Tuesday, July 2, 2013

July 2013 Newsletter

Welcome to the July 2013 edition of Beemer Ramblings. As a remainder, we are posting much of this information on our Google+ Community page throughout the prior month and you do not have to be a Google+ member to read it. You only have to join if you wish to post new information or comment on the existing posts.


Club Meeting 

Our next club meeting will be held on Monday, July 8th, 6:30 p.m., at Jackson's Big Oak BBQ, 920 South Kerr Avenue, in Wilmington [GPS coordinates N34.218092 W77.887211]. It has been more than a year since we last visited Jackson's.



Come early to share stories about your recent trips, or to relax in the shade of the big oak tree in the Jackson's parking lot. We'll see you there!


June Club Meeting 

We held our June 10th Coastal Carolina BMW Riders Club meeting at Chipotle Mexican Grill. Unfortunately, the stormy weather eventually chased everyone home, but not before we were able to enjoy some time together for dinner. You can view a few photos from our get-together here. Thanks to everyone who braved the somewhat uncertain weather.


New Club Members 

We have some folks who have recently joined our club, so I want to take a moment to introduce and welcome Ron Perez and Dan Leonard, both who joined our club in April, and Michael VanVeKoven (Mike Van), who just joined the club. Ron lives in New Bern and rides an R1200RT. Ron was able to join us for our ride to Wilber's BBQ in May. Dan rides a 2009 BMW R1200GS. Mike is working on restoring a 1968 BMW R60/2. Welcome, all of you, to the club!


BMW Riders Association National Rally at the Biltmore 

Club member Jill Barcia has published a great report of their trip to the BMW Riders Association National Rally, which was held at the Biltmore Estate in Asheville on July 20-23, 2013. Jill's trip report includes some great photos from the visit. You can read all about the event on Jill's blog. I know that a number of our club members were able to attend and enjoy the RA Rally, including Tony and Jill Barcia, Omar and Nora Kharbat, Dick and Maria Williams, Jerry and Barb Dockery, and Paul Winter and Becky Hucks.

Also, club member Omar Kharbat has provided this collection of photos from the Biltmore rally, as well as this video of the "best" adventure ride from the RA Rally. 

Thanks for the contributions, Jill and Omar.


Un Rally XII 

Jill Barcia has also published another great trip report for Un Rally XII, which was held June 24-28, 2013, in Blowing Rock, NC. The Un Rally is an annual event that is organized by members of the BMW SportTouring.com web forum. The event alternates each year between and "east" and "west" location. This year, club members attending included Tony and Jill Barcia, and Paul Winter and Becky Hucks. You can read Jill's trip report here and see a few of my photos from the event here.


2013 Iron Butt Rally 

The 2013 Iron Butt Rally began July 1st. If you are not familiar with the Iron Butt Rally, it is an event in which the best long-distance endurance riders compete for eleven days, with the winner typically riding more than 11,000 miles during that period.

If you are interested in keeping up with the daily action, be sure to visit the rally web page at http://www.ironbuttrally.com/IBR/2013.cfm. Bob Higdon has returned to provide daily reports about the event. Even if you do not aspire to this type of riding, these events are interesting to follow and I encourage you to do so.

Cape Fear 1000 Rally 

Club member Jim Bain has announced the 100 Days of Summer Grand Tour.

What it is:
The 100 Days of Summer Grand Tour is an opportunity to win a guaranteed, paid entry into the 2014 Cape Fear 1000 Rally by submitting photos of libraries and bookstores you may come across during your travels this summer.

What does it cost and who benefits:
There is not a traditional entry fee for this event. However, before your registration will be complete, you will need to show us you have made a donation of at least $5.00 to the Marion County Animal Shelter – Paws to the Rescue. All donations go directly to the Shelter so there will not be a bunch of stuff to go along with this tour.

What do I do?
Begin the registration process with the Ride Master program (https://rides.jasonjonas.com/index.php) select the Cape Fear 1000 Rally – 100 Days of Summer Grand Tour and complete the registration questionnaire. Ride Master will send us a copy of the registration request and confirmation you receive.
Next, make a donation of at least $5.00 to the Marion County Animal Shelter – Paws to the Rescue, 123 Dog & Cat Court, Mullins, SC 29574 and send us confirmation of your donation (a copy of your confirmation email, a copy of the check you sent, etc. – we will be pretty lenient on how you confirm the donation) to rallymaster@capefear1000.com – if you need a snail mail address, send us an email and we will provide one for you.

We will then assign you a rider #, you will create your own Rally Flag (be creative – style points will count) and then you can begin taking and submitting photos of the libraries and bookstores you come across during your travels this summer.

Submitting Photos:
You may submit photos by either “tagging” the Cape Fear Rally Facebook page when you post a photo, or, you may email the photos to Rallymaster@capefear1000.com and we (read, Ronda) will post them for you.

Special Award:
Even if you don’t have the most photos of libraries and bookstores, you may still be in the running to receive a guaranteed entry to the 2014 CF1K – there will be a “Style” award for the person with the most creative flag, photos, locations, number of family members you can con into posing for one or more of the photos, etc. – let your imagination run wild! Ronda says dressing up is good!


Neale Bayly Rides TV Show 

During the month of June, an interesting new adventure-riding TV show called Neale Bayly Rides was shown on the SpeedTV cable channel. The show featured motorcycle journalist and traveler Neale Bayly (who lives in Charlotte) traveling across Peru with several other "average" riders (two men and one woman). Their ride was done using BMW F800GS bikes (and BMW appears to have been a major sponsor of the show since it featured several BMW motorcycling ads during each episode).

If you missed seeing this adventure motorcycling travel stories, hopefully it will be rebroadcast again sometime on SpeedTV.  More information of the shows can be found at http://nealebaylyrides.com. We will let you know if some rebroadcasts are announced.


New Water Repellent Product 

Back in May, club member +Omar Kharbat shared a video about an amazing product called Ultra-Ever Dry. This was a coating, applied in two parts, that is superhydrophobic (repels water).

Well there is now another similar product being sold by Rustoleum called NeverWet. It is also a two part application, applied using two separate spray cans. This video provides some demonstrations. NeverWet is currently available for purchase through the Home Depot web site.

Let us know if you decide to try NeverWet on your motorcycle gear or camping equipment.


Motorcycle Trailer for Sale 

Club member Tony Barcia is helping a friend sell a practically new motorcycle trailer in a bag. It has been used only six times to trailer a Harley Road King. See attached link for details. http://trailerinabag.com/index.htmlils The asking price is $500. Call Tom at 516-606-3460.


BMW Apparel Sale 

I have just received a promotional email from BMW announcing 15% off the price on new BMW summer riding gear. This promotion runs through August 31. If you are in need of some new summer riding gear, be sure to check out the promotion through a BMW Motorrad apparel dealer.


Custom Motorcycle Painting 

A few weeks ago, I received an email announcing the grand opening of Noble Custom Coatings and the reappearance of motorcycle painter Shane Noble. Shane said that he looks forward to serving the needs of our Cape Fear BMW riders. He invites you to stop in and check out his brand new shop and spray booth at 2925 Boundary Street in the North Kerr Industrial Park. You can find more information about Noble Custom Coatings through their web site at www.noblecustomcoatings.com.


New Garmin BaseCamp Version 

Okay, GPS geeks. A new version of Garmin's BaseCamp mapping software (version 4.2.1) is now available for download. Garmin's posted list of changes includes many interesting changes. The most interesting of these changes include:

  • Added a Trip Planner as an easy way to plan multi-day trips, including round trip support
  • Printing a trip itinerary
  • Flying support (airport and flight number look-up)
  • Supports traveling between different time zones
  • Can add Adventures that you'd like to take as part of your trip
  • Adding support for different route profiles for different legs of a route
  • Adding RV and Truck routing profiles with special route options
  • Added support for Yelp search
  • Added quick search (hover over the map to invoke it)
  • Added support for changing the location of BaseCamp's database

You can download the installer from http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=4435 or update from within BaseCamp.


Video-of-the-Month 

This month's video is a double-header Part 2 and Part 3 installments of the YouTube ride documentary from the Nutnfancy Project. This father-and-son team have posted a couple of interesting motorcycle ride videos. These videos continue the story from last month's video with the second and third day of their ride from San Francisco to Monterrey and Yosemite on a pair of Ducatis. These videos are well done motorcycle travel videos.

Part 2


Part 3



That's the news for this month's "short" newsletter. Remember, we are posting much of this information on our Google+ Community page throughout each month and that is the best way to keep up-to-date. Until next month, ride safely and ride far!

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