PENZANCE PICNIC
I’m from a place in the UK called Penzance, so
when I saw a road ride to Penzance Bay on the
Saturday I was in. After a bit of a run-around first
thing to get the tyre fitted to Doug’s GS, we lined
up for the grand depart to Penzance. Now, The
Baron isn’t the most immaculate of bikes. It’s
functional in all the right places, but an oil
painting it is not – this bike has lived a life and
proudly wears the scars. Funny then, that
whenever the ol’ boy rolls up a crowd forms.
I guess it’s patina, yes, let’s call it patina. It’s
another thing I like about the bike.
Gotta say, it was a cracking ride up into the
Sounds to Penzance. Tight, twisting tar seal with a
lot of uppy and downy, the seal was a bit broken
and twisted in places, perfect aboard my ‘91 GS.
But hot, bloody hot. One disadvantage of the
106 KIWI RIDER
Baron’s air-cooled motor is the air which flows
over it to cool it… flows over me yet doesn’t cool
me down. Great in Winter, but Summer…? Let’s
just say I’m glad I packed my togs for a swim in
the bay after lunch.
Back in Blenheim that night was the club’s AGM.
Although not a club member, I took the
opportunity to sit in on the proceedings and was
pleasantly surprised with the way El Presidente
kept things short and on point without the
normal bloat that often accompanies an AGM.
One of the interesting things to come out of
meeting was that clubs worldwide are facing the
same issues of retaining members and trying to
grow in the face of Facebook groups and internet
forums, so they’re changing how they work. Part
of that was the changing of the club’s name from
the BMW Owners Register to the BMW