As the Rally began to wind down, Doc let go the 2nd mechanic. He'd been having trouble with him for a while and due to some problems during the Rally, he was asked to leave. This left Doc with half the busy summer season to go and needing help. He asked if I was interested in the post. "Gee, Doc, let me think..(Pause for 2 - 3 seconds) yeah, sure". I cleared this change of plans with my wife and said to Doc; "Thanks for the job, now, can I have a week off so I can go to Oregon and get all our stuff?" That accomplished, I settled in as 2nd wrench at the shop.

The plan was that I would train with the main mechanic/service manager during the summer and fall, go to the Butler and Smith factory school that winter, put in a full and useful to Doc next summer, and then help set up my replacement in the late summer before going off to school. That way, I'd only delay school a year, learn an awful lot about working on BMWs, collect some really nice tools and have a really good time. Thus July moved into August.

Strider was running well, but still bore all the signs of the traumas of the Long Trip, fire included. The shop staff felt it didn't look good for a shop personnel person's ride to look so disreputable so I would park around back amongst the "in-progress" bikes. We were planning for me to refurbish Strider as soon as the summer business slowed down a little, as a training project.

The Terros Hotline was happy that I wasn't leaving town; I continued with phone shifts, administrative tasks and training new volunteers, at a lower lever, of course, than when I was unemployed.

The summer passed pleasantly, the service manager was a brilliant mechanic and a good teacher. I also made the discovery that people who work in bike shops don't get a lot of time to go riding. By the time things started to slow down in late October, I had much of the basics down. We decided to take Strider down to the main bearings, again as a training exercise, the shop had not, in its four years of operation, occasion to go all the way into a post 70's BMW engine. We found the mains, at 117,000 miles, to be within new specs, so that part was quickly reassembled. The pistons were knurled and new rings put on. Since I had access to all sorts of cool used stuff, I decided to install the larger 6 gallon touring tank, go to low bars, and to lengthen the wheelbase by grafting on their back half of a wrecked /6. You need a driveshaft, swingarm, brake rod, sub-frame and seat; to make this happen, by the way. We painted the frame, and while we were at it, I had the shock covers and side covers painted gloss black as well. I liked the old but elegant gloss black effect. A couple of months later, Strider took his place in FRONT of the shop.

During this time, what with the winter slowdown and my acquiring these parts (even at shop cost), my paychecks were in negative figures. I took a part time job doing private duty LPN nursing at a local hospital to meet living expenses. EVERYONE at Doc's found other part time work during the winter, it certainly wasn't a place you worked at for the fabulous salary.

As the new year arrived, I prepared to go to the factory school that Butler & Smith ran in Los Angeles. By now, I was an old hand at midwinter touring between Colorado and California. The trip went coldly but smoothly, with me really enjoying the large tank and better handling from the low bars and longer wheel base. The week at the training school was interesting, with time divided between learning the features of new models ('78s) and routine stuff like rebuilding gear boxes. Of equal interest were the conversations with my fellow wrenches during coffee breaks as we discussed alternate parts suppliers and other than factory approved techniques. I returned home, and, as the 1st mechanic and service manager prepared to go out for his week at the school, looked forward to a couple more slow months of winter. Instead, all Hell broke loose.

Soon after the service manager left for California, in early February, we discovered he had his hand pretty deep into the shop till. Over the next few days, it became very apparent that he had been embezzling for quite a while, very heavily toward the end. Needless to say, he was fired. Doc turns to me, the newly minted BMW factory trained mechanic and says; "Guess you're the service manager now, Matt,we'll get your cards printed up right away." And that, ladies and gentlemen, explains my meteoric rise from part time help to service manager of BMW of Colorado Springs, in eight months.

I was glad I had a couple of slow months to set up the back of the shop to my liking before the rush began. It was a busy summer, lots of twelve hour days but part of that time was spent hanging out with customers. I learned to come in at 6 AM in the summer if I wanted to be really productive. The customers still had their corner of the shop, and their chest of tools to work on their own bikes. I was right there, so when folks got stuck, they would yell for me. This did nothing for productivity; neither did the beer they would buy as a way of saying "Thanks". As I said earlier, Doc's wasn't a place you worked at for the fabulous salary.

1978 was the year that the BMW gearbox factory mis-shimmed almost every gearbox they made. I got real good at pulling and reworking the boxes, under warranty, as people complained about hard shifting. We also sold a lot of bikes that year, as well. We added a second mechanic and started to train him, his wife became the shop secretary. I still have a photo from those days, of us in front of the shop: Doc on his R69S, with side car (containing dog), me on Strider, Julie on her R60/2, Dave on his R90S and Sherrie, the shop gopher, on the demo R65. That was the sort of place Doc's was.

By now it was clear that nursing school wasn't going to happen anytime soon; we bought an almost hundred year old house on the west side of the city and sort of settled in. The work load at the shop slowed down (as did motorcycle sales country wide) over the next couple of years.

In 1980, I had another adventure. I had attended the BMW New Model show in Reno, Nevada and was heading home on US 50. at night. I was, perhaps, overdriving the headlight. Looked down at the speedometer for a moment, looked up to see about a dozen cows crossing the road, with two RIGHT IN FRONT of me. There was a space, slightly smaller than the width of the bike, between two of them. At the same time, going about sixty mph, I hit the rear of the big one on the left with my knee and hand, the smaller one had its head down and I caught it on the crash bar, killing it instantly. Strider and I continued in a perfectly straight line. I returned, dragged the very heavy dead guy off the road and continued on my way, reflecting on how today was a lucky day. I rarely drive over 60 or 65 at night since then.

Time for a top end at 159,000 miles, this was 2nd over pistons and a dual plug per cylinder conversion. Seems that Strider has settled into a 75 to 80K "wear cycle".

One of my hotline friends proposed that we write a grant for a risk-reduction project being set up by the Center for Disease Control. I considered this a bit of a long shot but we went ahead and planned out a smoking reduction program aimed at Jr. high school students. Writing the federal grant was one of the more surrealistic endeavors I've been involved in. Surprise, surprise; in the summer of 1980, we got word that we were funded as a four year project, to start in October. I told Doc my plans, made it clear that I would help Dave transition as the new service manager and would be available to help out with difficult jobs and busy times. I would continue to work part time at BMW of Colorado Springs into 1982.

To be continued... Matt Parkhouse