Carol & David's Excellent Adventures - Part VII A Vehicle (at LAST) - May '98 David Braun Copyright 1998 Perhaps you play golf, play a musical instrument, read the bible, watch teevee, tinker with wood or metal or electronics or have home improvement projects. Whoever you are, you have something that gives your life a little kick, which you look toward with a certain measure of anticipation. For me, that thing is a motorcycle ride. The one advantage my passion has is that I can actually go to and from work on my passion. This does not quite work for you if you enjoy sewing or sailing. There were days in Fort Collins that the five mile distance from my home to my work took me over an hour to cover. I went into the foothills and traversed over sixty or eighty miles, arriving at work as fresh as if I'd just had a three day weekend. I've been riding motorcycles for about twenty-five years. I've been riding BMW motorcycles for virtually all of that time, well over two hundred thousand miles. (Why *BMW* motorcycles is a subject on which I could wax elephants; too big to fit on this page.) Since the early 1970's, I don't think more than a week has gone by that I have not ridden a bike. Damn the heat, damn the rain, and damn the cold. My last Real Ride was in October. The last time I sat astride a running motorcycle was in December. And that was just to move it across town so that it could be sold for me by a friend. It is now May. October, November, December, January, February, March, and April have gone, one day at a time. How long can you hold your breath? Taking this job in France was not the best decision for us financially. But if you live your life solely for money, you'll never have a reason good enough to spend it. My salary here is slightly less than it was in the USA. And our expenses are higher, even though we dropped the entire fleet of vehicles, and moved into an apartment. We developed a strategy. Carol would have a job, her dream job. This income will enable us not only to live, but also to flourish here. Meanwhile, we will not spend from our savings for a bike until our income significantly exceeds our expenses. Carol's first interview for this job was last October. It would appear that she has spoken with nearly everyone associated with this position. After literally fourteen separate interviews, she was given a verbal offer for a contract position, complete with a salary. On pins and needles we were waiting for the contract to arrive in the mail. Note: a limited term contract position is fine. We have faith that HP will hire her in a full time position after they get to know her. She doesn't need the benefits because, after all, this is France, and her husband has a job. At the end of the contract, if for some unforeseeable reason such as negative business climate, HP opts not to renew the contract or hire her; that is probably ok, too. Because by the end of the contract, she will have two important things she does not have today. working papers (to be obtained by HP) and the ability to speak French (provided by France). As winter turns to spring and the snow recedes from the surrounding Alps, watching the newspaper ads for the bike a want, a BMW F650. I see one. I see another. The first goes away. A third comes. The second and third both go away. The prices are about right. My timing is off. No license to drive, no license to spend. To register a bike I must have insurance. To get insurance, I must have a French license. (To get that, you must have a carte sejour, to get that. Suffice to say, it is a PROCESS.) Finally, I got my license. With Carol having a verbal offer the same week, things look up. No F650's in the paper today. Hope springs eternal, especially in the spring and very especially where motorcycles are concerned. I talked to some fellow at work who was preparing to leave on his Moto Guzzi with a sidecar. He told me about "The Federation of Angry Motorcyclists" who banded together some years ago to fight some stupid legislation. One product of this political action was the formation of an insurance company, by motorcyclists for motorcycles. Consequently, the prices are the cheapest in France. And, in fact, they have an office within easy walking distance from our home. I went there and found out what-all I needed to get insurance. Yup, this is France. I was fairly well prepared. I had a letter from my insurance company in the USA saying that they had covered me for ten years without a claim. This entitled me to a significant discount on the insurance, 43%. It goes almost to 50%, but that takes thirteen years at about six and a half percent of the remaining factor off the remaining factor per year. I had my license, issued by France, with the issue date of my Kentucky license, last November. Luckily, the agent understood about how USA licenses are not issued for life like in Europe. I had a recent utility bill, proving my address. And of course, I had my identity papers (passport with carte sejour). We discussed coverage and so forth. He gave me a rate based on a '97 F650. He told me that I would be covered, based on his quotation letter, for something similar, to drive from the point of sale to my home only. Then, I could come by with the carte and we could complete the transaction. (Carte gris "gray card = "pink slip." Only a gray card IS gray.) I also found out that an APPROVED lock is required for the bike to be covered for theft at all. And I found out about bikes being "tattooed." This feature (the important bits etched with the serial number of the frame) costs about fifty dollars and lowers your deductible in case of theft from 20% to 10% in case of theft. We had two three-day weekends in a row. (This is France, after all.) Unfortunately, the first one was used in the final push to complete the punch list for our apartment in anticipation of the arrival of my folks for a visit on the second. What this adds up to is. no time to shop for a bike. Then, it happened. Sometimes I don't know what I believe. But I know that whether it is God, Fate, or random statistical variation in my favor (luck), sometimes Good Things happen to (or for) me. My parents' train was due to arrive at 5:41. I left work at 5:00. At 5:18 I stepped off the tram at the stop nearest the hotel I had booked for them and walked fifty meters to the hotel. After reconfirming the reservation I had made about two months previous, I decided to walk to the next tram stop, a hundred and fifty meters further along because I still had twenty minutes or so until I need to be at the station, about eight minutes away. As I walked next to the tram tracks, though the pedestrian shopping area, two motorcycles, one a pearlescent white F650 crossed my path, literally. It looked to be the same pearl-white as the helmet I bought late last summer. "That's a nice color," I thought to myself. What's this? The fellow is stopping and parking it. I scurried up to him as he was just stepping back after levering it up onto the center stand. In my poor French, I told him, "I am sorry. I do not speak French very well. Do you speak English." And he responded, "Yes, quite well in fact, what do you need?" I told him that I was looking for an F650 for sale. Did he know anyone who might have one they were interested in selling? His response was pure magic. "You can have THIS one. I had all but given up trying to sell it and was about to turn it in to the Honda dealer. I want to get an Africa Twin." (Like the bike his partner was riding.) His price was "blue book" but the thing came with lots of accessories. It had been dealer maintained and never been dropped. He was in a hurry and so was I. We agreed to discuss the rest next week. I gave him my card and he gave me his email address. Fantastic, the seller speaks English AND has email. Magic. Well, my folks came and we spent a lovely weekend visiting and eating too much. Monday morning I checked my email and was putting out the first fires of the day when I got some mail from Claude, the seller. He wanted to wait until his new Honda arrived before selling it. I wanted to get it before May 21st, a holiday from work in France. He was going to Italy. I was going to Hungary. Then he was going to Vienna. Then we were both going to be in town. We agreed to talk on the phone Sunday evening. In the interim, he faxed me his carte gris so I could finalize the insurance. He also faxed me his carte verte (insurance card) and suggested the name of his agent. who turned out to be the same as mine. Claude also mentioned that he had perused my web site and thought, maybe we're destined to become friends. He's a physicist at the local synchrotron, the largest in France I believe. He climbs mountains in his spare time, technical climbing, besides riding bikes. Yeah, I think maybe we could swap a Tale or two over a beer or five some afternoon after a long ride. Before I left for Hungary, I picked up some travel cash at the bank. While there, I swapped some money between accounts to be sure to be able to cover the cost of the bike with a check. Hungary was nice. I highly recommend it. But that's another Tale for another day. By Sunday when we spoke again, his Honda was sure to be in by the end of the week (as sure as anything can be in France). Besides, he has a car and a scooter, too. So he decided he could sell me the bike on Monday or Tuesday, lunch or evening. We agreed on Monday evening. I left work a couple hours early, at five o'clock, went home and stuffed a duffel bag with my helmet, riding suit, gloves, and an assortment of Important Documents in French, in a cardboard valise. I took the tram to La Tronche, a stop across the river. Let me clarify that. The tram stop is actually OVER the river, in the middle of the bridge. Must be they couldn't agree which side to put it on and didn't want to build two. (Someone famous once said, "How can you govern a people with over three thousand kinds of cheese? But then again, how can you not?") So anyway, I get off the tram and walk halfway across the river, just like everyone else who gets off there, following my good map and his reasonable directions. The ten minute walk takes me easily that much. The last bit, "go up the road that runs up a steep hill behind a school, about two hundred meters, and my house is just on your left after you take the first right," was an understatement. I think the two hundred meters was the vertical rise of the hill, not the distance up the road. As I look at the gate a cross his driveway, he came out and greeted me. The bike was parked in the drive (next to a scooter under a cover), a 1996 BMW 650 Funduro. The name, I later found out reading the French manual for the German motorcycle, comes from a contraction of "FUN bike and enDURO." The bike is as nice as I remembered. I looked over it, kicked the tires, peered under the seat and in the tank, checked the lights and horn and controls and all that stuff. We'd already agreed on the price, so traditional horse-trading was not in the cards that evening. We had agreed that I would pay "book value" for it. But since it came with some extra accessories, this was actually a good price. It came with a forty-five liter top box on the luggage rack, a set of engine protection bars to save the cases in the event of a spill, some hand protectors to keep the wind off, and a higher than stock windshield. (I had forgotten about one of the extras that he had mentioned in our chance meeting almost two weeks before.) In addition, the bike was well already "tattooed." So, after looking it over, he offered to let me to take it out for a ride. We had previously agreed that he would sell it to me and I would buy it at the agreed upon price, subject to a brief ride to verify the condition. His house is in an area where the roads approximate one-way goat trails and I was concerned that if I left I would never get back. So, I asked him to lead me a bit on his scooter until we came to a more open road, then I would pass him and see how her legs felt. After that, I would have him catch up and we'd go back and finish the deal. I got astride the bike and asked, "What's the starting drill?" He showed me how to use the choke on a warm day with a cold motor, cold day cold motor, and hot motor. Then, I turned on the ignition and hit the switch. Just as the motor started to turn over, I cracked the throttle a tad. This is an old habit from my years with BMW R80G/S's. WRONG. He was dismayed. He said not to do that. The bike didn't start. We figured it was flooded. We waited a bit. We cranked some more. Time passed. Finally, Claude said he would push it along his road (parallel to the hill) and bump start it on the main road. (Couldn't run it down the way I'd walked up because it was one way, the wrong way.) So, I followed in my Aerostich riding suit with my metal-studded leather gloves, motorcycle boots and full face helmet feeling silly on his Piaggo scooter as he dogpaddled to the main road. Now, I'm not saying this road was steep, but I am as serious as a heart attack when I tell you that my ears popped twice on the way to the bottom. He tried about fifteen times to start it. He tried three different gears and even left a couple of nice, long, skidmarks trying to get fire from the motor. At the bottom, he coasted to the other road, the one I'd walked up. When I pulled up to him, he said, "I don't think it is the bike. I think I know what the problem is." Hell, I'd been through this trying to sell bikes before. I knew exactly what he was feeling. You can have a bike that will start just by looking at it funny. But as soon as a buyer with money in his fist arrives, Murphy climbs up out of that hole he lives in, deep, deep, DEEP in the ground and starts providing your life with some fresh Hell. Claude said, "I removed the anti-theft device." "Hunh?" "I think I told you when we met that there was an anti-theft device. A special box makes it so the motor does not run unless you use the control. But that weekend we met, I was in the mountains and lost the control while I was riding. I called the dealer to get another control and he said it was impossible. He said to just remove the box from its connector and all would be fine. Maybe if I put it BACK it will start." While he took the scooter back up to the house to get the box, I pulled the seat off and started rooting around. He came back and put the device back in and the little LED on the dash flashed and basically said to us, "This thing AIN'T gonna start." It didn't. He pulled the alarm unit back out. So, what we have is a physicist, an electrical engineer, and a busted vehicle. Not much of a problem. I poked around and figured out that there were some red and black wires from the alarm connector to the battery, some red and black wires up toward the dash where an LED was installed, some orange wires that were spliced (rather nastily) into the turn signal harness, some blue and yellow wires apparently not connected anywhere and, TA-DAA, some green wires which went to one of the stock BMW connectors where they were spliced into some orange BMW wires. The orange wires went between the ignition brain box and ignition amplifier. The green wires went to the alarm unit. I figured that with a knife and some electrical tape we could have this thing running in about two minutes. Unfortunately, I had neither. Claude went back up to the house to get a real splicing block and a cutter. Moments after he left, I realized that all we REALLY needed was an Ohmmeter a paper clip and some electrical tape. If I had the meter, I could figure out which pins in the connector the green wires ran into and then short them with the paper clip. He was gone a long time. I spent most of the time carefully un-installing a good bit of the anti-theft system. With the green wires cut and the stubs of the factory orange ones spliced back together, we turned on the key. POW! There was enough raw gas to make a tremendous backfire when the ignition was merely switched on. We both cracked broad smiles at each other. It was fixed. Seat on, gas on, switch on, me on. it started right up. We took a ride, back up into nosebleed country. WHAT A VIEW! The Alps with the beautiful light of golden time glistening off of their snowcaps in the (not too) distance. The bike was all that I expected. Less than five kilometers into it, I pulled into a parking lot. Claude pulled up. We turned and headed back to his place to complete the transaction. In the USA, after the deal has been agreed to, you pay the man, he signs the title over, and you leave. This is France. Because Claude didn't have the proper form, he had to write up two bills of sale, which we both signed. You don't just sign a contract in France. You write "lu et approuvE9" (read and approved), the city, the date, and THEN you sign it. And his old title has a special place to cut the corner off, as well as the fact that he is supposed to draw two diagonal lines across it "barring" it. We had to do two because the bike was registered out of the department of Isere (sort of like outta state, only different). His other house, further south, is somehow more advantageous for vehicle registrations. He dug up all the receipts and some other stuff for me. While he was rooting around, I noticed a German newspaper and asked if he spoke German (his accent when speaking English did not exactly sound French to me). He said, "Yes, I am a Luxombourger. We speak ALL languages. If you walk two hundred meters in Luxembourg, you are in another country. I speak English, of course, French, German, Italian, and then I also learned Spanish because by then it was so easy. But my wife is Dutch, so I learned that, too." Yeah. this is a guy from whom I could learn a few things if I keep my mouth shut and my eyes and ears open. Hopefully, I'll learn a bit about the roads around here from him before too long. Finally, we had it all squared away. He had my check and a copy of the bill of sale he wrote and we had both signed. I had the bike, keys, stock winds hield, useless anti-theft device, copy of the bill of sale, original carte gris (barred, with a corner cut off), documents related to the tatooage, owner's manual (French), book listing BMW dealers all over Europe, a few pages of shop manual (German), invoices, receipts, post-it notes, whatnot. yup, that's everything. Then it was time for me to ride home. Except, I don't have an APPROVED lock, even though I have a BRAND that is on the list. And I also have an additional chain and padlock. Weighing comparative risks, I decided it better to ride to HP and park on that more-or-less secured site rather than go home and park on the sidewalk in my neighborhood. Note: there is a new Triumph motorcycle frequently parked in my neighborhood overnight, and an old Moto Guzzi Lemans, and a Honda ST, along with a large handful of dual sport bikes. But I didn't feel comfortable to risk it, yet anyway. The next morning, I escorted Sam to school on the bus and then doubled back to the Assurance Mutuelle des Motards (une Passion Mutuelle). I stopped by Styl Machine, an accessory shop and bought an "Anti-Vol Approv*" model lock first. Incidentally, within five blocks of my home are: the biggest Honda motorcycle shop in Grenoble, a Yamaha and scooter shop, a Ducati/Moto Guzzi/ MZ/Daelim dealer, Styl Moto, and another two or three scooter shops. This place is OK by me. There is also a Hein Gerick store within walking distance. And let me not forget to mention that Plein Pot, the Ducati dealer (whose name translates as "crowded crock" which makes no sense but has the same meaning as "scalded dog" when it comes to performance vehicles and that would make no sense translated back to French) RENTS a Ducati 916! Next time I have a spare couple hundred dollars and a loose three day weekend, I'm gonna DO that. Back to the story. so the insurance sets me up with all the paperwork and I proceed to the H*tel de Prefecture for my carte gris. Because Claude was registered out of Isere, I'll need to get a new tag, too. They don't GIVE you those here. After you get your carte gris, you go to a Cordonierre and have one made. Cordonierres are all shoe repair shops, key makers, and engravers. Most of them also make rubber stamps, which is why they have a big sign in the window that says TAMPONS. (Initially, we wondered why shoemakers sell tampons, particularly so aggressively.) The prefecture opens at 8:30 and I get there a bit after 9:00. I stood in line at the info desk for a while and then the nice lady helped igernt ole me fill out the form for the carte gris. She then handed me a receipt-like thing with two identical slips and the number 412. She pointed to the sign with the big red LEDs that reads 330. I got the message. Before moving to France, I read that you should always carry a book or knitting or something when you go to a Department of Bureaucracy here. I muddled through the French owner's manual and the German service manual pages, as well as the list of dealers all over Europe. Time walked. At about eleven twenty the sign got to 412. The nice lady took my application, our hand made bill of sale, Claude's barred carte gris, looked at my recent phone bill, looked at my passport, looked at the Carte Sejour in my passport, looked at me, wrote 651F on a pink card, stapled half of my 412 slip to it, smiled, and dismissed me. About fifteen minutes later, I heard 412 called. I went to the cashier and handed over my signed, dated check, NOT filled out (just like the sign says). He showed me the check with the "who to" and amount filled in by the machine, handed me a receipt and my carte gris and that was that. I got to work just after the crack of noon. Later, I realized that my insurance carte verte and stickie for the bike have Claude's old number on them. Oh well. Another detail. And I also need to contact the company that registers the tattoos with the registration change. It'll all give me practice using my burgeoning vocabulare la Fran*ais.