Through no fault of our own, we wound up spending three glorious days in Kandel, Germany with a very eclectic group of fellow BMW riders. We owe a tremendous amount of thanks to Carlo Ratzersdorfer in Antwerp, Belgium for making this possible.

For those of you who have no idea what the Internet BMW Riders are, it is a rag tag collection of like minded souls who share a common liking for BMW motorcycles. There are two e-mail lists for the group. One of the e-mail lists is refereed to by most as “The Big List” because it will routinely produce in excess of 250 to 300 e-mail messages a day. The other list is known as the Europrez list because it’s focus is in Europe. There are more reasons for the two lists but this is good enough for the uninitiated.

Jim has been reading the Europrez list since we were in Ireland and slowly posted the odd mail message or two. As we were leaving Spain for Amsterdam in May, 2001, he posted an e-mail indicating that we would be traveling in the Amsterdam area. The bits in the message were still wet when he received a response from the aforementioned chap (Carlo Ratzersdorfer) asking why we were not attending the Informal Europrez 3 (IEP3) meeting in Kandel, Germany. After several e-mails between Carlo and Jim Carlo had us convinced that we should travel from Amsterdam to his house in Antwerp when we had concluded our visit with Verna’s friend Bonnie (May, 2001) and go to the meeting with him. We did.

Carlo and his wife Gaby (and their two children, Silvia and Thomas) welcomed us into their home for three nights prior to traveling to the meeting which was to begin on May 24. This was a real treat for us after living in hotels and a tent for two months. Carlo, there is no way we can repay you and your family for the kindness you extended us. Thank you all!

On Tuesday, May 22 Paul and Kate Hounslow from Reading, England arrived at Carlo’s home and then on Thursday, May 24th, we all left for Kandel and the meeting. The ride from Antwerp to Kandel proved to take a bit more time than we had anticipated. This being a four day holiday week end in Belgium we encountered extremely heavy traffic which included a 7 to 10 km traffic jam on the motor way south of Antwerp. There were many people on the road. The only other time we have seen an similar number of motorbikes on the road was Good Friday in Germany in April, 2000.

As a result of the delays the ride took a bit longer than expected but we arrived at our hotel to be greeted by many already in attendance. We met many wonderful people during the three days of the event. We even went on a group ride on Saturday. Group rides are something that we have learned to dread because it has been our experience that most motorcycle riders don’t know how to ride in a group. This was the first group ride in 15+ years that we can truly say we enjoyed. It is a wonderful experience to ride with people who understand how to ride with others.

We took many pictures during the course of the event. Rather than try to write something about each one we will provide only information as to where they were taken and what is involved. We hope you enjoy them. Pictures of the courtyard at the hotel on Saturday morning.

The bikes in front of the hotel before the Saturday ride and Tita and Alexander von Rössing’s beautiful R1100S ARMEC sidecar rig with his son on the bike and his oldest daughter in the chair. 
Below, the rest stop on Saturday’s ride prior to our stop at the castle for the tour and the group at the deep well inside the castle. Below, the original entrance to the castle and a view of the surrounding country side. Kandel is located in the area of Germany known as the Black Forest. As the picture above shows, this area is very beautiful and contains some great motorcycle roads.

                                                            Below, Thomas Ratzersdorfer
                                                              on his father Carlo’s bike.     Above , Silvia Ratzersdorfer
        on Verna’s bike.

Sunday morning Kate and Paul Hounslow and Duner Tor (pictured at left with Jim) went with us to Sascha and Michi Leitz home to do an update of our web site and to see Sascha’s antique motorcycles. Pictured below is Sascha’s 1920 Victoria BMW. This motorcycle was built before BMW started producing motorcycle themselves. The engine is BMW’s contribution but the bike was built by another company.

The bike spends the winters in a motorcycle museum but in the summer, Sascha takes it home and rides it, often in vintage motorcycle races.

Pictured at right is Sascha’s son Jonas on Victoria. Note the belt drive immediately below Jonas’s right foot. There is also a friction brake made from a wood block that rubs against the wheel with the belt for the bikes only brakes. Yes, there is no front brake! The flywheel is on the other side of the bike and is exposed, spinning next to the riders leg while the engine is running. The bike belonged to Sascha’s grandfather and has been passed down through the family.

At right, Duner, Jim and Sascha enjoy the sound of the engine as it thumps along. A really spectacular machine.

 Sascha also has a 1950 Zundap that he has the original papers showing the first time the bike was registered in Germany. It is also quite a beautiful machine.

Jim really regrets selling his 1977 R100/7 and wishes that he had kept it and brought it to Germany to a company called HPN to have them modify it. HPN was responsible for developing the Paris-Dekar BMW motorcycles that were so successful in the 1980’s. Below is Matz Rosenquist’s HPN. A beautiful machine as far as Jim is concerned.

While we were in Kandel, we discovered an oil leak on Verna’s bike where the ABS sensor is located on the final drive. After a bit of searching we were able to locate the BMW dealer in Ettlingen, Germany - about 25 km from Kandel. It took them a long time to find the O-ring that was needed to repair the leak because the part number was not listed in the computer on the diagram where it should have been. We also needed some fuel line hose clamps that would work on the oversize hoses that go inside the Touratech gas tank. When the parts were delivered to us we were told to take them and go in good health and enjoy the rest of our journey. We have been well treated by our dealers in the San Francisco Bay Area, but to walk out of a shop that you have never been in before (and will probably never be in again) with something for nothing was truly amazing. A hearty thanks to Ungeheuer BMW in Ettlingen, Germany located at Hertzstrasse 31.

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