The BMW Club JOURNAL February 2010 £2.50 BMW Club Journal • July 2009 1 Celebrating our Est. 1985 25th Anniversary year 2010 NEW and USED parts + ACCESSORIES IN STOCK!! www.motobins.co.uk Check out our fantastic website for the latest 2010 prices and DEALS!!! OR See our new EBAY shop – motobinsbm15w% 15% OFF all our OFF Hepco & Becker for BMWs and non-BMW models MONTH OF FEBRUARY ONLY Sales - 01775 680881 Email - [email protected] Fax - 01775 680860 16 SURFLEET ROAD SURFLEET SPALDING, LINCS PE11 4AG 2 BMW Club Journal • February 2010 The Journal CONTENTS February 2010 Regular/Occasional items The Official BMW Club within the UK and Republic of Ireland From The Editor’s Desk . 4 www.bmwclub.org.uk Club Officers . .6 General Enquiries: 0800 0854045 President’s Platform . .7 FREEPOST: THE BMW CLUB Torque Reaction . 9 The BMW Club is the Trading name of The B.M.W. Motorcycle Club Ltd; Registered in England; Registration Number 4261129 Star Letter (Sponsored by Nippy Norman’s) . 14 whose Registered Office: Charter Court, Midland Road, Hemel Hempstead, Herts, HP2 5GE. The Sorebutts (cartoon) . .52 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Websight . .45 For problems regarding distribution of The Journal, please Caption Competition . 46/47. contact your Section Secretary. Should there still be a problem then contact the National Membership Secretary. Mutual Aid (Club member ads) . 77 Contact details are on page 6. Small Business Advertisements . .79 The Editor reserves the right to alter/amend any item or image submitted to The Journal. Such amendments will usually only be to make an item more readable or easier to understand. .56 Submission of items/images will be taken as acceptance of The BMW Club - Out and About this condition. Articles/Features EDITORIAL TEAM The New GS . .16 Any correspondence not covered by the officers listed below, or any queries, should be sent to the Editor. The 2010 BMW Club Photo Competition . 21 Editor: Martin Ellis,11 Mapplewells Road, Sutton in 40 Years of BMW Motorcycles . 22 Ashfield, Notts NG17 1HZ (01623) 437578 [email protected] An Aegean Odyssey . 26 Features/Articles: Brian Price, 99 Neath Road, The 2010 BMW Club Mileage Competition .36 Rhos, Pontardawe, Swansea SA8 3EH (01792) 862152 [email protected] Grasstrack Racing - An Overview . 38 Torque Reaction: Paul Nadin, 49 Berkshire Drive, 2010 National AGM information . .41/42 Congleton, Cheshire CW12 1SB (01260) 279443 [email protected] 2010 Spring National Rally Information . 43/44. Marketing/Commercial Sales: Brian Price Profile - James Sherlock . .48 Address details as ‘Features’ above . [email protected] BMF News . .51 Mutual Aid: Maurice Weldon, 21 Lawnwood John Bentall’s German Jottings - . 52 Drive, Goldthorpe, Rotherham, South Yorkshire S63 9GD Swingarm Adjustment on an R1100 . 54 [email protected] DISCLAIMER Commercial Display Advertisements: Jim Bruce, The BMW Club Journal accepts for publication articles and letters written in good faith; however, The Firs, Bayview Crescent, Broadford, Isle of the views expressed in articles and letters which are published are not necessarily those of the Skye IV49 9DB Editor of The Journal or those of The BMW Club or its officers or members. The information, including advice and suggested modifications published in the The BMW (01471) 820197 [email protected] Club Journal has not been approved, tested or otherwise checked by The BMW Club Journal Small Business Advertisements: Charles Knight, or The BMW Club. Before acting on information, advice or suggested modifications published in The BMW Club Journal you should always obtain technical advice, and if appropriate have La Petite Fosse, St, Ouen, Jersey JE3 2GU a professional motorcycle engineer carry out the work for you. (01534) 485474 [email protected] The BMW Club Journal and The BMW Club cannot accept liability for any loss, damage Section News: Steve Foreman or claims occurring as a result of any modifications or work or other action carried out on (01536) 722048 [email protected] the advice or based on the suggestions given in any article or letter published in The BMW Club Journal and (save for death or personal injury arising from The BMW Club Journal’s Diary of Events: Ian Caswell negligence) all such liability is hereby excluded. [email protected] The BMW Club Journal is published for and on behalf of The B.M.W. Motorcycle Club Ltd. Around The Compass: Ian Thomas The BMW Motorcycle Club Ltd, The BMW Club Journal, it’s Editor and Officers accept no liability in respect of loss or damage occasioned directly or indirectly as a result of the [email protected] publication of any advertisement in The BMW Club Journal or Website. Club/Section Display Ads: Piers Kurrein [email protected] This month’s cover photo is of Midland Forum Administrator: Section’s Paolo Lubrano’s K1200RS, parked Phil Knight (PK) [email protected] at his home in Warwickshire. The picture was Forum Address: http://forum.bmw-club.org.uk taken over Christmas/New Year 2009/2010 BMW Club Journal • February 2010 3 From The Editor’s Desk Back to normal a free service it’s value is With Christmas and the incalculable. new year celebrations We allow each club seeming like a million member to send in adverts years ago, it’s time to look of up to 50 words without forward to 2010’s activities. cost, with a very reasonable You should all have received charge being made for your 2010 calendar of longer ads. Following a events with this magazine conversation with the (not to be confused with person who collates your Section yearcard if Mutual Aid every month that arrived too), and I (Maurice Weldon) and a hope that it will enable few comments made to me you to make plans for the in recent months, I have coming year. It’s vital though that you check decided to increase the limit to 65 words with the organisers of any events which with effect from March’s Journal. I will be interest you, as due to production deadlines, resisting the requests to include photos, as I some event information has already changed, feel that although they may make the pages including a couple of dates! prettier, they will have no real beneficial Photo Competition effect on sales, due in no small part to the I hope you’ve been selecting your best photos fact the images would have to be so small as to send in for the 2010 photo competition. to render them virtually useless. Tony Cartmell will be organising it once Sorebutts again, and I know that he’s looking forward The conclusion of club member Simon to receiving your entries. There are some Roberts’ regular cartoon strip of his darn good prizes again, and the winners ‘Kathmandu’ exploits has left a void in The will be announced at the National AGM in Journal which I believe needs filling. I had April. There’s more information on page 21, been making unsuccessful enquiries as to and feel free to contact Tony if you have any how that might be achieved, when lo and questions. behold, completely unsolicited and by pure Mutual Aid changes conicidence, Western Section member As you are no doubt aware, Mutual Aid is the Paul Rodriguez sent in some samples of a name which we have given to our ‘Members cartoon strip called ‘Sorebutts’ which he has ads’ pages, at the rear of each Journal. Many created. club members read the MA pages first to The first one appears this month (p52), and see what bargains may be available, and as I firmly hope that it will become a regular 4 BMW Club Journal • February 2010 feature within the Journal’s pages. My fault, more that the entire puzzle had to thanks go to Paul for offering his services in be ‘transposed’ to make it fit in with the this way. Can you help in a similar way? Our software used to produce The Journal. I can club display ads guru (Piers Kurrein) is happy provide copies of the original information to produce Section and National adverts for should anyone wish to contact me, if you use in the Journal, but even he admits that haven’t already pulled out all of your hair. sometimes a picture or design may be needed which is outside his ‘comfort zone’. Do you The National AGM looms large have the necessary skills and graphic flair to The National AGM will be upon us very be able to help ut (occasionally) when such soon, and in order to comply with our rules a project crops up? If so, please let me know regarding providing you, the members with so we can have an informal chat about what the requisite information, the General may be involved, before you commit to it. It secretary (Dave Cooper) has asked me to is your magazine, after all. point out that the March issue of The Journal Long live the V&CR will be delayed slightly to allow the AGM booklet to be sent out with it, including as Whether it was appeals in recent Journals or whether it was simply what would have it may, some relevant information from the happened anyway, I’m delighted to inform National Committee Meeting which takes you that volunteers have come forward to place in the Midlands on February 20. ensure that the Vintage and Classic Register Delaying The Journal in this way will save will continue into a new decade. You can the club a considerable amount of money read the full story in the V&CR report in in postal costs, and we hope that having to this month’s Section news area of ‘Out and wait another few days does not cause you About’.