The history of BMW Motorrad clubs in the USA...

[Visian]

Had a nice talk with Jeff Dean

Jeff Dean sent me this photo, shot by his wife Jill, in Chicago... on a 13-degree day in February where these 5 guys started the BMW MOA.

Vern Hansen was in the BMW Touring Club of Detroit, Jeff Dean was in the Madison BMW Club, John Moore was in the BMW NorCal Club, Charlie Smith was in the BMW Riders of Western New York Club and Frank Diederich was in the Chicago Region BMW Owners Club.

There are some great pics coming from these clubs, Jeff promised to send me more images from the Madison club, so please stay tuned.

 

[rangerreece]

Great thread!

Thanks for starting this thread Ian. I love the historical stuff.

 

[Visian]

Thanks for starting this thread Ian. I love the historical stuff.

Same with me, Reece. I find that history is a great teacher, and in this case, it's shows us how unique BMW riders are, especially when it comes to community.

 

[kbasa]

Same with me, Reece. I find that history is a great teacher, and in this case, it's shows us how unique BMW riders are, especially when it comes to community.

I liked that in the 35th anniversary book, it's apparent that the tightasses of 2008 were dirty hippies when the club started but had somehow forgotten all that. Girls in halters, guys without shirts and everyone sleeping in the mud. If you look around, helmets weren't exactly in evidence all the time, either.

 

[310jen]

Here's a story from the beginning of The Touring Club of TCD....early 70's I think:

One of the first club rides was to the Four Winds Rally in Pennsylvania. There were 35 bikes riding together. Vern – being ever safety conscious – insisted in groups of no more than six and ride in a staggered style. All wore bright orange-glo vests (the closest the club ever got to “colors”). In the process of planning this ride, Vern suggested that it would be classy if all the men wore white shirts and ties…no “Hell’s Angels” image for the BMWTCD. As thirty-five bikes pulled up to the restaurant…you could see the panic on the waitresses’ faces! But as the riders dismounted and the guys took off their jackets and helmets, there was an audible sigh of relief from people in the restaurant as they saw the white shirts, ties, gray hair and bald heads. Kay Shaw

 

[Visian]

Here's a story from the beginning of The Touring Club of TCD....early 70's I think:

One of the first club rides was to the Four Winds Rally in Pennsylvania. There were 35 bikes riding together. Vern – being ever safety conscious – insisted in groups of no more than six and ride in a staggered style. All wore bright orange-glo vests (the closest the club ever got to “colors”). In the process of planning this ride, Vern suggested that it would be classy if all the men wore white shirts and ties…no “Hell’s Angels” image for the BMWTCD. As thirty-five bikes pulled up to the restaurant…you could see the panic on the waitresses’ faces! But as the riders dismounted and the guys took off their jackets and helmets, there was an audible sigh of relief from people in the restaurant as they saw the white shirts, ties, gray hair and bald heads. Kay Shaw

Hi Jen - thank you for this.

So it turns out that this picture is of that rally.

And here is an example of the orange-glo vests you mentioned... this is Vern Hansen's wife Gloria.

Had to throw in one pic of bald heads and ties ...

(but remember, back then the BMW motorcycle was considered a "pipe and slippers" bike....)

But I must say that the overwhelming impression I get from the local club people who worked to create a national club.... they were young! They were also very enthusiastic about a community of riders who chose their bikes to make a statement: they were different from the image of motorcyclists being portrayed so much in the media, from outlaws to Easy Rider. I am sure the neon vests helped in that respect, as well!


All these photos were sent to me by Kay Shaw, BMWTCD club historian. What a very nice lady... her husband passed away and she no longer rides, but still stays involved.

 

[Visian]

I liked that in the 35th anniversary book, it's apparent that the tightasses of 2008 were dirty hippies when the club started but had somehow forgotten all that. Girls in halters, guys without shirts and everyone sleeping in the mud. If you look around, helmets weren't exactly in evidence all the time, either.

So, I could share a great story that Chuck Manley once told me over too much Sambuca... but it's better to leave out the specifics (TMI!)....

For sure, he was talking about the youthful "demeanor," back in the day, of those tightasses!

 

[Visian]

They were also very enthusiastic about a community of riders who chose their bikes to make a statement: they were different from the image of motorcyclists being portrayed so much in the media...

And here was BMW's pitch to these types of riders... distinctive, different....SUPER cool!

 

[kbasa]

So, I could share a great story that Chuck Manley once told me over too much Sambuca... but it's better to leave out the specifics (TMI!)....

For sure, he was talking about the youthful "demeanor," back in the day, of those tightasses!

Ah, Chuck. Probably over that stuff he liked to drink. Toluca or something it was?

Let's just say that when I went to my first rallies in the early 90s, the band facilitated some folks waking up in another tent than their own the next day. 3

Now, everybody's in bed at 9pm.

In their own tent.

 

[310jen]

So, I could share a great story that Chuck Manley once told me over too much Sambuca... but it's better to leave out the specifics (TMI!)....

For sure, he was talking about the youthful "demeanor," back in the day, of those tightasses!

Funny because I belong to both the BMW Touring Club of Detroit and the BMW Niagara Riders, of which Chuck was a member

I'm also a member of the BMW Motorcycle Club of Ontario

 

[Visian]

An interesting discovery, update in process

While roaming through the information about early motorrad clubs, I came across a jewel: the dinner table around which content was prepared for publishing in the first issues of the BMW News. This newsletter ultimately became the BMW Owners News.

Below is a clue, more details to come as the subject matter experts are queried!

 

[Visian]

A classic club story from the West coast

1074 (Forum username) took a moment to send me a PM about his days as a 23 year-old BMW rider in San Diego. Much of what he tells me confirms other material I’ve read and have yet to publish. I’ll get to it… it’s *really* hard to pull this info together… for a lot of reasons… please bear with me.

So….

1074 was in the Navy, and at 23 he bought his first BMW from Brattin Motors in San Diego in 1971. Someone told him that the local BMW club consisted of a bunch of old farts that rode too slow. (Well, I never heard THAT before! )

He finally met some of the members, became less full of himself and joined the club. A few of the members were leaders in the movement toward forming a national club, but this fellow’s interest was to become involved with multiple motorcycle clubs in the area. Seems he was turned of by the San Diego club’s “blackball” policy, where any one member could prevent anyone they didn’t like from joining. While he wasn’t blackballed, he bridled against one of the club’s members/leaders who supported the policy, Bill Harmer… one of the guys who wanted to form the BMWOA, the first national club. However, this was not without controversy and if you’re interested in the details, you can read about it in the 35th Anniversary history book that former MOA media editor Vince Winkel published.

Which leads me to note: this thread’s purpose is not an effort to rehash that mess!

Upon Bill’s death, (he was an older guy who suffered a stroke) the San Diego club held a charity poker run in support of his wife. 1074 helped out by setting up the route. Unmanned checkpoints were situated where riders would find coffee cans holding folded and stapled playing cards. They also placed a club member with a small Yamaha out along the course, who pulled the head off his bike to make it look like he was doing a road side repair. Anyone who stopped to help him could draw a sixth "wild" card from his distinctive deck! That went over quite well.

Roger Hull, editor of Road Rider magazine was there at the finish with a special door prize. Roger had worked with Bill Harmer of the San Diego club to put out the word about forming a national BMW motorrad club, the BMWOA. (If you’re not aware, SoCal is basically the center of the universe when it comes to nationwide powersports topics.)

The San Diego club originally held their annual Octoberfest Rally in the park in Mission Bay and members opened up their homes and back yards for out of town guests to camp, bunk up and shower. Eventually the rally got too big for that so they moved it the Portrero Park park/campground east of the city. Close by was a cut-off to go to Tecate, Mexico … and there was a Quonset Hut fish fry restuarant out there as well.

1074’s estimate (as well as others) is that Bill Harmer’s views were not exactly in line with the direction that the others wanted to go wrt a national club.

Please, let’s not go down the rabbit hole on club politics in the early days, it really is spelled out clearly in newsletters re-published by the MOA. Instead, I am looking for great stories about the clubs in the early days, and following posts will focus on the other clubs (NorCal, WNY, Detroit, Madison…) that were doing some very cool things during those times.

If this thread has any traction (which I am sort of thinking it ultimately will not), others can chime in here with these types of stories. Like I said earlier, this information is very hard to obtain.

Ian

 

[Visian]

BMW Riders of Western New York

Sorry for the long delay in posting an update, my better half and I were in Florida for the holidays and it was tough connecting with the club members who are the subject matter experts. In all honesty, it is very difficult to obtain the content you're seeing, a lot of it is lost to history, and a lot of the experts are no longer with us.

Someone in the image of the BMW Riders of WNY above is Chuck Smith, the guy who started the BMW newsletter. I am trying to find copies of this and I fear they're lost.

Another person that *I think* is in the picture is Bob Beach, and possibly his wife... still trying to find that out. A couple days ago I spent an hour on the phone with the BMW Riders of WNY President, Bob Falgiano, who is helping me make contacts who have more info about the club back in the day.

What I love about this photo is there are so many young couples! Honestly, I think this is one of the best aspects of the BMW motorcycle brand... the wonderful people it attracts. (I also love the cranky old fart smack dab in the middle of the picture, bitching about something! )

One really funny story Bob told me about the club's incorporation process relates to a very prominent theme in the motorcycle market at the time, and the same observation has been made in my conversations with many other old-times. Back then, most motorcyclists were pretty rough characters and many of the riders who chose BMW motorcycles did so to make a statement: they were not the people everyone was seeing in the movies.

So, it turns out, as Bob F. went through old club records, that the BMWRWNY incorporation documents contain the police record reports on all of the new club's directors! (Hopefully Bob can get me a picture of this... along with some other stuff we discussed).



Last... the meeting in Chicago that led to the formation of the BMW MOA just wrapped up right around now... 50 years ago

 

[Visian]

Charlie Smith, #4

This is a full-screen capture of a past BMW ON article, hopefully it fits your screen. If you can't read it, you can view a full-size version here.

The details are in the article, Charlie was a founding member of the BMW Riders of Western New York and very active in the club, the first editor of the MOA's BMW News, and he was at the winter meeting in Chicago that founded the club

 

[bigjohnsd]

I'm new to the MOA and new to BMW motorcycles, relatively new anyway with only 50K miles on my first BMW.
I'm 70 and find this thread fascinating.
Thanks for your efforts to preserve the history and to share it with everyone.

John

 

[rangerreece]

Excellent work

Your posts are spot on and welcome Ian. Thank you so much for researching and posting.

 

[kbasa]

As a native Detroiter, former and soon to be again, San Diegan, this makes me smile.

 

[Visian]

As a native Detroiter, former and soon to be again, San Diegan, this makes me smile.

The coolest thing about the Detroit club is they were totally focused on riding. All club meetings were rides.

 

[flyhi2cfar]

[/QUOTE]


The "Meeting of the Minds", these guys... January 15 & 16, 1972 in Elmhurst, Illinois.

It all came together after that!

Here's a logical question I find interesting; what Clubs were formed during 1972 specifically, under the new BMWOA?
We know there were ten or more before the inception year, but I know of only two that are also celebrating their 50th here in 2022.

The BMW Club of Dallas-Fort Worth. MOA Charter #26

The Washington State Riders BMW Club. MOA Charter #104

Anyone else with information?

 

[rangerreece]

Alabama club # 5 celebrated its 50th last October. Detroit #1 also I think celebrated their 50th last year.