
13th Annual Swap Meet & Bike Show – Mecrin, France Part 2
Story and Photos by Horst Rosler
I thought I’d tell you about some of the things I did and saw on my ride to the Mecrin Swap Meet & Bike Show. En route to the show, which I think has been one of the coolest Old School shows in Europe, I decided to indulge one of my other passions – history. The story of the “Lost Battalion” from early 1918 has been told again and again, but it is made more impressive if you are standing in the place where it happened. This was a group of 554 Americans who were surrounded by the Germans in World War I after an American attack. Many were killed in action, many went missing and only 194 were rescued. A made for TV movie in 2001 recently re-told the story. You can see a photo of my Custom Chrome Europe Street Glide next to the monument.
Also, on my ride to Mecrin, I stopped in to go for a ride with some former “Get a Rigid” club members who now are called the Chopper Freakersof France (it doesn’t translate well). They are a small, seven member club who have their own clubhouse and build very distinctive choppers. All of them ride rigid choppers with lots of handcrafted parts, including the frames. This French rat pack prides itself on riding hard and drinking harder. One of the members, Bubu, is working on a new bike and the handlebars are being cut up from a 60 pound piece of metal. They even rolled out three parts to an upcoming chopper which should be outrageous when complete. Homologation? That word doesn’t exist in the French language, especially if you live far from Paris. Overall, it looks like they have a lot of fun, you can check out their website at www.chopper-freakers-band.fr.
Finally, before meeting at Mecrin, I stopped in for a photo shoot of the Boozettes, a now five member sub-group of the boozefighters. We took a group shot in front of the Castle of Commercy of both the new female members and the whole club.