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keepemflying Bits and pieces, losing Paul By Matthew Parkhouse #13272


AS I WRITE THIS, a few days past the Winter Solstice (a time of cold and darkness and very little riding of motorcycles), our local BMW club is


mourning the loss of one of our long- time members. I got to know Paul Swenson in the late 1970s and early ‘80s when I settled into working at the original BMW of Colorado Springs. Paul was a stalwart at the local rallies from WAY back. He was one of the folks in the center of fun. I introduced him to the Pyrotechnic Guild International, and he attended several of the national conventions with me. More fun. Fireworks galore—a shared interest! Paul was a skilled machinist. I own


a couple of tools he made for me over the years, and he was the one who would rework my stash of five-speed gearbox output shafts that I then used in adding the “missing circlip” to airhead transmissions. On one of my last visits to see him in the hospi- tal a couple of weeks ago, we had a discussion about what sort of clutch bolts to use in a pre-1970s BMW. I left him that day, just a little bit more informed on what to do if I ever install a Slash Five set of clutch parts in a Slash 2 twin. Maybe I’ll use that knowledge someday and maybe I won’t, but that was Paul—making sure I would have the right know- how for an airhead repair procedure. He lost a leg, secondary to a couple


of bike crashes, so his last couple of decades were ridden on a K bike- based EML sidecar rig. It was invari- ably stuffed with beer and bike parts, and more than once I sourced a part


42 BMW OWNERS NEWS March 2017


from him to get me or some other rider home from a rally when an airhead had a problem. He was a BMW man before the 1970 “airheads” came on the scene, and had restored a number of beautiful examples of pre-1970 bikes. On his lift when he passed away was a mid-1960s twin that, after his efforts, recently took “Best Bike” in a Den- ver area concours event. The bike hadn’t been completely finished and was back, after the show, for a bit of electrical sorting out so that it could be returned to its owner. A couple of members of the local club have finished it up, no doubt talking about Paul and memories of him as the work was done. Paul was a Vietnam combat vet, and his


experiences colored the rest of his life. We were glad to see him get past his attitude regarding the military and allow the VA to


Paul with his K-Bike/EML sidecar rig. He actually wore out a K-Bike engine travelling around in it. A "new" engine was procured and installed, with the help of club friends.


Paul at a Top O' the Rockies Rally, participating in the slow race, on an Indian he restored.


TECH


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