RIDE PLANNED
Boris said the Bavarian Alps had some great motorcycling roads, so I thought I’d better check them out.
I grabbed a cheap return flight to Munich in July on line, and looked for a place to stay. There was a town ten kilometres from Munich airport called Erding which had a motorcycle rental business. I thought I could do some day rides down to Salzberg, and Berchtesgaden, and Schwangau; and maybe even the Czech Republic, and it wasn’t even that far to Switzerland. And Erding had the brewery where they made Erdinger Weissbier. It’s not a bad drop.
July was over a month away, so I thought I’d better brush up on my German.
There’s an Austrian club ten or so kilometres from home, so I went up there on Saturday. It’s a nice club. It’s low key. They don’t have poker machines, so there is no river of gold to help the finances. And because of this they only open weekends and Friday night, and the staff are volunteers.
The walls are decorated with paintings and shields and flags and deer heads. The waitresses wear dirndls. One was obviously of Indian extraction, which looked a bit weird, but I put that behind me, and ordered a Weissbier, and grabbed their newsletter from the bar, and sat down to drink and read.
The newsletter said they had an air rifle club and to just ask at the bar.
I finished my Weissbier, and went up to the bar, and said “Ich will Luftgewehr schiessen”, and the bartender said “Sorry mate?”
So I said I want to shoot air rifles, and the bartender said no worries, just turn up on Tuesday at seven thirty. I asked if everyone meets there and goes to the range, but he said no, the range is here.
The building is obviously bigger than it looks.
I rode up there on Tuesday to shoot the breeze in German and air rifles in the international language of shooting things. Everyone seemed very Aussie, but one guy had an accent. Someone went over to the back wall, which had a few paintings on it, and raised it. It was hinged, and behind it were target machines which you could pull back ten metres and clamp to a table. Then you insert the target strip, push a button, and the target travels back to the wall.
They shoot at 45mm targets at 10 metres. They move the flower vases off the mid-range tables first.
People came and introduced themselves to me, and when the guy with the accent came over I said “Wie werde ich Mitglied?” and he said “Sorry mate?”
I said how do you become a member and he said first you have to join the Austrian club, then you can join the air rifle club.
I showed them my firearms licence, and they lent me one of those three thousand dollar Olympic air rifles with di-optic sights, and I shot forty shots, and took my four target strips over to the scoring machine, and got three fifty nine out of four hundred. Someone said it was a good thing I didn’t get 333, because if you get 333 you have to shout the bar.
“The bar?” I said.
“Oh yes. There’s always someone here with an RSA, so we’ll open the bar when he finishes shooting.”
The RSA guy finished shooting and opened the bar, and I ordered a Weissbier. He said no charge because I’m a new member.
I sipped my Weissbier. People finished shooting, and bought schnapps and beer and wine and came over and asked me what sort of bike I rode, and I told them a Kawasaki Ninja 1000, and all but one of them said they had a motorcycle too. Mainly BMW GS’s in parallel twin and flat twin, and one guy had a four cylinder Japanese two fifty that he was rebuilding.
I told them I was going to Bavaria to ride a motorcycle in July, and they said that’s great, and I should come for a ride with them some time after I get back.
I told Ben about it a couple of days later. “So much for brushing up on my German”, I said. “I spoke less than ten words over two days, and no-one understood a word of it. Though I did overhear a woman at the next table speaking it on the first day.”
“Really?” said Ben. “What was she talking about?”
“No bloody idea”, I said. “Woman stuff, I guess.”
“Still,” he said, “shooting those high-end rifles must have been fun”.
He’s a stein half full kind of guy.
About the Author
Al Al does a bit of everything, and likes hanging around with Boris, because there are generally motorcycles and whiskey, and because hilarity generally ensues. He wastes his spare time not moderating the BIKE ME! forums, where he posts occasionally and is regarded as unfair, unbalanced and unmedicated. Shows how much THEY know.
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