Hillclimber

Hillclimber

A man wants to go up

With 650 euros. For this pocket money, Schwabe Klaus Zaiser put a flawless hill climber on his wheels. And completely. With well over 100 hp, 240 kilograms, a great sound and a weird look.

Dry throat, cold sweat, throbbing pump. Behind me a handful of spectators, directly below me a hoarse, screaming four-cylinder thousand meter, in front of me a mere 100 meters. However, steeply uphill. If that goes well.
Would be ?? I just never passed the shop window of the Haug locksmith’s shop in the dreamy Swabian town of Brucken. There it was written, Klaus Zaiser’s hillclimbing monster, consisting of the accident-damaged remains of a Yamaha FZR 1000 ("friendship price 250 euros") and the front end of an old 125cc Crosser ("for 100 euros from the Internet").
Good base. And good friends. With their help, the 38-year-old landscape gardener from the Albdorfchen Schlattstall was able to chase his 1000 centaur up the local training slope for the first time in the spring after investing 650 euros, a few cases of beer and many hours of work . The latter kindly left by the boss, who hired Klaus stante pede after this ?? freshly moved in – despite his leg in plaster, gave the village a powerful wheelie.
The slope on the edge of this village is about 100 meters long and with a moderate incline and is not as brutal as the one in Rachau, Austria, which did not prevent Klaus from wrestling 115 meters from the Styrian Teufelsberg during the maiden mission of his hill climber in early July, 23rd place out of 92 starters. "In the end, there was a lack of grip, the performance would easily have been enough." Still: Mission accomplished. Ultimately, the idea for a powerful first-speed motorcycle arose following Rachau in 2001. When Klaus stumbled in a KTM 250 Methuselah after a rough switch at a sad 37 meters. And that despite many years of off-road experience.
The fate of premature failure now threatens me on the Schlattstaller test slope, where two solid humps lurk in the narrow, milled-out track, which Klaus passes on his turns with a wildly wedging rear end. With the swing arm lengthened and reinforced by 25 centimeters and the tractor tire rotating on a 15-inch because rim, there is not much left of the standard damper’s sensitive response. Anyway, Klaus emphasizes that without buddy Joachim Stier, who with a self-made hub ?? "A crazy job" – the adaptation of the rim somehow managed to do nothing. "For maximum grip, we have mounted the tire against the direction of rotation, at the expense of self-cleaning."
With summer temperatures around 35 degrees, self-cleaning is not an issue anyway and the track is dry as a frock. Klaus gives the last tips: »You have to drive straight into the slope with momentum, the best thing to do beforehand with a large curve and keep the engine in a good mood with the clutch. And if anything goes wrong, you just put the box on its side. ”Well then.
Aufi ?? go ?? s. Take a big bow? A must because of the steering angle limited by the thick upside-down fork – accurately thread into the ruts and full throttle. The beast of airbox and embarrassment exhaust gasps at me asthmatically. The latter serves only as a temporary measure for training purposes and to calm the neighborhood, the race is over after the bend. Klausen’s clear philosophy that sound is more important than the last two to three horsepower, requires fearless pomp, as otherwise only known to 125cc pilots.
So pull the lever, let the speed increase, and after carefully engaging the clutch, the long run begins to plow up the hump. Hold the handlebar and insist on full throttle undaunted. Wild, overturning four-cylinder screams flood the valley, the front and rear wheels cannot always agree one hundred percent on a line, at the rear the load wedges like an over-motivated rodeo bull.
PI arrive at the summit with less difficulty than expected and realize that 650 euros are enough for a top-quality racing motorcycle. When you have imagination and good friends. Who, together with Klaus, have finally thundered mountain air and want to bring their monster up the mountain not only in Rachau, but every now and then at events in France.

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