Winter fun on three wheels - column

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Purchasing classics there

When the weather turns gray and everything else seems like a nice alternative to escape another day of gray-slippery misery, then we gather. Then we become a motorcycle club. A tricycle club.

A motorcycle club

A club of about two or three, which is expanded to four members at the most when we get close to Enumatil. There, Wessel organized the Honda Black Bomber Treffen a while ago, a massive ride with about eight participants, two of them on Honda CB 450 K1s, someone on a Moto Guzzi and someone on a BMW. But three Black Bombers, there are quite a few.

North-east Groningen is right on the Polar border, but also has many beautiful roads. And a surprising number of motorcycle shops. At Van Houten in Marum (you know it from the list: New York, Tokyo, London, Paris, Marum) they have a whole shed full of free-range stuff where you always score something. Even if it is not a BMW project or restoration job.

But with this weather Marum is a bit far

It is now nice and quiet in our own Dutch Ardennes, on the Posbank. The herds of trotters and cyclists are all hibernating now. The IJsseldijk are more adventurous than the Dakar due to the beet campaign and comparable activities. Of course we don't drive in jeans and a T-shirt now. Good motorcycle clothing is important in this season. Just: to keep warm. And if something goes wrong with our strolling pace, we get off and wait for it to pass.

Long live the offshore!

We are therefore well dressed in terms of comfort. Helly - offshore - Hansen makes perfectly insulating thermal clothing. Bering's electrically heated gloves also come from the Atlantic fishery. The company certainly does. In the cold back home to Emmerich to drink Glühwein and eat Corona Currywurst behind a glass terrace wall is always great. The alcohol has evaporated from the Glühwein. At least; we assume that. The typical German delicacy Currywurst has the consistency of ground condoms. The - sort of - dish is fatty and hot. So good. We sit in the shade behind glass and watch the rain, some wet flakes of snow. To shipping on the Rhine. We feel tough and satisfied. As the men 1.0 we are.

We just get on again

With our mopeds, a grandmother-like lady puts something that is apparently a grandchild but at least a small child on one of the racks. Usually we are not very happy about that. But this grandmother knows where to put her grandson. She herself comes from the Ukraine where Russian tricycles were a fairly accepted means of transport before everyone started racing around in armored vehicles and other army vehicles. She turns out not to be so 'into technique' and her mind wanders. When talking about her former homeland, big tears run down her cheeks.

When we are finished we put on our gloves. Except Hans. Because Hans himself had made electrically heated gloves with some items from Conrad. Something must have gone wrong. They are smoldering on his buddy seat. And his buddy's cover has a fist-sized burn hole. Heated gloves and a heated buddy for one price. The battery is flat ... Fine. That will now take some time and on Tuesday just call Boonstra and Woesthoff… For a used buddy. And there must be other gloves. All in all it is a very nice winter.

Maybe we'll get real snow too! Then the studded tires and snow chains can be worn!

Read also
- Lake columns from our editors
- More articles about classic engines
- Vacation from then
- End of season
- Sidecar riding for entertainment

 

 

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7 comments

  1. I don't remember very precisely, I think even before I was born, that my Uncle Wim had a Victoria with sidecar (with such a rocket nose), who could have bought a heated aviator suit at a dump, so actually a large electric blanket. Of course I do not know how it connected, Uncle Wim is no longer there, But he was nice and warm, When children arrived the Victoria left for a real Trabant.

  2. The story about the smoldering gloves and the hole in the buddy seat takes me back to the story of a colleague of mine, somewhere in 1992 or so. An avid motorcyclist but firmly under the knoot of his predominant ega, no money was allowed to put a set of heated grips on his Yamaha. And they had not determined it narrow! Self-made heated grips were put on with little money but with great effort. Short check: it worked.
    The day after (it was very cold) he had to make a longer ride with the Yamaha. Before he knew it, his gloves had fused to the handles. The smoke came off. When they took off the gloves, they remained silent witnesses to a failed project, but an experience richer, at the back of the wheel. The execution of the calculation had to be redone. His expensive Gore-Tex gloves were permanently sent to the eternal hunting grounds. The project's financial balance had gone wrong.
    At home there was still a lot of discussion about how to spend it ……

  3. Now the only question that remains for me is how someone regains the consistency of crushed condoms. . . . . . .

    And I don't know what those things taste like, but when those things taste like Currywurst, I finally have a convincing argument for my boyfriend 😀 😀

    • @Niels: A technical background and vivid imagination help. But the compelling power of currywurst is that the things themselves have no taste. So they really need the curry sauce. And you can buy them in handy plestik bottles. The editors do not accept any responsibility for further consequences of this comment

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