Hi Dan,

Enclosed you find 2 pages from an old  german article (The lonesom R71) 
about the R71 in the old Motorcycle-journal "Das Motorrad", edition 
February 1966, it was written from a famous germany motorcycle-journalist. 
His name was "Ernst Leverkus" simply calles "Klacks". Klacks died a few 
years ago, but he was the founder of the famous elephant-meetings form 
1953 on. He made this meeting the first time, to see how much people 
would come together with their bikes. You must imagine, that it was a 
hard time in Germany for bikers because more and more people didn't like 
to ride motorbike anymore, sold it and bought their first cars. After 
the meeting it was calles "elephant-meeting" a lot of the bikers came 
with an old Zündapp KS 601, this old bike was called "green elephant" in 
Germany. In the first year came not ore than 3 persons to the 
"elephant-meeting", 1977 it were about 30000 bikes and they met at the 
"Nürburgring"-racing course. Please have a look at 
http://www.alteselefantentreffen.de/geschichte.html

However, the article about the R71 is about a "Förster" called Peter 
and his bike in Bavaria/Austria. A "Förster" is a person, responsible for 
the forrest, perhaps like a Trapper. He keeps care for the nature, the 
forrest and the animals. This person lived in the darkest forrest with 
his wife and 2 little children, no electricity and water in the house. 
The next village was about 25 km away. 25 km throuh the forrest! His 
only mobility was the old BMW R71 from 1938 for urgent needs, because it 
was so easy to handle and never broke down. But than he needed spare 
parts for the gearbox and a repair-manual. Not so easy to get parts in 
1966 for a bike built in 1939 without phone and Internet. But at that 
time the bikers in germany were helpfull friends although they didn't know 
every other and about different contacts he got the needed spare parts 
of another old R71. A sidecar-biker with a Zündapp KS (green elephant) 
brought him the needed things and drove 2 x 300 km (300 km are one way 
with a large part through the wilderness) to do that. He did it for 
free together with his wife.

I am sure it is a very seldom article about a R71. I dont't know any 
other article about that old Bike.

Unfortunately in german language - butter better than nothing !?

Bist regards from Warstein Dan!


Uwe