were kickstarted and ridden off onto the new challenge, the sun got to be surprisingly warm and people began shedding jackets until their number was up. There was also some last minute repair work going on. I saw a fellow near the back of the line busy repairing a bowden cable with some solder and a micro torch. Overall spirits were way up.
Sascha convinced Heiner to let me start right behind him, so that we could ride the course together. Sascha really makes that Victoria fly. Theoretically, with 18 hp, the Zündapp should have had it all over the 8.5 hp Victoria, but they were pretty closely matched.
At the end of the run, as we were supposed to turn into the parking lot, Sascha indicated I should follow him past the entrance. We got about a quarter mile down the road, outside of town, when he turned onto a paved single track road that headed off across a farmer's field. There we stopped and he told me that I should try out the Victoria. I could hardly believe it.
The controls are pretty alien to someone accustomed to a modern bike, like, say, a 1938 Zündapp. There's no twist grip. Instead, there is a thumb lever for gas, and another for air. On the other side, there's one for the spark advance. The right foot has a brake that pushes a wedge into the dummy wheel on the rear wheel. The right hand has a lever that tightens a steel band around the clutch hub. Technically, they're both rear brakes and there's no front brake. Technicalities aside, neither brake does very much. The left foot has a clutch lever, and the left hand has a clutch lever. One uses the foot to disengage and the hand to reengage. Down on the tank there's a wooden knob that shifts the 2 speed transmission. Riding this bike made me feel busier than a one armed paper hanger. On top of all the odd controls, the smooth leather seat refused to let my cordura riding pants gain any purchase, so I was constantly sliding down onto the pommel of the seat, which was uncomfortable, to put it mildly.
On top of that, the bike has surprising performance. The BMW motor is strong and the two speed transmission will pretty quickly carry the bike and rider to perhaps 80 kph (50 mph) or more. I did run it up a bit on one long, straight stretch, but then I saw a bicyclist coming the other way and I had only just barely slowed to a reasonable speed when we passed each other. At 80 kph, the brakes really do feel like nothing at all.
| A quick ride on the Victoria | ||||
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We went back, loaded the bikes into the van, changed out of the riding gear and then went into the Wonnegauhalle again for the final awards. Goodbyes were said, and then it was a couple hour drive back to Karlsruhe. I apparently fell asleep in the warm sun. It was an exciting and wonderful weekend.
The 19th Richard Küchen Gedächtnisfahrt
The next weekend was Rolf's own rally, held in the town of Bad Bergzabern. (It's NW of Karlsruhe, at the southern end of the Rhineland-Pfalz region.) Richard Küchen was a celebrity motorcycle designer before and after WWII. He made his reputation as an independent designer in the 20s, when he lived in Bad Bergzabern, and then worked for several big name motorcycle companies in the 30s. His designs often featured smooth, flowing lines and great efforts to streamline his bikes. He apparently disliked all of the exposed elements, especially things like the air tubes present on a lot of boxer motors.
If you look at any of the pictures of the K500, or even that monster K800 4 cylinder bike, you'll notice that there are no air tubes or exposed carburetors, as there are on comparable BMW models, for example. The carbs are hidden inside of the motor shell, and internal air tubes are channeled inside the cylinder castings. Very neat and tidy, and no more bonking your shins on the exposed bits.
| A couple Richard Küchen designs | ||||
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Unfortunately, this isn't the best arrangement when the motor warms up. The heat weakens the air/fuel charge by expanding the air before it reaches the cylinder. Still, it's not a fatal flaw, and you can't disagree that it cleans things up dramatically.
It wasn't warm and sunny when we left Karlsruhe on that Saturday morning, and it still wasn't when we got to Bad Bergzabern. It was gray and threatening. Still, when we arrived, there were lots of bikes in the parking area by the schloss (Bad Bergzabern was once a fortified town). Rolf had over 100 entrants signed up!
We unloaded the bikes and then I had a quick walk around to see what was present. Even as I started in, it began to rain. After a quick look round, I joined most everyone else inside the Schlosshalle that was the headquarters for the rally. It was warm inside and they were serving a small breakfast. One of the riders recognized me for some reason, and after a brief hunt, came back with the local free weekly paper, the Südpfalz Kurier. He thumbed through it a bit, then folded it over and pointed to the article with the photo at the head. There I was, seated on Rolf's bike, with Rolf standing next to me, over an article titled Californian Rides Along. In the next column was a large ad for the run.
| I'm Famous! | |||||
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I went out and took the K500 over to the TÜV representative to get an inspection and a one day insurance card. (All vehicles must be insured to be on the road, and part of the insurance process is getting a biennial TÜV inspection for roadworthiness. This inspection is probably the most rigorous in the western world, and I only limit it because I don't know about other places. Vehicle registration describes the vehicle in great detail, and must be kept up to date. The police pretty routinely check vehicles for unallowed parts and modifications.) Because a lot of collectors have multiple bikes — Rolf has at least a couple dozen — it's prohibitive to keep them all registered. Since these rallies are sponsored by ADAC (the German AAA) and the TÜV, registration and insurance is not difficult to get. In spite of the reputation of the TÜV, I quickly got a pass and €10,- got me the insurance.
The rain never went completely away, but it couldn't make up its mind to really rain or just drizzle. Sascha and I started together off on the morning loop. Rolf had laid out the course so that we would head north in the morning, return to Bad Bergzabern for lunch, then make a southern loop in the afternoon. The weather never got better; in fact it turned into a pretty consistent rain. Good for the farmers, but not the best situation for old bikes with "classic" style tires and marginal braking. The hub brake on Sascha's Victoria went from ineffectual to nonexistant in the wet weather. Neither bike ever gave a hiccup, however, and we trouped on through the rain.
After returning and warming up, we agreed that if the weather didn't improve after lunch, there was no sense forging on. Indeed, it didn't get better. We took the opportunity to load the bikes and wipe them off a bit. After the awards ceremony, at which I got another very nice trophy for long distance attendance, we drove home.
The bikes were a mess, and so I spent part of Sunday washing the Zündapp, before loading it into the van and returning it to Rolf. It's a beautiful machine, with graceful lines that belies its rugged construction. It never failed to start and run strong — after I learned how to use the controls.
| The Aftermath | |||||
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There are even more photos, if you can believe that. You can look at them all, here.
