Time for an Update?

Okay, so last we left our hero, his ego was shattered. Wait, no... It was his right pinky, and it was broken, not shattered! Besides, nobody really cares about that. The real hero of this story only had three gears. Sounds bad, no? Well maybe not that bad since third gear was about as fast as I wanted to go on a 30+ year-old dirt bike with all its frame flex, spindly front forks and two things in back that resemble shocks. However, the German in me couldn't have something half-assed in the garage. Actually it could, as the bike pretty much sat in the garage collecting dust for a year.

In the fall of 2005 I dragged it out and attempted to find the two missing gears. Now I was certain I had assembled everything back correctly when I put the motor together. Several inquiries on the internet with so-called "Bultaco experts" all said that if I put something in wrong, none of the gears would work. So, once again, I borrowed a manual and tried to find the culprit. I checked the entire gear-selector mechanism and found nothing wrong. Eventually I decided to split the cases a second time to go through the transmission. As it turned out there was one gear that, when put in backwards, would not allow 4th and 5th gears to engage. Imagine that!

Unfortunately I don't have any photos of the Alpina in these semi-finished stages. I rode it at the 2005 and 2006 SMOG East Trail Ride, so I'm sure there's at least one or two photos floating around somewhere.

At this point I felt bad about letting this bike sit around. I often thought about using it to teach my wife to ride, but she has no interest in riding motorcycles let alone a 30+ year-old Bultaco. I contemplated selling it, but I had already dumped a small fortune into it and the tank needed some serious labor to make it look semi decent. Then it struck me, why not use the Alpina for trials. After all the Alpina was based on the Sherpa T and it definitely had a stand-up riding position. That's it! I'll turn it into a trials bike.

Thus began the transformation.