• Welcome, Guest! We hope you enjoy the excellent technical knowledge, event information and discussions that the BMW MOA forum provides. Some forum content will be hidden from you if you remain logged out. If you want to view all content, please click the 'Log in' button above and enter your BMW MOA username and password.

    If you are not an MOA member, why not take the time to join the club, so you can enjoy posting on the forum, the BMW Owners News magazine, and all of the discounts and benefits the BMW MOA offers?

A quick trip to the Central Cal Beemer Bash

kbasa

Well-known member
Central Cal BMW had their annual Beemer BASH in Quincy, CA this year after having it in Mariposa last year and Paso Robles last year.

I took a ride up on friday and arrived after dark. I was looking all over town for the rally site and finally spotted two bikes in the Safeway parking lot. It was Ricardo on his Gollum bike and another AdvRider (I forgot your name, I'm a bad, bad man).

Anyway, I got set up and woke up to this the next morning.
868257-M.jpg


Across the way was the World's Cleanest R80 G/S
868261-M.jpg


After it warmed up a bit (man, it was chilly that night!) I took a ride into town and found a bunch of bikes parked in front of the Morning Thunder Cafe. I highly recommend the avocado and bacon omelette. Coffee was good too.
868263-M.jpg


I went out for a ride and took the back way down to Oroville.
868265-M.jpg


I wandered around the rally for a while, looking at bikes and vendors and stuff and hung out with Ricky Kuhn for a while. He makes pretty neat stuff. I think his bar backs are yummy.

867185-M.jpg


When I got back to the tent, some dude was playing a guitar nearby. It was Duner. I think the dude he's sitting with is named Jerry Smith. He owns the G/S. Duner wants the G/S but was unable to make a deal where Jerry got his guitar back and Duner got the G/S. I'm kidding!
868267-M.jpg


Duner played guitar for a while, which was kind of like how I deal with cats I find when I'm out for a walk. You have to pick them up, rub their neck and see if any pleasant sounds come out. Anyway, I took some pictures of the general site.
868270-M.jpg

868279-M-1.jpg


We wandered over to rally headquarters and this nice woman was giving a demonstration of how to pick your bike up by yourself. It was Greg Hutchinson's kilowatt generating airhead as the "fallen victim". I don't know if she ever got it picked up. I think she had the grip wrong and she was struggling pretty mightily.

Here she is, working hard:
868274-M.jpg


And here's Skert Youroski picking up my K75C in Greenfield a couple years ago. (Photo by Steve Anderson, thanks Steve!)
skirt_bike.gif


The grip on the lower bar gives more leverage so you have both hands helping lift. See how the grips differ?

Anyway, we wandered back toward camp and found Don Kemp. Both of these guys are members of the Village Idiots. Idiots like good and civilized before dinner libations, so we had martinis. Don had Boodles and vermouth and I had a shaker.
868275-M.jpg


Magwa came along and had water. He's a Smart Idiot.
868276-M.jpg


Jeff "Guitar" Mann had inner peace. Jeff's an Idiot too, but he's low key about it.
868277-M.jpg


We hung around, shot the breeze, had dinner and ice cream. After a while, we all wandered off to bed, most of the rest of the Idiots going back to the Ranchito Motel. It was warm over there, I bet.

Next morning, I headed out and ran into Ricardo and The Guy Who's Name I've Forgotten (sorry, you're wicked nice). They were looking for Laporte Road to go to Oroville. As I was stopped with them, John Arnold rode by on his Not The World's Cleanest G/S. I followed him down to, where else, the Morning Thunder Cafe, where the rest of the Idiots were having breakfast.

In this picture, we have Kami, John Arnold, Jeff Mann and Roozbeh Chubak. John's asking Jeff if his riding suit makes his butt look big.
868281-M.jpg


After breakfast, we all split up, with Jeff and I heading back to Marin together. It was hot, with temps in the high 90s and low 100s, in the Central Valley.

When I got home, Tina handed me a beer. :D Sorry, no pix there.

I'd give the Beemer BASH 4 stars out of 5.
 
NICE PICS KBasa!!!:clap

Now, I want to go back to California! Um, how far is Quincy from next years MOA rally and would you care to lead a group there afterwards? It's just a thought.:D
 
Thanks DDH. I was going to take pictures of Route 70, which goes up and down the Feather River Canyon, but I was having too much fun. :bliss

I looked at MS Streets & Trips and it says 877 miles via the shortest route. I think it would be pretty easy to put together a three or four day trip that included Mt. St. Helens, Crater Lake, a good section of the northern coast of California and the like that ended in the Sierras.

Lead it? Well, I dunno about leading a long conga line of bikes all day. I like to travel in small "attack squadrons". It makes getting by clots of cars easier and that sort of thing.

Maybe the easiest way would be to say, "we're gonna be here tonight" and let people ride at their own pace all day. It'd probably be good to keep the camps a couple three hundred miles apart, which would allow time for sightseeing and detours. Especially for the GS guys.

I've traveled with a largish group of folks in that manner before and it was an absolute blast. We basically had a dinner party every night at camp.

And fish - we missed you too. Really.
 
Back
Top