Cool old bikes and sweet young dames: How to get both with a wee bit of sacrifice. By: Beemer Dan I was in one of the local bike shops a few weeks ago, grabbing some photos for thre shops web page. It's a cool deal I set up with the shop, I do thier web page and in trade they give me bike bits, needless to say we're both pretty happy. I've been going to the shop since before I knew how to ride, they're a pretty cool bunch over there. It's more of a salvage and used sort of joint, the best place to score the good stuff.

Anyhu, I'm wandering through the new bikes recruited from insurance claims and reposessions and I see this little motorcycle, it was a bit bigger than a scooter but it looked like a full on bike. I looked a bit closer to find it was something a bit older than usual, probably an early sixties model. The motor said Zundapp, I couldn't believe it! I have read about Zundapp's in history books but I had never actually seen one in the real world. It was a 100cc's and aside from some cosmetic damage it looked complete. "HEY AL! YOU KNOW YOU HAVE A ZUNDAPP BACK HERE??!!??" I belted out. The front counter was in the next room and I had to yell a bit. "YEAH" said Al " Just came in the other day, you like it?" So I got a couple of photos of it and hoped that the paycheck gods would be good to me real soon. Later that day I'm at the local cafe with my girlfriend Lisa and I'm showing her the photos of the bikes. Before I even get a chance to tell her what is so incredible about the Zundapp she has already fallen in love with it. Now, I wanted the Z for my own collection but if you saw her big brown eyes you'd break too. I'd been wanting to get her a bike for the last five years and if this was the one, so be it! We went back to the shop straight away to get there before closing. She saw the bike up close and really loved it, she looked great on it too. It turns out that Al had the keys and papers on it, a rare thing as far as salvage scoots are concerned. We popped open the toolbox to find the original toolkit, too cool. Needless to say we got a screamin deal on it, Al treats me pretty good on the bike buys. We got the Z home and started to clean and polish, only to find that without the dirt and crud it was in pretty good condition aside from a couple of dents in the tank and some scratches and chips in the paint. The odometer reads 1807 original miles, all original cables, all original wires, shit, I think it had the original tires. Lis' was real excited, but not nearly as excited as I was when I found out it had spark! We've spent the last few weekends (a few weekdays too ) in the garage working on the Z. We also found a web page in Sweden that has a bunch of Z's on it and hooked up with a mechanic who has parts and mannuals. It's been great, I feel like a whole new world has opened up, a world where I can wrench and talk about bikes with my girlfriend and she's participating and interested! This may sound trivial to some but I'm the kinda strange that rides inthe snow and like to work on bikes in the living room. Last week I came home and she told me to sit in the living room, shehad a suprise. "Just to show you how much fun I'm having working on the bike" and she came into the living room wearing a pair of shop coveralls and some sexy underwear. This was just getting better by the moment. We've been to the hardware store to get tools and supplies and off to the bike shops a few times for parts. We also found out that the bike is a commemerative editon of a similar Z that won 1st palce in the Monza races in 1965. Last weekend we got the new tires on and with a little tuning Lisa and the bike will be ready for the MSF riders course and then the road! We still have to pick her up some good leathers and lid but it wont be long now till we're riding the countryside together.