The BMW Club Journal March 2013 £2.50 2 TheBMWClubJournal•March2013 The Journal CONTENTS March 2013 The Official BMW Club within Regular/Occasional items the UK and Republic of Ireland From The Editor’s Desk .................4 www.thebmwclub.org.uk General Enquiries: 0800 0854045 Club Officers..........................6 FREEPOST: THE BMW CLUB The BMW Club is the Trading name of The B.M.W. Motorcycle Club Ltd; Registered in England; Registration Number 4261129 President’s Platform ....................7 whose Registered Office: c/o Veitch Penny LLP 1, Manor Court Dix’s Field Exeter Devon England EX1 1UP Torque Reaction .......................9 ALL RIGHTS RESERVED Star Letter......................15 For problems regarding distribution of The Journal, please contact your Section Secretary. Should there still be a problem then contact the National Membership Secretary whose contact Mutual Aid (Club member ads)...........75 details are listed on page 6. The Editor reserves the right to alter/amend any item or image submitted to The Journal. Such amendments will usually only be Small Business Advertisments ...........79 to make an item more readable or easier to understand. Submission of items/images will be taken as acceptance of this condition. .53 We (The BMW Club) are the owner or licensee of all Intellectual The BMW Club - Out and About Property rights in this publication. You may not copy or distribute its contents without the express written permission of ourselves Articles/Features or the original author. The Oirschot & Omstreken International BMW EDITORIAL TEAM Motor Weekend ...................21 Correspondence on any Journal matter not covered by the officers listed below should be sent A Bee-Line through Paris . 23 to the Editor who will forward it as appropriate. For general Club administration and membership matters please see the list of Club officers on Page 6. Obituary . 27 Editor: Stewart Lowthian, 29 Wagg Street, Congleton, Cheshire CW12 4BA. Touring - The Second Time Around . .29 01260 279 126 [email protected] Features/Articles: Peter Wright. Why Would I Want to Fit an Intercom?.....45 [email protected] DISCLAIMER Torque Reaction: Paul Nadin, 49 Berkshire Drive, The BMW Club Journal accepts for publication articles and letters written in good faith; however, Congleton, Cheshire CW12 1SB. 01260 279 443 the views expressed in articles and letters which are published are not necessarily those of the [email protected] 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 Mutual Aid: Maurice Weldon, 21 Lawnwood Drive, Club Journal has not been approved, tested or otherwise checked by The BMW Club Journal Goldthorpe, Rotherham, South Yorkshire S63 9GD or The BMW Club. Before acting on information, advice or suggested modifications published 07752 904 334 [email protected] in The BMW Club Journal you should always obtain technical advice, and if appropriate have a professional motorcycle engineer carry out the work for you. Commercial Display Advertisements: Jim Bruce, The BMW Club Journal and The BMW Club cannot accept liability for any loss, damage or The Firs, Bayview Crescent, Broadford, Isle of claims occurring as a result of any modifications or work or other action carried out on the Skye IV49 9DB 01471 820 408 advice or based on the suggestions given in any article or letter published in The BMW Club [email protected] Journal and (save for death or personal injury arising from The BMW Club Journal’s negligence) all such liability is hereby excluded. Small Business Advertisements: Charles Knight, The BMW Club Journal is published for and on behalf of The B.M.W. Motorcycle Club Ltd. 4 Homelands, New Road, Porchfield, Isle of Wight, The BMW Motorcycle Club Ltd, The BMW Club Journal, it’s Editor and Officers accept PO30 4LS ,01983 520 847 no liability in respect of loss or damage occasioned directly or indirectly as a result of the 07521 695 992 [email protected] publication of any advertisement in The BMW Club Journal or Website. Section News: Steve Foreman 01536 722 048 [email protected] Diary of Events: Bob Barker. This month’s cover photo from Brian [email protected] Morgan taken at Cenarth Falls shows an Around The Compass: Bob Barker (see above). R1100 RT and a R100 GS PD shrugging Club/Section Display Ads: Piers Kurrein. off the weather. [email protected] TheBMWClubJournal•March2013 3 From The Editor’s Desk The content of The Journal the Compass the best way to make use of the space available or will a quarter or half page in Everyone has their own opinion as to what colour encourage more members to take part? should, or sometimes should not, feature in The Journal. A commercial magazine Writing to The Journal publishes articles written to a specified word count by professional journalists, I’ve been thinking of writing this paragraph illustrated with photographs for some time now but an email designed before they’re taken. forwarded to me by Dick Boyd In contrast, The Journal uses from a non-renewing member articles submitted by members has convinced me that it’s time illustrated with photographs to get on with it. If you write to taken as souvenirs of an event. me (by post or email) then unless The inevitable consequence of it’s obvious from what you’ve this is that I, in common with written I assume that your my predecessors, print what’s letter is only for me. If you want been given to us rather than what we might your correspondence to be included in Torque dream of printing. This is actually a very good Reaction then please send it to Paul Nadin, thing as it goes a long way to ensuring at least whose addresses (postal and electronic) are on a reasonable balance of different types of page 3. The inclusion of members letters is, of content. Also in contrast with a commercial necessity, done independently of the Editor for magazine, we don’t have rigidly specified the simple reason that members are entitled spaces for the different components ofThe to debate editorial policy whether the Editor Journal. My newspaper, for some magical agrees with them or not. The email that Dick reason, always seems to print the same number forwarded to me referred to one sent directly of readers letters every day. The reality is that to me a year ago with no reference to it being the Letters Editor selects the most appropriate for publication. My correspondent disagreed and the rest never reach the pages. I can’t do strongly with me over part of the content of that, nor can I compel social secretaries to The Journal. My reply, which invited him to organise exactly the right number of events to use Torque Reaction as a place to debate the fill four pages of Diary of Events each month. issue and also asked for clarification of a term At the moment, the problem is that sections I’d never met before, went unanswered but are doing what a social organisation in good appeared to have offended the gentleman. I’m order should be doing:- organising events. open to discussion regarding all aspects of The The consequence of this is that there are lots Journal, by any convenient means, and will of advertisements for them. Whether this is a obviously be at the AGM where things can be good thing or not (I think it is) is a subject for discussed face to face, which in my experience members to discuss. Is a few lines in Around is infinitely preferable to exchanging emails. 4 TheBMWClubJournal•March2013 Deadlines secretaries are emailing members to remind them as this incurs no cost. Even this has I’ve distant memories of TV programmes been difficult when members have changed featuring stereotypes of newspaper producers email addresses so, if you use email, please running around shouting “hold the front give your current address to your section page” and other similar clichés when secretary as it makes his or her life easier (and something important happened at the last cheaper) to contact you this way. We have at minute. To ensure domestic harmony at the time of writing 162 standing orders for Editorial Towers I take great pains to ensure £25 which should have been for £27 and 26 that The Journal is as far removed from that members whose banks have failed to cancel as possible. To achieve this I need to start each previous standing orders andmaybeforother edition long before it’s due at the printers and reasonshavepaid twice. If you have renewed long before all the regular contributions, all of by standing order then please check your which are unpredictable in length, reach me. records to make sure that you’ve paid £27, not For the last three years I’ve managed to make £25 or £52 by paying twice (couldbediffering everything fit and look at least reasonable amountswithassociatesetc.). without problems but a recent exchange with someone who went to ridiculous lengths to A worthwhile suggestion tell me what I could omit to make space for his contribution, which he seemed to regard Martin Macrae suggested last month that as more important than everyone else’s, means technical articles could perhaps be available that from now on, anything reaching me after separately or on-line. This is no problem the cutoff date for Torque Reaction, which is with anything I’ve done, and with a little always printed on page 9, is entirely dependent work everything Martin did could be made on whether I have space for it.