Reunification reminiscence

In the summer of 1990, 30 years ago this year, a pair of Vincent enthusiasts set out on a trip to the new, united Germany.

- JOHN ROBINSON

It was May 1990 and there was Pete, on his knees, gazing at the dismantled timing side of his Rapide. We were in a campsite at Schmockwitz, just outside Berlin, five months after the fall of ‘The Wall.’ Pete said: “Now I remember why I sold my last Vincent twin…” How had we ended up there?

In May 1989, my wife Kath and I had been on a trip to East Germany on a modern BMW and had a very interesting, if different, time. We had made some good motorcycling friends in the Harz region of East Germany and had great memories of the trip. At the end of that year, the wall came down.

A good friend, Pete Lee, a partner at Unity Equipe in Rochdale, had been very interested in our trip to East Germany. On hearing of a rally in Berlin to celebrate the occasion of the wall’s destruction, Pete suggested that we go on our Vincents. Pete had a series C Rapide and mine was a series C Comet.

I’d only had the Comet a few months so began to put in a few miles through the Pennine hills to shake it down and generally get the feel of the bike. The first thing to shakedown was the magneto… Fortunately, Dave Lindsley, the magneto and dynamo specialist, was in the next town and did a timely job on it, and all was well.

Due to the rear suspension arrangements on Series C Vincents, luggage racks are not as straightforward as on some other makes. Pete had made himself a rear carrier for the trip and borrowed one for me from an HRD/VOC club friend (Eric Gee?). Pete and I kitted ourselves out with throw-over saddlebags, insurance green cards etc and booked ferries from Harwich to Hamburg return.

Living in Rochdale, near Manchester, we had an early start, about 5 am, which got us down to Harwich, Essex, in good time. The weather was fine and stayed that way for the whole trip.