Hank is my "firstborn". Together we have been through a lot. Hank used to be a completely silver Transalp XL 650 RD 11. I bought him in august 2008. A friend helped me transferring him from Hamburg to Hannover since I didn't have my bike license yet. On september 22nd 8:15am I had my first lesson. Two weeks later I was finally allowed to drive on my own. It took exactly two weeks until I had an accident and since then Hank is not competely silver anymore. Luckily someone here in the area stripped his RD 10 and sold me the black front panels. 

This is right after I returned from my first real offroad experience. Even though it was short, it was really great. If I had know what kind of conditions I would be facing I would have backed out of it. But well, thank God, I didn't. I went to Chemnitz and was supposed to meet four other riders from Hannover there. All of us were riding heavy weights. And we were pretty much the only ones. There only were two other old BMW GSs and other than that only light weight cross bikes. And the territory just consisted of slippery mud. And one pretty big lake (which usually wasn't supposed to be there).  Was great fun riding through it though. 

Anyhow Hank and I ended up being pretty dirty but happy. And yes I do know that the front wheel is mounted the wrong way.  As you can see I am a biker of the flower collecting kind. 

Are break pads supposed to look like that? At least that's what they looked like after playing in the mud. 

Another thing I am not too lucky with is the chain.... I own Hank now for about 26000km and am riding on the third chain. I lost one on the high way at 140 km/h. Waited on the hard shoulder for the pick up and ten minutes later the police pulled up and brought the chain back to me. I was really lucky that the chain just fell out. So much more could have happened. So this was the first trip with the auto mobile club. Wasn't the last one though. The next time I didn't loose my chain but one of the chain parts broke while on holiday. Luckily I noticed it early enough so I could get Hank transported to a garage to get a new one. The old one only lasted 6000km. 

Since I own Hank a bunch of things have been modified. Here you can see that the front fender has been raised so the front wheel won't block that easily anymore. Also you can see the new Touratech foot pegs and the shortened wind screen. Ok it isn't really a wind screen anymore. It only holds the screws in place. 

My new Renthal handle bar. Wasn't that easy to get thatone approved. 

Modifications Hank went through:

- new handle bar

- new mirrors

- Touratech crash bar

- new seat

- back raised

- new inner front shocks

- raised front fender

- Touratech foot pegs

- LED rear lights

- 12V electricity plug

- acerbis handle bar protection

February 28th

Fitted the new gas tank after someone tumped my baby over twice. Will put up a new picture after all the repair work is done.