Cycle News

VOL. 52 ISSUE 14 APRIL 7, 2015 P99 windsurfing. Unfortunately the new hobby proved to be as hazardous as the old, perhaps even more so. While windsurfing Schachinger caught a virus in a lake that rendered him paralyzed. For a half a year he was totally paralyzed and he wondered if he would ever be able to be an active person again—not a fun prospect for an adrenaline junkie like Schachinger. After a long rehab period, Schachinger thought about it and reasoned that he was going to lead an active and exhilarating lifestyle regardless. No matter what he did to fulfill that desire it was going to be risky. "So I decided to go back to motor- cycles," he said. In Austria, Schachinger was an enduro and speedway racer, but his dream was always to become a road racer, but: "I couldn't afford it," Schachinger said. As life progressed Schachinger had a business opportunity to move to Florida. It was ideal for him since he still had lingering effects from his earlier paralyzation and he felt much better in warmer environments. Once in Florida, he found Floridian riders' at- titudes a little different from those in his native Austria. "I was invited by some people to go riding and when I showed up they looked at me like I was from Mars," Schachinger smiled. "I was wearing helmet, boots and full leathers and they were in flip-flops and shorts. But then I realized why—we only rode 50 miles and there were no turns—just straight, straight, straight!" Life was going well for Schachinger in Florida, but in spite of still being active in motorcycling into his 40s, all these years later he still hadn't fulfilled his lifelong dream of road racing. He even bought a pair of former BEARS Series Laverdas in hopes of restoring them to racing someday. Finally the opportunity came. A friend had a Kawasaki ZX-7 and offered to let Schachinger take rider's school at Moroso Motorsports Park on it. "I was packing all my stuff getting ready to go and my wife said, 'What are you doing?' Schachinger remembers. "I told her, 'I'm going to Moroso to get my license for road racing.' She said, 'If you go racing I will leave you.' Schachinger didn't blink an eye. He kept right on packing for the race weekend. "I went and got my road racing license, fin- ished my first race and when I came back home she was still there," Schachinger says with a grin. "I said, 'What are you still doing here?'" Fortunately the marriage survived his racing and Schachinger and his wife have now been married 29 years and they have two gorgeous kids. Schachinger went on to win five racing titles in the 2000s while competing in club road rac- ing and AHRMA events. After all these years and moving to a new country, Rudy had finally fulfilled his dream of becoming a road racer. Barn Luck came about when Dominik Goertz, a club racing real estate developer originally from Germany and avid enthusiasts of the Café Bike trend, approached Schachinger about building bikes. "I told him I loved that, this is perfect because this is what I've done since I was a kid in Aus- tria," Schachinger explained. "I would always get a motorcycle and take the handlebars off and replace them with clip-ons and put the footpegs further back on these things. So we started building the first bikes and as things evolved we moved into a bigger shop because we had more projects. Then we needed a place where we could display these and this is why we opened this little shop here." If you're ever in Southwest Florida, make a point of stopping by Barn Luck and checking out the rolling works of art they produce. If you're lucky you might even get to meet the road-racing craftsman from Austria who built them. CN Subscribe to nearly 50 years of Cycle News Archive issues: www.CycleNews.com/Archives

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