August 2012 Newsletter

August Club Meeting

Our next club meeting will be held on Monday, August 13th, 6:30 p.m., at at Two Guys Grille Waterford, 2013 Olde Regent Way , in Leland (GPS coordinates N34.21820 W 78.01964). This is the Two Guys Grill  in the Harris-Teeter shopping center located at the entrance to the Waterford subdivision.

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I hope you will brave the summer heat and come joins us!

TAT Trip-in-Progress Report

Fellow club member Elmer Hayes is currently riding westward on his BMW sidecar rig, doing the Trans America Trail (TAT).

Elmer writes terrific trip reports, and you can read about his adventures thus far (and see a lot of great photos) on the ADVRider.com website.

http://advrider.com/forums/showthread.php?t=702350&highlight=abenteuerfahrer&page=7

Elmer has wrapped up his TAT ride now (I will not say where) and is now on his way home.

Trip Reports

Speaking of trip reports, I know a few of you attended the BMW MOA International Rally in Sedalia, or perhaps the BMW RA National Rally in Copper Canyon, Colorado.  If so, please send us a trip report and/or photo links to share with your fellow club members.

GPS Workshop

We held another GPS workshop at the Brunswick Forest Port City Java location on June 30th to help club members with their GPS hardware and software questions.  I quickly had five indicate that they wanted to participate, and had several others who had schedule conflicts say that they would like to participate in another, future session.

I am looking at potential dates for another workshop in late August or September, so if you are interested in participating, please send me an email now so I can determine when might be a a good date for the session.

2013 BMWs

BMW has announced the colors for their 2013 model line-up.  You can read all about it at Visordown.com.

http://www.visordown.com/motorcycle-news-new-bikes/new-bmws-for-2013/20976.html

GPS Tip-of-the-Month

We have two GPS tips this month.

Tip #1:  Garmin has released a Beta version of their BaseCamp mapping software.  If you are a BaseCamp user, this is a good way to evaluate some of the features being added to the next version of BaseCamp.  You can download the BaseCamp v4 Beta from the following web address:

http://developer.garmin.com/apps/BC/BaseCamp_4.0.0.0_Beta.exe

The Mac version can be downloaded from here:

http://www8.garmin.com/support/download_details.jsp?id=5839

You can install version 4 and run it in parallel with your existing BaseCamp installation.  During installation, the v4 Beta will convert and duplicate your existing BaseCamp data library.  One word of caution – the v4 data library is NOT backwards compatible with the v3.x BaseCamp software, so if you do any trip planning in Version 4, just be aware that you cannot directly access that information using Version 3 (although you can always export to a GPX file and import the data back into Version 3).

Tip #2:  Garmin Maps 101 -- In honor of our recent GPS workshop, I thought it might be helpful to share some information about mapping for Garmin's GPS units.  This Wikispaces page provides a great summary of the Garmin's mapping software, maps types, map names (on many, but not all, of their units), map storage capacity.  The page is part of a web site that focuses on the Garmin Montana GPS, but most of this information on maps is generic and can be really useful when you are trying to understand and decipher some of the jargon.

Video-of-the-Month

This month's video-of-the-month features a complete lap at the 2012 Isle of Mann TT from the cockpit of a BMW S1000RR.  This footage is amazing!  It really gives you a sense of the challenges (and dangers) of the world's most famous race on public roads.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6pGE-J7Uepg