From: noemi@maui.cs.ucla.edu (Noemi Berry)
Subject: The European Adventure: Day 5.2
Organization: UCLA, Computer Science Department
Date: Thu, 12 Nov 92 19:28:34 GMT

This is the next installment in the tale of my 9-day
motorcycle adventure in Europe during the summer of '92.
I apologize for its length and hope that your news/mail
software will allow you to skip over it easily if it is
of no interest to you.

noemi
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10/04/93
The European Adventure
Day 5, Part Two: Gunter, Heinz and Norbert

Monday, August 31, 1992
Umbrailpass, Italy

When I left off in Part One, I was starting down steep Umbrailpass in
the rain with a broken clutch lever, following a Suzuki DR650 and R100G/S
rider who had taken pity on me.  It was getting late, and I hadn't yet had
a break from a very difficult and frustrating day, which included three
drops and a tough half hour stuck at turn #14 on the steep road up.  And
I'd never ridden a bike without a clutch before.  I could use the lever if
I placed it very carefully and pulled in a certain way with two hands, but
it was only adequate for getting the bike going from a stop.

Limping along in first gear, I followed the riders down Umbrailpass.
This was the squiggle on the map I'd come here for, and it was a truly
excellent road of smooth, visible hairpins.  It was beautiful and showed
many hilly expanses of green, spotted with charming little houses and
chalets.  Some parts of the road wound back and forth under itself, so
that every other turn was directly under another one.  Really a neat
road!!  I wished I could ride it under better circumstances.

The 14% grade was wet and slippery, and I would have taken the turns in
1st anyway, so the engine had to suffer revving in the short straights
between the turns.  Occasionally, I managed to get into second and back
into first, but it wasn't easy.  The bike didn't shift so well anyway,
even when I had a clutch lever.  The wind picked up and died quickly,
enough that the rider in front of me was blown laterally about two feet,
and had me leaning hard into it.

I wondered what else could make this situation any worse, and had my
answer when the road turned to dirt.  Great!!  Fortunately, it was
hard-packed dirt, and my FT felt right at home.  Thank heavens for
Moab!  As the road descended, it got drier and I actually started to
have fun.  After a frustrated roost or two, the DR650 rider took off,
but the lady on the R100G/S stayed in sight on my behalf.  The road
turned to pavement again, and was very smooth and really a great amount
of fun.  Even if I had to take it in first gear and had no idea what was
to become of me when I got to the bottom.

We made it to Santa Maria, where the Suzuki rider told me he and his
companion had to ride to Basel today, on the other side Switzerland.
This was just a day trip for them!  Through all this, the woman never
really understood that I didn't speak German, and just rattled away to
me in the strange tongue.  There was a hotel in town where I could ask
about a motorrad dealer, and so I thanked them, they bid me good luck
and they were on their way.

Now I had to figure out what to do about the clutch lever.  And myself.

I went into the hotel and asked about motorrad places, and no one knew
of any place at all.  There was a garage in the town, but only for cars.
And no rooms at the hotel.  The Gelbe Seiten didn't indicate anything
close by either.  The nearest large town was Merano, but Merano was in
Italy and no one knew about anything in Italy.  Somewhere on the 16km
spaghetti-like road I had just taken with the broken clutch lever,
I had crossed over into Switzerland.

Switzerland....!  I had no Swiss money.  VISA acceptance had proven to
be hit-or-miss, with a rare hit at the occasional large hotel.  It was
6pm, too late to exchange money in a bank or post office.  Well, that's
only one of my worries for now.  I had Deutch Marks, Austrian shillings,
French Francs and American dollars.  One of those currencies, in that
order, would probably be accepted somewhere.  Most everyone wanted
Deutsche Marks, though that was no guarantee the independent Swiss
would.  Offering dollars was a joke.

Someone else in the hotel told me there was a dealer in Samaden, Switzerland,
about 80km west.  This would involve two more mountain passes with percent
grades in the teens, but it seemed to be my only choice.  I sat outside
to look over my maps and to decide if I should head east back to Italy,
or west to Samaden.  It was late, gray, and I hadn't had a break all day.

As I looked over my maps sitting outside on the sidewalk in the drizzle,
3 men walking by asked me if I was lost.  Their English was reasonable,
and I said no, I was trying to decide if I should go to Merano or Samaden.
I assured them I would be OK, and thanked them.  I was very tired of
appearing so helpless to people and strangely wanted to make it seem like
I had little more trouble than a broken fingernail.  They doubtfully left
me to my devices and headed into the hotel.  If I had to ride this bike
in 1st gear for 80km over two mountain passes in the dark and rain, I'd
damn well do it!!  And have a great story to tell later.

So I headed out for Samaden.  This time, the clutch lever did slip against
its spot on the broken piece, lurching the bike forward and stalling it
with the front wheel off the curb into the road.  To get off the bike
to pull it out of the road, I lowered it onto the sidestand ... which I
had dutifully raised already and - pow!  Drop #4 for today.  This was clearly
an error due to exhaustion and overload and no breaks.  Never underestimate
the importance of your mental state!  Mine was very delicate by now.

Swearing loudly inside my helmet, I struggled futiley to right the FT,
enraged by the constant obstacles that faced me today.  A figure appeared
next to me and the bike was vertical again, though I was embarrassed that
he could hear me yelling inside my helmet.  My red-jacketed helper was
one of the group of 3 who had just stopped to talk to me.  He was quickly
joined by his two buddies, one of whom said to me, you CAN'T go to
Samaden tonight with a broken clutch lever!  Let's see what we can do.

And this is where the story gets truly incredible, entirely in the kindness
of strangers.  These three were riders themselves, Germans on an annual
10-day holiday around the Alps.  Two of them stayed with me while the other
one discovered the car garage in town, and went to find it.  I said the
garage only fixes cars, but the two with me nonchalantly told me to wait
and see anyway, and I nervously contained myself while I watched the
daylight rapidly fade away.  My plan to ride to Samaden would be much
harder in the dark [in retrospect, it would have been impossible, even
during the day].  I was shaking and having a hard time being cordial; I
desperately needed time to cry in a corner and lick my wounds, but didn't
want to offend anyone.

Their friend came back and told us that the garage can't do anything,
but there was, get this, a **welder** in the next town over who might be
able to help.  At this hour?!  Europeans are very protective of their
leisure time, especially the dinner hours.  I offered my skeptical opinion
that the metal on the lever was way too cheap to be welded, and they said
something about the welder having the right electrodes, and I had nothing
to lose by trying.  The welder would not be in until 7:30pm, a half hour
away, so they said I may as well join them in the hotel for dinner and
have a beer.  Too weak to object, I did.

Once inside, I chatted with the two who spoke English, and they
translated for the third guy.  We ordered dinner, except for the
non-english speaking one.  At 7:15, he left with the pieces of my
clutch lever to get his leathers and motorcycle from the pension
where they were staying.  I offered to go with him, and the others
said eh, no need.  Stay here, relax.

While he was gone, I got to know my rescuers.  Heinz and Gunter were
the English-speaking ones I was talking to, and Norbert was the guy
finding a welder in Mustair, the next town over.  Heinz and Gunter
looked up to Norbert as the expert rider, and told me that they felt
great keeping up with him today on their Yamaha XJ600 and Honda VFR750,
until a Ducati rider screamed by them.  Norbert and his ZX-10 couldn't
bear to be passed by a Ducati, and blew off his companions, and their
egos at the same time.  Nice to see some things are the same over
there :-).  Gunter said he takes some heat about the VFR: his buddies
call it a "grandfather motorcycle."

I asked them as many questions as I could think of, having finally
cornered some German riders.  We talked about the US helmet law --
Europeans can't understand why Americans object, since helmets are such
an obviously good thing.  Gunter said that if you pass a law, eventually
people just get used to it and accept it, and then a Good Thing has
become part of the society.  Not really an American way of thinking!

Gunter explained to me what you have to do to get a motorcycle license
in Germany: first you pass a written test, then take 10 "lessons", pass a
skill test, and you're legal for bikes up to 27 hp (European hp is
different from US hp -- my FT500 was exactly 27 european hp).  After a
"successful" year on a small bike, you take ANOTHER 10 "lessons", another
skill test, and then you are fully licensed.  Cripes!  That's enough to
make MSF classes look like the CA DMV test (sorry, no offense to the MSF).
The whole process also costs 2500 DM, enough to discourage many joy riders.

I was also amazed to find that they believe that Germans have poor lane
discipline on the Autobahns.  They said that if everyone would just keep
to the right, then the left lane would be completely free for driving. 
Though it is illegal to pass on the right, but people do it anyway
(rarely, I saw!).  Compared to the chaos we have on the US Interstates,
I couldn't believe the complaint.  I asked about laws, like lane-splitting (no).

They also confirmed my suspicions about the FT's vibration: too much oil
can raise the oil level to where the connecting rod (?) splashes into it
and causes a vibration.  We traded talk about gear -- they'd never
heard of electric clothing, except for BMW heated handgrips.  I asked
them to translate as many things as I could think of, and when I asked
what "Sparkasse" meant, Gunter said, "Savings and Loan....but not like
Savings and Loan in the U.S.!"  I was actually embarrassed for my country.

I asked about the Suzuki rider's non-front brake recommendation, and
if they use their rear brakes.  They conferred in German for a bit,
and came back with, "it is a bit of a philosophy disagreement."  Same
thing!  Some use rear brakes more than others, but said that the Suz
rider telling me to use only the rear brake in the rain was "rubbish."
Whew.

At 9pm, Norbert reappeared with, of all things, a welded clutch lever!!!
I couldn't believe it.  That scraped piece of metal was worth more to me
than gold right now.  We went outside to put it on the bike, and it
worked.  A little wobbly, but it would get me out of the mountains. 
Yay!  Norbert tested out the FT with its mended piece, and made an
"oomph!" face when he got on it.  Heinz translated that Norbert thought
the FT was tall!  Taller than his ZX-10.

Norbert rode back to their pension to put away his bike while the rest
of us scurried out of the rain back into the hotel.  He returned with
the news that their landlady had an extra room for me!  Lucky for me,
since the hotel was full.  My companions said, well, you're all set then,
just take it easy tonight!  Norbert settled down for a very late dinner,
which made me realize how way out of his way he had gone for me.  And we
couldn't say a thing to each other since we were equally poor in each
other's language.  Every time I tried to thank my rescuers or offer
Deutchemarks (like for the cost of welding the clutch lever), they
responded with shrugs and "eh, don't worry."  I got the feeling it was
inhospitable of me to press.

The evening grew festive, and I finally relaxed -- they drank and smoked
and we talked motorcycles.  I fascinated them by telling them about the
net and rec.motorcycles, and they were very pleased when I told them
they'd be famous when I wrote the story.   They were pleased to learn
a new English word: "twisties."  I asked them to show me good places to
go, and asked what they thought was the hardest Alpine pass.  Guess which
one they said: Stelvio, the one I had been up earlier that day, where I'd
got stuck on turn #14!  They recommended that I go straight back east
into Italy, where the best riding was.

They walked to their pension while I rode the FT up the dark, steep hill
into the gravel driveway.  PLEASE don't let me drop the bike again in
front of them -- or worse yet, on one of their bikes!!!  I summoned
every remaining ounce of concentration to make sure I didn't drop the
bike in the slim gravel driveway.  They showed me my room, and they
invited me to breakfast in the morning.  I thanked them many times
again, said cheerful goodnights, and went into my room.

No matter how tired I was, I had to stay up and write about my day.
It had started out much differently than it had ended -- was it really
just this morning that I had a nail in my tire removed in Austria?
This day had included a near oil crisis, lots of weathery riding in
Italy, my first Alpine pass, a ride down the mountain in rain and dirt
with no clutch lever, four drops, a welder in the middle of nowhere,
and finding 3 wonderful fellow riders.  Instead of what could have been
a truly miserable ending, I had spent the evening talking and laughing
in a warm environment, among friends.

I had to be the luckiest person in the world, and fell into the
first solid sleep yet on my trip.

End of Day 5.

noemi
*---------------------------------------------------------------------*
noemi@cs.ucla.edu (for now)     				KotSBL
DoD #443  						'82 KZ 305 CSR
							(hang in there!)
	Next Motorcycle (NM) countdown: one R65LS to go!
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