Thursday, July 21, 2011

BMWMOA Rally Day #1

We arrived at the rally site around 3 pm and it really felt hot. I take that back, it is really hot. The thermometer on the car regularly registered well into triple digits (°F). Lots of bikes, lots of people and very little air conditioning. I stopped at the Airhead tent and true to form, there were couches and recliners but only one familiar face. Joe Cuda, the airmarshall from Kansas, rode his /6 to the rally and will be sharing with Matt Parkhouse some of their accumulated knowledge on airhead electrics. The vintage bikes were in one of the air conditioned buildings so we spent a little time looking at them. This is a 1943 2WD BMW sidecar rig towing a gun of some sort and had a machine gun mounted to the sidecar. This was only one of three rigs of similar vintage and all were restored.

We went to a talk by MotoQuest out of Anchorage hoping to feel a little cooler from the videos from their trips. They also talked about trips to Patagonia and Peru. I'd love to go on both of them. The hall where this talk was unair-conditioned and even the plastic chairs felt hot. Looked around a bit for a Vespa but didn't see any. Our hotel is around 50 minutes south of Bloomsburg so not very convenient. Jack's talk is at 9:30 tomorrow morning. Hopefully it won't be too hot by then.

5 comments:

  1. RichardM, the heatwave that is gripping the country hit the rally at worst possible time....keep hydrated!

    I look forward to your report on Mr Riepe's presentation.

    dom


    Redleg's Rides

    Colorado Motorcycle Travel Examiner

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  2. Heatwave? I must have missed that.

    Love your new header picture by the way.

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  3. Charlie6:
    Yep, I'm looking forward to Jack's talk as well. Steve said that he'll be arriving tomorrow morning and GeorgeF arrived this evening.

    SonjaM:
    Yep, according to the paper, all states are in the 90s except for Alaska and Washington. But for me, humidity seems to be the real killer. And thanks for the compliment on the header. Another iPhone pic...

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  4. Richard, any feedback so far on your new tires? I am toying with the idea of more "aggressive" thread patterns on my next set of tires for my R80.

    dom

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  5. Yep. I was thinking of you and yours this morning when the weather people said the NE was going to be hotter than the South. OUCH!!!

    Hope you can stay cool.
    -Lori

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