March 2013 Newsletter

March Club Meeting

Come join us for our March club meeting at the Cape Fear Restaurant in Southport on March 9, 2013, at 12 Noon, for some good seafood and a great view of the Cape Fear River. 

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RSVPs are appreciated, and will help ensure we have a large enough table for us to sit together as a group.

In the event of rain, our first alternate date will be Sunday, March 10th and our second alternate date will be the following Saturday, March 16th.

February 9, 2013 Post-Club Meeting Report 

We had a terrific turnout for our February club meeting, despite a rather chilly start to the morning ride (temperatures in the mid-40s). Club members Roy and Carol Dougherty arranged for us to have lunch at the River Landing Country Club, and it was a wonderful place for us to get together. Thanks to everyone who was able to join us, and hopefully those of you who could not attend will be able to do so this month. You can view a few photos from the event on our Picasa web album for the meeting.

New 2013 BMW R1200GS 

Cycle World magazine has posted an excellent online first-ride review of the new 2013 BMW R1200GS.

The article summaries many of the new features of the motorcycle, such as the five riding modes, as well as the riding characteristics of the new engine. An excellent technical discussion of the new boxer engine was posted earlier in our January 2013 club newsletter, Beemer Ramblings, and can be read here on the Cycle World web site. The new Cycle World article also includes some good photographs of the new motorcycle. Overall, it looks like the new R1200GS is an outstanding machine.

BMW Concept Motorcycle 

It looks like a cafe-style concept motorcycle shown by BMW four years ago at the Milan motorcycle show is going to be put into production. The motorbike was greeted with enthusiasm at the time it was originally shown. The question is -- do you think it will sell? You can read a short discussion of the motorcycle here.

BMW Sells Husqvarna Motorcycles 

As announced earlier on our Google+ Community page, in a January 31, 2013, press release, BMW Motorrad announced the sale of the Husqvarna Motorcycles to Pierer Industrie AG of Austria (i.e., the owner of the KTM motorcycle brand). You can read the BMW press release here.

Major Race Circuits Mapped 

If you are a racing enthusiast, automotive or motorcycling, you may find this web site of interest. The GPcircuits web site shows the location and layout of most of the world's race circuits. You can choose to see the circuits in a specific race series, or you can instead see the circuits within a particular country. The satellite view of each circuit includes highlighting of the track layout. Details about each circuit include a short description, GPS coordinates, and a link to the circuit's official web site. The GPcircuits web site has been produced by the same folks who own the Sunday Morning Rides web site.

Garmin Updates 

If you are a Garmin GPS user, you may want to visit the Garmin web site to download some recent updates.

First, Garmin has released an update to their BaseCamp mapping software for your desktop computer. This update (BaseCamp version 4.1.1) provides mostly minor bug fixes. You can find a list of the fixes athttp://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=4435.

Next, if you are a nuMaps lifetime subscriber, you will probably be interested in downloading the latest City Navigator North America (CNNA) NT map set, which is now version 2013.40.

Finally, if you are a Garmin Montana GPS user, you may want to download the latest firmware to your GPSr, which is firmware version 4.70 released on January 30, 2013. You can see a list of fixes for this update on the Montana GPS wiki site, at http://garminmontanagpsr.wikispaces.com/Firmware#x-Firmware History-4.70.

50 (Shaping/Via) Point Limits on the Montana 

Recently, there has been an ongoing discussion on the ADVRider.com "New Garmin Montana" discussion thread about the Montana's "50 point via/shaping point limitation." Since a few club members own Garmin Montana GPSs, I am sharing a post that I wrote which outlined an experiment I performed concerning the 50 point limit when creating routes. The experiment helps to illustrate some of the advantages offered by using tracks versus using routes.

Google+ Community Page Reminder 

Once again, I would like to encourage everyone to join our Google+ Community page. You do not have to be have a Google account to read the items posted to the community page. However, if you want to be able to contribute comments or new posts to the community page, you will need to have a free Google account. Please joining the club's Community so you can keep up with the very latest news and announcements for our club members.


That's the news for this month. Until the April newsletter, ride safely and ride far!