Why are you/ why am I a member?

Some pretty crazy stuff being talked about here in campfire, and membership 'perks' and recruitment seems to be one of the topics that has morphed from the Vince Winkel thread. So i asked myself, 'why are you a member?'

Here's the plain unvarnished truth..I am a member for two reasons only;

1- So I have access to this forum for questions and entertainment.

2-So I can have a copy of the Anonymous book.

That's is, no other reason, no other need. I don't like rallies, I 'might' read a little bit of the ON magazine, I don't like hanging out with other BMW riders and discuss the importance of air pressure, oil changes, and the candle power of my turn signals. I don't belong to a local club, nor do I want to. If I had free access to this forum, I would never have joined the MOA. The info that is available from the other members is worth 40 bucks to me. I think the $40.00 charge keeps the riff raff off of the forum, and goes a long way towards filtering out the 'experts' which I appreciate.

I ride a BMW for two reasons:

1-The R1100RT is the best looking bike ever built.

2-Its a status thing to say I own a BMW bike, and I like when people look at my bike when it's parked at a business or such.

This is brutal honesty. Am a shallow person?, perhaps, but I am honest. I'm curious to here if others share my same or similar sentiment.

I just renewed on 12/31/13.
My reasons:
I read part of the magazine
I like Anonymous book
I like this Forum
In spite of being a life long camper & outdoor type I've been to one rally since joining in 2000 or 2001.

As for keeping out the riff-raff as mentioned above there are lots of truly great people that don't belong here to MOA and do participate with high level tech help & good camaraderie on other forums-They have voiced that they don't have to pay for this MC community contact over here. $40 a year doesn't guarantee much or the world would be a better place?
ADVrider is the obvious largest website like that. Sure it has its hooligans but personal attacks are not allowed there & I've met some great folks there! actually more than here. This club people are better thing shows up in comments like you are less likely to get cheated here & so on-not true IMO. Humans are humans to me, memberships aside. I feel the same way about college frats & that way to choose to become part of a group.
Will we get a new logo now that the push is on for more members?
Exactly why does the club have to be huge? A matter of "it lives large or it dies small" ?

I acquired a used K100 and needed some advice to safety check it before riding it. The local dealer offered to do it for more than I paid for the bike. I can turn a wrench so I dove in the deep end. The MOA sticker on the wind screen led me here.

I lurked for a few months while I gleaned pearls of wisdom from the incredible help available here. I thought it well worth the small price to support the resource. When I last checked, it has now been ten years of membership. After a second K100 came and went, I moved on to Honda's. But that is another topic. I have attended a couple of rally's the last couple of years and enjoyed the event and people very much. They even let me in with the Honda the last time.

So, Thank you MOA for the help and the friendship. I intend to stay, and will probably attend a few more rally's ... perhaps even get another BMW when the Honda needs to be replaced.
jim

ps: I still haven't joined any Honda clubs ... Interesting, no?

We own 6 BMWs. Her member number is a tiny fraction of mine. She has been to 1 national in over 30 years, me zero. She won't camp and I won't go long distance in mid summer heat nor will I pay $150 or higher for an ordinary room in a small city- though not adverse to such costs or higher for luxury places or where they are the norm. We do 4-5 smaller rallies per year, mostly within 400-500 miles but aren't adverse to long runs at other times- we're both retired.

Re why.
1) Forum info that helps keep the fleet ready for use. Populated by folks who can think, have useful info, and write clear English. (too much "me too, dude" stuff at ADVRider though also a fair amount of solid tech stuff- I read it maybe once a month). Civil tone matters a lot to me but am not disturbed by forceful, coherent argument- mods do a good job.
2) We participate in a local chartered club (social reasons, not tech reasons) and enough of us need to be MOA members to maintain that.
3) The mag has improved a bunch lately. But was a dismal repeat of tour guides a few years ago- to the extent I was considering dropping out. Still, I prefer OTL and not just for its outstanding photography of machinery- though their costs per issue must be high to RA given how its printed. More "motorcycle" info.

Get no useful other benefits I can think of though we carry the Anon. Book just in case my PM efforts fall short and are listed to provide help to others if called.

From my perspective, the group fails to adequately represent concerns of members in its publications, especially when it comes to some of the persistent design/build/customer response issues re the brand compared to the expectations of US riders. At the very least, running reliability info columns should be std- while at present we're restricted to what Paul Glaves and Matt Parkhurst contribute from their experiences.

selil said:

<large snip>

Just some ideas. Nothing to ground breaking for sure. Why did I join MOA. Somebody signed me up. Why did I renew? Chats with Voni and Paul Glaves when they gave me the time of day. Tony Black showing up in the middle of the night to help somebody out. Chatting with Matt Parkhouse over coffee about old bikes. A big tent for me to find people that do what I do and might want to do in the future. We all get to the place we meet by different paths. They are not the wrong paths. They are our paths. We get to travel until the road forks. Then we have a choice.

Click to expand...

I find this paragraph quite telling. It was the one to one relationships that mattered. Food for thought.

I've been a member of the MOA for 31 years. The first nearly 20 years was on BSA's and Kawasakis. I joined because I bought a 1978 R100/7, and needed how to figure out how to keep it running...and Oak and Paul and Matt and many others since then have helped do that just fine, thank you. But--I bought a BMW because of the folks I met at my first BMW rally in 1976. The Illinois Valley Rally at the Henry, Illinois Fairgrounds. Susan and Bob Sancken, the members of the Dinks, including Sarge, Chuck and Bob and many, many others made me feel welcome. And, they rode! I was riding a 1976 Kawasaki KZ650SR at the time. No problem from them, but I liked the idea of a bike you could just get on and ride....and started chasing rallies around the midwest, and then to New York and California and points in between. I have great memories of silly conversations around campfires, and serious beer-fueled talks about life and jobs and parenthood at others. The bottom line is that I chose the bike because of the people, and because of the bike, chose the MOA.

I was speaking to a member of our local club last summer who due to vision problems was going to have to give up riding. Upon asking if he planned to continue coming to meetings he replied:

Are you kidding? I've got too many good friends there to quit coming!

That about says it in a nutshell methinks.

ken

selil said:

Just some ideas. Nothing to ground breaking for sure. Why did I join MOA. Somebody signed me up. Why did I renew? Chats with Voni and Paul Glaves when they gave me the time of day. Tony Black showing up in the middle of the night to help somebody out. Chatting with Matt Parkhouse over coffee about old bikes. A big tent for me to find people that do what I do and might want to do in the future. We all get to the place we meet by different paths. They are not the wrong paths. They are our paths. We get to travel until the road forks. Then we have a choice.

Click to expand...

I think this whole post should be lifted and included in a future ON! Very nicely put!

I joined because I do like to ride to small rallies of like minded individuals. I also enjoy some of the articles in the MOAN magazine, don't particularly care to read travelogues from everybody that takes a catered tour of Europe or wherever. I ride alone or with my wife, don't care for politics of any kind.

Why Am I A MOA Member?

..because I had to join in order to become a member of our local BMW club Back then you had to have MOA membership to become a member of the local, sanctioned club.
I had owned BMW K1 for years and when we migrated from an HD to a BMW RT as our main ride/trip bike, we were looking for a new group to socialize with.
Since, I added a R100S, which always has been one of my favorite bikes (and I had a chance to rescue it from collecting dust) and a K1600GT - because I have a weakness for 6-cylinder inline engines in bikes (I own 4 others)
Other than the fact that both the RT and K16 suit me very well for longer, two-up rides, I have no particular preference for BMWs. And while I take the ON and this forum here as perks from my MOA membership, I don't think I would miss it terribly.

Why am I a member? Here is MY answer:
1. I have a good friend and riding buddy who, after years of trying, finally got me to buy a BMW bike. It is an OK bike, but no better than the others I have owned over the years. But I do enjoy riding it and, since I now have the bike, figured I should join the MOA. Simple enough. BTW, I do enjoy the MOA ON magazine and this forum.
2. For me, riding is a SOLITARY activity and pleasure. My only interaction is with my riding buddy (maybe 2 or 3) when we stop for a break. The social aspect of belonging to a club is not much attraction to me. I do not camp (had enough of that in the Army). I have enough friends and do not need to join a club to make more friends. I do not use any social media and this forum is about as techie as my world gets.

Why I am a member of MOA

I bought my first BMW, a used R90S, in 1996, and haven't looked seriously at another brand since. I was 48 years old then, and had known about BMWs since I was a teenager. I bought a BMW because I had had enough of British motorcycles (mainly Triumph), and I often looked at and sat on BMWs when I was buying Triumph parts and service at Engle Motors in Kansas City. I joined the BMW MOA to learn more about my motorcycle and about BMWs in general. I also joined the Airheads for the same reason. I let go of the Airheads when I moved on to a used K75S in 2004, and by then also quit attending local rallies due to the Saturday night noise issue (why do rallies need bands?). I agree with Royce (Roy to me) that motorcycle riding is largely a solitary, individual activity, except when stopped for gas, food, or lodging. Then it becomes very social.

Roy has taught me to enjoy the stops almost as much as the time between the stops, and I'm getting better at stopping longer. To paraphrase Big Red's vaunted advertising line, "You meet the nicest people at the stops." I'm not referring to other motorcyclists, but rather to all those people whom we talk to at stops, who convey with their body language if not their words, that they would rather be doing what I'm doing than what they are doing, that is, they'd rather be riding a motorcycle.

I've managed to convince my son (Triumph Sprint ST) and son-in-law (BMW F650GS) to take up motorcycling, and now I'm working on my oldest grandson (he's 11). We are taking him to the St. Paul rally in a sidecar rig that I will have acquired by mid-April, a distance of about 500 miles one way from the "east coast of Kansas." Building on that experience, I'm planning, with his parents' cooperation, to take him all over the state of Kansas and beyond in the coming years, to the point where he will become very interested in motorcycling as a hobby. Do I care what brand he eventually aspires to own--not at all. I rode many brands before I landed on a Beemer. Gaining his interest and having a sidecar to make it safer for both of us will keep me in this hobby for many more years.

I have received endless enjoyment from riding motorcycles since about 1964, and only the last 15 years on BMWs. The MOA enables me to share my love of motorcycling with other like-minded folks in an uplifting environment, both virtual and live.

Jim Gebhardt
Leavenworth, KS

selil said:

Click to expand...

Is this a Kawasaki Trail Boss?

20774 said:

I think this whole post should be lifted and included in a future ON! Very nicely put!

Click to expand...

Yep

selil said:

Click to expand...

Is that the STIG?

I joined because I'd always wanted to ride the Blue Ridge Parkway and the rally at Johnson City gave me an excuse to head that way. Once there I felt like I was surrounded by family I never knew I had. Unfortunately, my riding buddy had a catastrophic FD failure on his 1150RT and I lost a lot of rally time that year getting him to the dealer in Greenville SC, but the day and a half in JC convinced me I wanted to experience it again.

Health issues forced me to limit my long distance riding to my sidecar rig with my dog, and Barley quickly added a level of joy to visiting far away places that I hadn't expected in a working dog. He was carded at the beer tent in Sedalia (he was 34 in dog years: legal) and greeted by so many over the years that I suspect he equates rallies to bratwurst. It's not hard to bond with a group that treats us that well.

Why am I a member?

My neighbor was telling me about that BMW magazine her daughter worked for. She said "You know the one" and I said "No I don't" She said I will get you a copy.

That BMW magazine? The Owners News. Her daughter, Mandy Manley.

So I saw the BOD meeting was in St. Louis and I showed up.

So impressed by the quality of volunteers that I wanted to be associated with them.

So it was the people of the MOA.

And still is.

I joined solely to gain access to this forum. The Anonymous book is good thing to have but I think I'm crafty enough that I may never have to use it. I do enjoy the magazine. I introduced my fianc? ( I proposed to her on the Tail Of The Dragon ) to BMW's with my R1200RT. She rode several bigger BMW's at Americade (she really liked the k1600GT and the wasser boxer G/S). When my work schedule prevented me from going to "Color In The Catskills" She rode her Yamaha FZ6 there alone and on her arrival home told me she joined the MOA. A month later she bought a blue water cooled R1200 G/S. We don't like riding in groups unless it's a group of corner carving adrenaline junkies. We will likely attend a rally the next time it swings into the northeast, and are open to doing it again if we like it.

1985 - I think

I bought a left-over 1984 R80ST in 1985 from Sholly's in Harrisburg, PA. The salesman handed me a MOA application and I've been here since.

Oh, yeah.......I was 25 when I made that purchase.