SEPTEMBER 2019 NORCAL NEWS Ride to Camp Camp to Ride This month featuring: BMW R54SS Rennsport Restoration BMW Motorcycle Club of Northern California Presidents Column August was a busy month for the club as we were busy putting be limited spots available. You have to bring your own plate and the final touches on the Range of Light Gypsy Tour. I know Nick utensils and help in the prep, cooking and cleaning as needed. has planned out some really outstanding routes that showcase If you would like to help out with organizing a meal send me an the best of the California Sierra Nevada Mountain Range. Our email. club ride to Bass Lake also did not disappoint. Bass Lake is one Speaking of food, the Octoberfest is two months away and we of my favorite destinations. We had a great campout with a expect a pretty big turn out this year. I am looking for some number of the Board and Club members cooking up some additional volunteers to help out on the event. If you are outstanding food that was liberally shared. Most notable was interested in helping please email me. It would be great to get Mark and Linda Rodda serving up a pork chop with lemon cilantro a few club members on board with the planning effort early sauce, smashed potatoes, ending with a boysenberry peach I’d like to remind everyone in the club to stay staff and always cobbler! ride your own ride, especially when you are on a group ride with We have really been stepping up our game with the dinner the club. Never keep a pace you are not fully comfortable with. cookouts and I am going to create a sign up for people that would We have members of all levels of skill sets and comfort zones. like to leave the cooking to a few of the club members. This is Some riders are spirited in their pace and others take a more just a pilot and may need to be canceled or modified if it becomes leisurely approach. That’s totally acceptable. Our ride leaders too much work for the people that are cooking. When you sign will always wait at turns on the ride and the difference between up for the club meeting, you can also indicate if you want to the first rider and the last rider is never as long as you thing. partake in the group meal. Most important to know that this is Stay Safe not a catered meal and mostly a way to enable the club members who like to cook at the campsite know how many people to cook Kevin Coleman President for so we don’t waste food. There will not be a menu ahead of time so if you are a picky eater this might not work and there will pictures and the story of his visit to the Superbike race at Editor Corner Laguna Seca. Ken Castleman sent in a bunch of pictures and I have edited a number of newsletters over the last few years, a short write up of his Vision Zero SF training session. Massive but I have to admit this one is probably one of my favorites. I thanks to all. am a history buff, love old bikes and am interested in Last month I used Affinity Publisher for the first time. After engineering. When I saw the R54SS restored by Greg issues viewing with the newsletter using a browser (because I Hutchinson at this year’s Quail, I knew it would make a great mistakenly had the “ligatures” options turned on) I have gone article. Greg wrote up how he put the thing together and last back to PagePlus this month. If you know what a ligature is minute tensions (just like the restoration car shows on TV) to (without looking it up) you qualify to be the next newsletter complete it in time for the Quail. The pictures show this editor. machine is truly work of art. I did my history buff thing and added a couple of complementary articles. Hope you enjoy. For next month I would like to cover the 2019 Range of Light, which promises to be the biggest ever. Please send in your You cannot imagine the relief, when members respond to my pictures and better still write down what you think. If enough monthly plea for content. This month Brian Jagger sent me a respond maybe I could put together a “Letters to the Editor” picture of himself on the front cover of the AMA magazine, but page to capture members comments and experiences. better still he provided the inside story describing how this came about. Adrian Pineda took pity on me yet again, and sent me John Ellis Vision Zero SF Motorcycle Training Session provided the Vision Zero SF is the road safety policy sponsored by City following and County of San Francisco with the objective of improving summary… city road safety. One the the initiatives is a Free Motorcycle “I attended the Safety Skills Closed-Course Trainings though the month of training held in August 2019, with the San Francisco Police Department downtown SF on providing instructors. the roof of a Our Safety/Tech parking structure Director, Jorgen on Market Street Larsen, which is a unique publicized these place to ride. events and a Twelve trainees number of our showed up on a members, really hot San Francisco day. Drills were good until the one including Ken where four riders dropped their bikes (1 Harley and 3 BMWs). Castleman, The lesson I learned is beware - Don’t do drills just because signed up. Ken the trainer tells you to. They may or may not be appropriate took some depending on your level of skill and experience. If pictures and uncomfortable, hang back.” take a photo of me and telling me to bring my helmet. How I made the cover! Arrangements were made to meet in a parking lot in Livermore. By Brian Jagger I told them I will be on my bike so I will have my helmet with me. It all started when reading about the AMA Long Rider Program I was thinking this would a quick shot of me holding my helmet, in the AMA magazine. I read that it can be retro-active if verified. in a parking lot. It seemed strange since I could have just sent I sent the appropriate documentation, which included a photo them one like that. of my AMA card and the odometer reading of the bike. At the We met at the lot. There were three men in a truck that I followed time, I had just bought a 2018 out to North Livermore for a ‘photo R1200GS Rallye that had about 4,000 shoot’. They found an appropriate miles and I still had my 2005 GS with spot, set up lights next to the road 168,000 miles. I figured if I was going and started shooting from across the to get the credit for the older bike, I road. They took about 300 shots. would do it now. I received patches and “Look at the camera. Look down the decals for 25, 50, and 100K miles. The road. Get on the bike. Stand in front next threshold is 250K miles. of the bike”. As people drove by, they As you can see, I am a novice when it must have thought it was a move comes to long lifetime miles. I have production company or a crime been a long-term dirt rider and the 2005 scene. Peddle bikes rode by saying was my first street bike. My interest was they were “photo-bombing” the to travel and see the country. So, I pictures. It was over the top from figured I had received my patches that what I was expecting, but was fun was it. I would see if I could make it to being a part of it. ¼ million miles. There are many riders Weeks and months past and I heard who have millions of lifetime miles. nothing. Not knowing the magazine I than received a second e-mail from business, I could imagine that even the AMA (the first I deleted as junk mail) though they spent money on the saying that “my name came up” for an photo shoot, I could end up on the article on the AMA Long Distance Rider cutting room floor. Then when Program for a future edition. I was sent coming back from a ride, I received a few questions to answer about myself a call from my daughter telling me I and told that they may need a picture. not only made the article, but I made I sent back the form and stated I could the cover! She knew a friend in AMA send a picture if needed. Again, I D36 who must have gotten a very thought that was it. It would be left on the editor’s trash basket. early copy. It took another two weeks for me to see the A few weeks later, I received an e-mail from a local photography magazine myself. Just goes to show luck goes a long way for business, Studio One Photography, asking to set up a time to a few moments of fame. between the bends it was inconceivable that it could be a Pigs Seen on Mines Road radar gun. This was a Friday so there is typically only one As many of you know I ride Mines Road out to the Junction vehicle every five minutes.