"Mein Gott, Klaus, was ist das?" Klaus throws up his hands in horror at the sight of the maroon combo trying to look proud amongst the tight line of BeeEms and Japanese hardware. They clock the number. Englander, Ja! And settle down to wait.
Not for long, The young English couple walk out of the restaurant into the sunshine and stroll hand in hand over to the bikes. They put on Belstaffs, helmets and gloves.
Suddenly, Otto nudges Klaus; the girl is getting onto the outfit which is parked nose to the kerb and hemmed in on both sides.
"Of course, she's expecting the man to push her out," laughs Otto. "Or maybe she doesn't even notice the kerb chuckles Klaus. Suddenly, they are both choking and gasping on their Knackerwurst as the girl disappears leaving a neat space where the combo had been, and her man is following ‘her on his solo.
"What the... did you see... backwards," they sob. Yes, folks, before their very eyes the girl had kickstarted the bike, selected her gear and niftily reversed out of the space. A deft kick of the right foot and she's away in forward motion again.
Klaus and Otto can't stand this. They've got to have another look. It's really embarrassing being stopped by the cops just because they want to have a look at the bike. They couldn't speak any English so we were really scared that they were going to do us for something. Tim's silencer wasn't altogether silencing and we thought they had stopped us for that. No, they just wanted to know all about the bike and its clever tricks.
Have you guessed what it is yet? First one to get it right wins a Cossack 350, second wins two. And the prize is a clue of course, cos the amazing reversing bike is a Cossack 650, or to be precise a Dnepr.
My husband was riding a Ural (known to Mr Fowler and no-one else as a Urinal), which is also a 650 without the reverse (plus some differences), and we were heading towards Bonn to stay with some German friends. The Germans actually like these Russian machines for sidecar use because their law makes it impossible for them to fit a chair to any bike other than one that has been specially approved. The Cossacks are approved and what they like to do to them is to tear out the Russian engine to fit a BMW motor. Looks similar but behaves better. In German hands, anyway, because they can thrash the bollocks off the thing, and one thing a poor old Russian horizontal twin can't stand is being thrashed. Maybe that's why I get on so well with them, because I'm such a gentle person.
Tim and I owned a whole series of Russian bikes, starting with a Dnepr outfit in '76. We bought it purely because we wanted a sidecar and it was for sale at a price we could afford, which is probably how most Cossack owners first become acquainted with the marque.
We sold the outfit because Tim wanted to try a Ural, which are more closely related to ancient BMWs (what a purist), and are the sort of thing the Rusky police are kitted out with. Soon after purchase (for a very modest sum), I thought my husband had left me, then occasionally I would hear noises from the shed to indicate that he was still there. What finally emerged was a beautiful red beastie that had been totally rebuilt. It earned the best solo bike award at the Cossacks owners club annual rally (don't laugh it's true). How did I show my appreciation? By dropping it on the way home. Luckily, no damage was done, but somehow I never felt very confident about riding it again (although one of my earlier bikes was a Tiger 650).
We went two-up on the Ural to Brittany for a holiday. The only problem was the incessant drizzle. One good memory is sitting at a pavement cafe watching the traffic come to a standstill in front of us. The jam caused by a bus driver slamming on his brakes so that he can hang out of the window to get a good look at the bike.
Everywhere we went a small group would invariably collect around the bike, arguments start over its origin and age. Most Urals imported into this country were built in the early seventies but look a good 30 years older.
It had to go. Sold to make way for other projects. I think we managed to own, albeit briefly for some of them, the whole range of Russian bikes. Tim was so pissed off with pushing a Voskhod 175 that he used for work, that he finally pushed it into the living room and put Xmas tree lights on it. Luckily, it was nearly Xmas, so the poor little bike earned its keep for a couple of weeks by jollying the place up.
Around the time our baby was born we were using a Jupiter 350 outfit, so from a very early age she was well wrapped up and tucked under my legs in the sidecar. We never knew whether she liked it or not because she always fell asleep. A friend of ours actually used his Ural outfit to take his wife to hospital to have her baby. She was booked in to be induced but after the ride she was in labour by the time she arrived at the hospital. Some of these bikes do have their uses. Of course, our friend knew his bike would get to the hospital in time because he had rebuilt it. And that seems to be the thing with Cossacks, they always need a rebuild - and so much depends on who rebuilt it in the past. Once done properly, and treated with love and care they positively flourish. Treated like any other old bike, and these gentle Russian ladies soon give up and have nervous breakdowns. Then the owners give up and it's another bike on the scrapheap.
Some Cossack owners stay with their bikes for years. One chap, for example, never fails to turn up to rallies on his Ural combo, complete with home-made wine. He sleeps in the sidecar under an awning. Other long term Cossack owners of my acquaintance are a varied bunch. There are solicitors, doctors, teachers, social workers, taxi drivers and a couple of engineers. The new owner of our annual rally site tried to throw us off on the grounds that we were noisy, hairy, dirty motorcyclists. The above mentioned collective managed to out reason him.
The Cossacks are just as varied. One chap swears by his Voskhod that takes him to work every day, and others run Jupiter twins for ever. I rode one of the earliest Jupiters and it seized up every 20 miles. I soon got the hang of freeing it, cooling it (though not by my husband's method; women aren't designed for that). But the 650s are the ones to be reckoned with. If you're fed up with shiny chrome and and you fancy something a different a Cossack may be OK.
Miriam Knight