Family Sunday in the Black Forest

By Marissa Baecker

BADEN-BADEN, GERMANY – On Sunday, driving the countryside of Germany, you will find just about anything and everything as far as motorcycles are concerned. If you can put a plate on it, the Germans will ride it.

Riding solo does not seem to be that popular as there were usually groups of riders together. The riders that appeared to be on the road alone pulled off at the first coffee house with a parking lot full of bikes.

Of the assortment of motorized mobiles, a quad licensed for the road always made me laugh until . . . I saw a mother and two children riding a BMW 1200GS, with car tires and a two person side car carrying the kids. Just when I thought I had seen it all, a four-wheeled Can-Am Spyder drove by in the opposite direction.

Do you remember the British Mods? You know the groups of people that would ride around in trench coats on Vespas? Germany has them too but the bikes are different and the coats are brown but the idea is the same and yes, they are on the road too.

Driving through the winding roads of the Black Forest from Baden-Baden, I could see why motorcycles would flock to the area. Miles and miles of twists and turns to temp your taste buds and test your skill set all beautifully landscaped with incredible views, historic buildings, forests and rivers. At one downhill hairpin turn, a park surrounded all sides and families came to picnic and watch the riders. Even my husband recalled childhood memories of picnicking in this very area just to watch motorcycles.

As we crested a hill, what seemed in the middle of no where (perhaps similar to the old toll booth on the Coquihalla but on a two lane scale) stood a coffee house, plenty of outdoor seating, a parking lot full of motorcycles and parked at the end of a row of bikes was some two-seater, three-wheeler painted black and yellow like a bumble bee and resembled a car in the back and bike in the front. What is that? This was worth a closer look.

The Boom Mustang trike hails from Germany where its founders, Wolfgang and Christine Merkle, started the company in 1990. The company boasts an Automatic, Muscle, Fighter and Mustang series of custom trikes and since 2010, has built trikes based on Honda, Harley and Suzuki motorcycles.

As I photographed the bike, it’s owner, Petra, came walking over. She was eager to tell me about her bike but with her lack of English and my lack of German, we resorted to pointing, charades and facial expressions to continue conversation.

Even though Petra’s Mustang was a dune buggy style deep seat two-seater, but according to www.boom-trikes.com, as of 2012, you can purchase them with three seats; one for the driver and a dual ‘back seat’. The deep seats are designed to keep the ‘centre of gravity and windbreak optimized.’ The trike has chrome running boards (sort of) or maybe you could call it a skid plate or an engine guard or who knows but there is one for both passenger and driver.

I inquired about a clutch and changing gears and was shown a 5-speed stick shift coming out of the left floor beside the driver and Petra placed her feet on two free floating bars below the handlebars and so if I am as good at charades as I think I am, this would be the gas, clutch and brakes and that would then make the Boom a right hand drive? The more she showed me, the more I kept thinking how odd it was.

The trunk is the size of a car trunk boasting 240 litres of storage – for comparison, a Honda Goldwing has about 140 ltrs.

Further web research and the claim to the Boom Mustang is that it “is fascinating everybody.” No kidding!

In 2012, the Mustang ST1 has a ‘brand new 1.6 l Ford-Zetec engine, 5 gear transmission and is the best selling trike.” The vehicle comes with a 5 year guarantee or 150,000 km on powertrain and frame.

The gauges on the bike were simple, easy to read analogue gauges offering you what you needed to know and nothing more. Speed, tach, temp and odometer. The rest, unnecessary apparently.

While Petra and I were chatting, the remainder of her family came over to join in the charades. Her daughter, rode with her, while her teenage son had a nice street bike and dad a GS.

Family Sunday in Germany.