BMW Touring Club of Detroit

Well....eleven years have past beneath our wheels since the first ride to Williamston. This is the 10th anniversary ride because we had 9 years with many beautiful Sundays in May and a few just tolerable ones. But unfortunately last year was just far enough beyond the fun factor to call for a cancellation. We're keeping our fingers crossed for the 20th of this month to be one of the best days yet. Over the span of this ride John Fishbeck has shown his personal playground of back roads to many riders. This year he has recreated the original route through south central Michigan to celebrate the event.


As the has been at all previous rides the campfire will be burning and the Koegel Vienna franks waiting to be roasted.

Looking forward to seeing you.


Jim C.

My friends in Flint that work at Koegel will be happy to know you buy Michigan products.
Fritz

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"Every so often, push your luck!"
(Life's Little Instruction Book)

I just love it when I have things to put on the calendar that I actually want to do!

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Dan

Yes indeedy, kids - Master Creighton has it exactly right. The ever popular 'camping demo' ride and event is coming right up, two weeks from this coming Sunday. Ride leaders are being recruited so we can ride in small groups of 4-6 riders.

Plan is to depart from Pinckney following breakfast starting shortly after 9:45. There will be a brief rider's meeting, followed by the ride groups departing at 1-2 minute intervals.

BE GASSED UP AND READY TO GO! It's enough of a challenge herding all these TCDers together for a ride; don't expect the ride leaders to be attempting to co-ordinate and organize their ride groups while you go off and get gas.

The ride is 100 miles long. For those of you who were around and remember, this is a reincarnation of that first camping demo ride route. Departing Pinckney the route will traverse roads south and west down to Napoleon, where there will be a brief break. Following the break the route will proceed north up to Jim and Ruth's.

For those of you who hold certain faiths with various weather deities, do put in a respectful request for a good WX day. We really don't want a repeat of last year's lousy rainy and cold conditions!

Regards,

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John Fishbeck
2010 30th Anniversary Edition R1200GS
Okemos MI

I can lead a DIRT ROAD route to the CAMP DEMO.
I will post a Route on the GPS Forum on MONDAY.
If you have experience riding dirt roads, I try to pick some nice, obscure ways to get to the CAMP DEMO.
In years past, the dirt riders have out numbered the pavement riders. This might be the case this year, so if you can help lead a dirt ride, please download the route, recalculate it for 'your' mapset and have it ready in your GPS in case we have a lot of dirt riders.

Greg

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Carpe Diem

This ride sounds like fun. Although I regularly attend Sunday breakfast, I've never ridden with the TCD. I'm not planning to ride dirt with Greg. Are the paved roads suitable for a clone of John's K12 or should I ride something more sporting?

Hey, James - these are just mid-Michigan back roads we're talking about here. No canyons, no trips up over mountain ridges. Lotsa nice sweepers and a sharper corner every now and again. K1200RS is fine. RT is fine. LT is fine. R90S is fine. Heck, JJ can ride these roads on his Harley Road King with the lovely Anita on board. C'mon along on whatever you feel like straddling; you'll enjoy the ride.

Regards,

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John Fishbeck
2010 30th Anniversary Edition R1200GS
Okemos MI

John,

I am lucky enough to have a RS like yours, as well as an airhead GSPD, an airhead R65ls, and a r1100rt before we venture into enemy territory. I have lots of options, just looking for the best mount. Is a Ducati 999 my best choice/

Kind Regards.

Jim

Jim, seriously, you're overthinking this. Your best choice is whatever bike you feel like riding 100 miles on come Sunday, May 20. All of the above would be fine. Something other than the R65 would likely be more fun, and a Ducati 999 is overkill (swatting a fly with an anvil) - but any of those mounts is suitable. Ride what makes you feel good. This is not overly challenging stuff. We don't have overly challenging stuff in mid-Michigan!

Regards,
John

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John Fishbeck
2010 30th Anniversary Edition R1200GS
Okemos MI

The DIRT ROUTE is available on the GPS FORUM.
If you want to ride the dirt & you have a GPS, you can download it and have it while you ride.
Or you can folllow without it.
Hopefully we will have several GPS DIRT riders so we can break into smaller groups of 4 or 5.

enjoy

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Carpe Diem

Anybody that can ride 100 miles on a 999 has my vote for rider of the year.

Unfortunately I won't be making the ride this year and I will miss pig'in out at John's on Saturday. My Mom's 95th birthday party in Cincy will keep me off me Moto.

Have fun. For those that have never attended do put this event on your list. If the weather cooperates its one of the nices garden parties you will attend on a motorcycle.

(Don Pennington -- Note I said "one of".

Wow, who do we thank for the great event? Many, many thanks to Jim and Ruth for opening their beautiful grounds to a bunch of grubby (speaking for myself only) bikers. And that fire was cooking hot dogs faster than any microwave I've ever used!

For the ride leaders - thank you. We did the dirt ride and were treated to some roads I've never been on before - beautiful roads. Great riding. This is the first time we have ever followed Greg and other than dust as thick as smog, he set a great route and a great pace.

Thanks to all for making this such a wonderful day!

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Dan

Wow! Whadda great day for the Williamston outing! Makes up for the god awful day that we had last year, forcing cancellation of the event.

Big tip o' the hat to pavement ride leaders Bill Gregory, Jack Johnson and Dave Allgood for pitching in to help lead many happy motosicklists from Pinckney to Williamston. I think everyone I talked with enjoyed the selection of roads and said that they had a terrific ride. And a tip to Greg Crago for putting a dirty roads ride together for folks who wanted to travel that way.

And, of course, huge thanks to Jim and Ruth for hosting this event, for the tenth time no less! One half of this event has always been a nice back roads ride from Pinckney to Williamston, but the other half is the destination. It is such a treat for Jim and Ruth to open up their delightful home and grounds to us scruffy TCDers, and I know everyone enjoys their visit. Thanks Jim and Ruth!

Whodathunkit? I used to put up the route directions, maps and GPS files for the Pinckney to Williamston ride, but everyone always seemed to ride in one of the groups. So I thought "Eh, who cares - nobody's using this stuff anyway; I'll just distribute it to the ride leaders." Wow. I learned my lesson. It may be that everybody just rides with a group anyway, but apparently that doesn't mean that they don't want the maps and stuff. So be it - lesson learned. I'll be sure to post the info to forum topic from here on out.

In the meantime, here's a link to a Google map showing today's ride route:

https://www.msu.edu/~fishbeck/TCDWebCon ... e2012.html

And here's a link to a page with ride info and links to route directions, maps and GPS files:

http://www.bmwtcd.org/data/CampDemo12Ride/index.htm

Enjoy.

To all who participated today, thanks for coming out and joining in on the fun.

Regards,

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John Fishbeck
2010 30th Anniversary Edition R1200GS
Okemos MI

Yeah! What he said. I brought out ol' Bessie so I could hammer some paved roads for a change, and proceeded to do just that. The old GS ran flawlessly all day. Great time.

Karl

I second the thanks to all of the ride leaders, Greg for the dirt route, and John for the pavement route et al. Thanks y'all. What a great day. Great rides, great weather, and great friends.

Also, a huge thanks to Jim and Ruth for opening their home and grounds for to us. What a lovely place.

Thanks to all involved.

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Geoff Blow
gbeemer

2005 R1200GS
2012 G650GS (sold)
2012 K1600GTL (sold)
2009 K1200LT (sold)
2005 R1200GS (sold)
2009 R1200GS (sold)
2007 R1200R (sold)
2007 F650GS (sold)
2005 Honda VTX1300R (sold)