SPIELZIMMER Hamburg - therapeutic screwing
Spielzimmer Hamburg - therapeutic wrenching on old Vespa & Lambretta for advanced users
Psychiatric clinic. Someone obviously stole the sign once. Somewhere. Fortunately it was a long time ago and the statute of limitations has expired. A good two metres tall, the former signpost to the therapy facility leans against the wall of a basement workshop in Hamburg Eimsbüttel. Between two smallframe sprinters, a sidecar boat in red and a collection of exhausts vaguely reminiscent of Imelda Marcos' shoe collection in terms of volume.
"Welcome to the playroom," Marek is happy about every visitor. Provided he brings beer. "We probably have as much in common with a conventional screwdriver community as Mexican wrestling has with the wrestling youth of the Eimsbüttel sports club. Even if people here regularly try to act with the rules of common sense, what we do here actually has little to do with that. In terms of content at least, but in terms of implementation it is debatable". Obvious "fishing for compliments" from someone whose trophy collection is now bending the shelf. Finally, the six-member therapy group shows above all a great passion for technical solutions that no one else - possibly rightly - has yet come up with.
Insanity with method
The team from Eimsbüttel documents the fact that, despite all the craziness, they have a hand and a foot, not only on theirFacebook page with more than 1,500 fans, but also regularly at custom shows and events all over Germany. Sharknado, Matzes rote Rakete, the Frog King, Stray Bullet, 10 Inch Terror or the Dupont - the coups from the Hamburg basement workshop almost always cause "what the fucks" and, depending on the mentality, head shaking or enthusiasm.
"Cutting an engine out of a Kawasaki GPZ 500, including the frame bracket, and integrating it into a Lambretta makes just as little sense on a practical level as combining a disc brake with a self-constructed spoke rim, as on the Stray Bullet," Marek admits, while workshop colleague André turns over the grilled sausages sizzling on the stairwell. "However, if you are serious about such madness, then it should at least be good."
Tolerance is important, dogma is not
However, everyone decides for themselves what this "good" looks like. That, too, is what makes the playroom. The scooters that are here differ greatly. There is no one playroom style. Next to a Lambretta LI Special in the dealer custom style of the 60s, there is Sven's Faro Basso frame in graffiti look and with a seat made from an old skateboard. Other project scooters, either finished or in the process of being rebuilt, are stacked in two specially acquired heavy-duty racks. So tolerance is important. And any form of dogmatism is forbidden. "O-lacquer anoraks or other defenders of the one true faith have no place here. Here, everyone screws on their crate as they see fit," André continues. Even wrong clocks and automata are regularly lowered into the basement here by hydraulic lifting platform or just pumped back into daylight. "At least as long as that doesn't mean having to drive through Hamburg's Elbe Tunnel at 60 km/h, as I had to painfully realise on a first outing with my colleagues. It hurt when Simon, Marek and Matze passed me in second gear while I was lying down and trying to get the last reserves of power out of my Lambretta.
Fortunately, such traumatic experiences have long since been cured. "Even though the boundaries between patients, therapists and nurses are very flexible here, the role of caretaker has been fixed for four years now," Marek smiles meaningfully.
"Where are you, the sausage is ready. And bring some beer." A short break, then we continue. At the machining therapy lesson in the Flexarium.
