From the Indianapolis BMW Club News
- August '97 (V.XXX n.VIII)
by John Flora, Editor
David Braun, known to some as the Nashville Flash or just Flash, has been riding more than 20 years. He's ridden in most of the United States, a handful of Canadian provinces and more than a dozen European countries and passed the 200,000-mile mark on BMW motorcycles while riding to work on July 11.
About two months ago, David contacted me through the Internet about reading and reviewing his book, Gathering Speed - Tales of Motorcycles and Life. I agreed and have spent the last few weeks in a leisurely examination of this delightful collection of stories.
For a guy with a master's degree in electrical engineering, Braun has a remarkable way with words. Witness this passage in a story about touring Scotland:
"The savage natural splendor of Scotland has a rugged magnetism. The sparsely populated jutting mountain hills were scenic, almost beyond belief. The landscape looked nearly lunar in places with its barrenness. In others, snow pockets hid in the high clefts. Rivulets ran down and fell like white gossamer lace. It is somehow sad, somehow just that there is little there to support industry. The rugged landscape maintains its integrity in the face of modernization and overpopulation. Lochs of dark azure waters fill hollows between jutting emerald hills. The occasional townlet or settlement gave relief and comfort to the soul in this most desolate of places. Sheep were our frequent companions, dotting the hillsides (and often the road sides as well). Though they must have been wizened in the ways of automobiles; as we saw none splattered."
Braun's stories range from days of campaigning on the road race circuit to a long-standing love affair with an International Harvester pickup truck named "White Trash" to Evel Knievel's abortive rocket-bike flight over the Snake River Canyon.
Gathering Speed is a great read and I'd recommend it to anyone, especially BMW riders.
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