Got a call tonight from the shop right when I was getting ready to head back to the hotel.
They told me somebody may have located an original outer engine cover for the 1915 11F.
Which honestly borders on absurd.
Parts like that don’t just appear anymore.
Usually if somebody claims they found one, it turns out to be a reproduction, modified junk, or some Frankenstein piece somebody swears is original because their grandfather’s cousin’s neighbor once sneezed near Milwaukee.
They told me her name.
I’ll just call her ZM.
That was about it.
Supposedly she wants to meet in person before agreeing to release the part.
Honestly, that didn’t surprise me much.
People in this world get protective.
Especially the ones dealing with rare provenance parts and historical acquisitions.
Half the collectors are eccentric. The other half are clinically insane with money.
And truthfully, if I had an original 1915 side cover sitting in my possession, I probably wouldn’t hand it over to some bald idiot just because a dealership vouched for him either.
From what they told me, she’s skeptical about restorers.
Thinks most of them care more about resale value than historical accuracy.
Hard to argue with her there.
Rode over to Bockenheimer Depot this afternoon on an old Harley the dealership loaned me while I was in Frankfurt.
Beautiful bike.
She showed up a few minutes later.
Younger than I expected too.
Probably 9 to 10 years younger than me.
American.
Didn’t expect that either.
Attractive.
But in a way that made it pretty obvious she didn’t spend much time thinking about whether she was or not.
Carried herself like somebody who was used to being the smartest person in the room though.
Very controlled.
Professional to the point it almost came off cold at first.
But not arrogant.
Just careful.
Think that’s what stuck with me most honestly.
She paid attention to everything.
ZM barely looked at the bike.
Which honestly told me more about her in ten seconds than most conversations tell you about people in ten years.
The place itself looked more like an archive buried inside an abandoned rail terminal than an actual business.
Crates.
Shelving.
Tagged inventory.
Old transport cases.
Rows of parts wrapped in wax paper and cloth.
Whole building smelled like old paper, machine oil, dust, and cold steel.
She asked questions immediately.
Not small talk.
Questions.
What repair methods I planned to use on the cracked case.
Whether I intended to preserve the original finish where possible.
Whether the bike was being restored for historical preservation or resale.
Whether I fabricated missing internals or waited for period-correct parts.
Felt less like a meeting and more like I was being cross-examined by a museum curator with trust issues.
Hard to blame her honestly.
Most people with enough money to own bikes like this treat history like a status symbol.
She finally brought out the side cover wrapped in old cloth like it was a religious artifact.
Original casting. Correct wear. Correct aging.
Even had old repair marks near the mounting edge.
I probably stared at the damn thing longer than I should’ve.
Before handing it over she stopped and looked at me for a second and said:
“Don’t make me regret this.”
Then she added that she wanted documentation throughout the restoration.
Photos. Notes. Progress updates. Everything.
Said if this bike was going to survive another hundred years, she intended to know exactly how it happened.
Strange thing is, the HEEC stuff had still been rattling around in the back of my head the entire time I’d been in Germany.
Not constantly.
Just sitting back there like a song you can’t fully stop hearing once somebody puts it in your head.
But somewhere between the questions, the old records, the side cover, and listening to her talk about historical preservation like it actually mattered, I realized something.
For the first time in weeks, I hadn’t thought about any of it at all.
Not Pennington. Not the Legion. None of it.
Just the motorcycle sitting between us.
Honestly, that alone probably should’ve gotten my attention more than it did.