8-Valves, No Waiting
European Chapter International Meet
Dessau, Germany, May, 2006
By Steve Slocombe

I drove over with my wife this time on Wednesday 10th May for our third International Meet at the Park Hotel in Dessau. The weather was warmer than our June meeting last year, mostly sunny and about 25 degrees Celsius, but with the inevitable shower during our Saturday afternoon judging. The roads were busy, and the Poles and Lithuanians have not tired of dragging damaged late model cars eastwards for repair at home. This time not just a battered van towing a single vehicle, but industrial quantities of wrecked autos on car transporters being taken to an area of lower labor costs. As expected, our Vice-President Gunter Russek had the arrangements well in hand, so we were able to go sightseeing on Thursday.

We drove up to Berlin, obeying the blue 130 kph (80 mph) signs while most people flew past at least 50 kph faster. Gunter later told me the blue signs are advisory, and clearly only followed by foreigners, learner drivers and the weak-minded. The autobahn was full of trucks with Belarus and Ukrainian plates, so the eastward influence of the European Community seems unstoppable. Berlin had again changed substantially since last year, and the tourist bus showed a vibrant town part way through a massive building boom. This time there were temporary monuments erected across central Berlin to celebrate Great German Ideas. We had Literature (Gutenburg, Schiller - OK); Music (Mozart, Haydn - OK); the Internal Combustion Engine (Diesel, Benz - OK); and the Modern Football Boot (?!). Could it be that the Soccer World Cup was being played in Germany the following month?

Driving back to Dessau, we still had time to visit the famous Bauhaus school in the afternoon, and the houses built by founder Walter Gropius for artists Paul Klee and Wassily Kandinsky in the same austere style in 1925/6. The Bauhaus had been closed down by the mid-1930s, with its teachers fleeing and the Bauhaus turned into a cookery school and the other buildings into workers' housing for the Junkers factory employees. The buildings survived because they were too far from England to be badly bombed in WW2, then the Soviet occupiers went 50 years without the money to knock them down. Starting in the 1990s, the buildings have been restored and are still astonishingly original and architecturally striking.

Next day our meet started, and we ended up with about 50 bikes on the field and nearly 20 in for judging the next day. Most of our European members join the AMCA because they have American bikes, but the locals displayed their bikes too, so we ended up with Harley, Indian, D-Rad from Berlin, Jawa, Wanderer, NSU, Motosacoche, Triumph AG, Gilera, Moto Guzzi, Zundapp, Vincent and Kreidler. The 1923 MaBeCo was particularly interesting, an Indian Scout copy (but better built, said my German friends) made in Berlin by Siemens. We also had an unprecedented three, 8-valve bikes turn up, Wanderers from 1925 and 1926, and Harald Hacker's wild Harley rebuilt from his JDH racer from last year. The swap meet, while small, was again packed with treasures.

We held our annual Chapter meeting on Friday, with the existing officers reelected for another year. The Dessau hotel has now been sold, and we have lost the organizing services of its manager. After evaluating alternatives, we have chosen the impossibly-pretty Bavarian medieval village of Dinkelsbuhl for our next meeting 29 June-1 July 2007. This is about half way between Frankfurt and Munich airports in interesting riding country and with a multitude of hotels and restaurants. See the ad elsewhere in this magazine and make our fourth International Meet part of your European holiday.

Geoff Skilton took Most Unique with his unrestored 1913 Harley twin.

U.S. Directors Kevin Valentine and Raymond Dhue had come over, with Kevin finding the best Italian restaurant he had ever visited located in Dessau, Germany - and this from a guy who lives in New Jersey! Raymond is interested in BMWs, and told me he had a very interesting time taking the BMW factory tour in Berlin earlier. Both our visitors helped with the judging, and the prizes were awarded at our Saturday evening banquet. The AMCA is a riding club, and I have always been impressed by the number of bikes ridden to the meet and then cleaned up for judging. Harry Koehler from Switzerland had ridden up the 720 km in one day on his newly restored 1958 Panhead, then put the bike in for judging with bug splatter from two countries on it. Jean-Paul Piron took two days riding the 800 km from Belgium on his 1943 WLC Harley, but we all had to pay our respects to Doug Wothke from the Dixie Chapter, who had put 3500 km on his 1948 Indian Chief in the early stages of a round-the-world trip. As you will see from the results table, there was a high standard of entries for the judging, with Peter Reeves taking his second bike to the Winners Circle with his 1936 Harley VLH. Peter was appointed to National Deputy Judge by Kevin Valentine at the banquet, and will bring valuable skills and fresh ideas to our national club. My 1902 Kerry took Oldest bike, because the 1901 Motosacoche in the swap meet wasn't running, and Geoff Skilton took Most Unique with his 1913 Harley Twin. I agonized over buying the engine out of an 1899 De Dion tricycle, finding out later that it had gone to Italy. There goes another might-have-been, and a reminder to give in to your buying instincts when the item is in front of you.

Next morning we said our goodbyes after breakfast and started on our journeys home. Our meet is still not yet large, but three 8-valve bikes show that we make up for modest size with quality and enthusiasm. Put 29 June-1 July 2007 in your diaries now, and we hope to see you again with a bigger meet at our new location next time.


This 1926 8-valve Wanderer was ridden into the Dessau meet.


Aldo Carrer rode up from Italy on this 1941 Zundapp.


Rack-'em-up! How many makes in this picture?


Fiskis Ekman from Finland tries to spot the difference between a 1923 MaBeCo and an Indian Scout from the same period.


Sunny weather is always nice for setting up...


... and it's convenient being in the hotel grounds.