BMW Motorcycle

Gateway BMW GS Challenge

Gateway BMW’s GS Challenge (held the last full weekend in April) was a blast, even for those of us who didn’t ride (well, me anyway). I went down in a car and brought some gear down from the shop.

When I arrived at Honz’s Rogue Creek camp on Friday evening, several people were already there, chatting and eating brats and dogs cooked on the grill. The huge bonfire was going strong.

Saturday morning after breakfast catered by Liz Huff, Honz introduced Jeff Irvine from RawHyde and Mark Jamroz, the BMW area rep. Both would be instructors, along with Honz and Shannon from the shop. A show of hands indicated that about half the group had off-road experience, so the group was divided into two groups, A and B. Honz and Mark taught the more experience A group, and Jeff and Shannon taught the inexperienced B group.

Astride a 1200GS on its centerstand Jeff talked about balance and staying loose and relaxed. The inexperienced group would begin by doing a couple laps around the lake to get used to standing up, weighting the pegs and shifting weight. Mark talked about safety saying, “Bob’s the only one who knows mouth to mouth and we certainly don’t want to do that.” Basically, the situation was if you don’t want to do an exercise, don’t.

While the B group rode around the lake, the A group rode a zigzag route through a couple of closely spaced trees and then up a short hill back to the road. This proved more difficult than it looked, especially on the larger GS’s and Tim Cougan’s KTM 650 Adventure.

The next set of exercises involved easy trail riding in gravel by the lake for the B group and a braking exercise and riding steep hills/stopping on steep hills  for the A group. Wayne Ham in the B group took a turn a bit wide and ended up in the water in a ditch. This ditch full of water would play a major role  for the A group later in the day but not for the B group. Wayne did a good job of getting himself out without falling but his pristine GS was no longer pristine.

After trail riding by the lake the B group practiced turning at full lock on a circle drawn with spray paint in the dirt. Doing the exercise properly required slipping the clutch and using the throttle. Most did pretty well after they got the hang of it.

Liz Huff provided lunch, also: some great homemade chicken salad sandwiches, and ham and cheese sandwiches, as well as chips, cookies and brownies. I think everyone was ready for lunch.

The B group rode to the hill section and practiced riding up and down steep hills and stopping to back down hills, just as the A group had done before lunch. I was impressed with the guts and talent of the B group in this exercise. It’s intimidating to stare down a steep gravelly hill and then launch yourself off it.

While the B group rode the hills the A group rode the tight circle and then took off for a trail ride in the woods. The A group was gone for a long time and I heard that the difficulty of some sections was a little more than some could handle. Even so, some members of the A group stayed out and rode some more.

While the riders relaxed in the shade–it was getting pretty hot by the afternoon–the instructors set up the GS Challenge course, which would test what had been learned and practiced. Participation in the Challenge was optional, but Honz ponied up some great prizes beginning with a $100 gift certificate at the shop for the first place finisher.

The Challenge involved steep hill riding, water hazards (including the full length of the water-filled ditch), riding the tight circle, getting air over a hump if so desired, tight turns around cones with an immediate lefthand turn up a steep hill, and stacking up on the riding boot small cones laid on their sides. Point deductions were made for dabbing a foot, stalling the bike, falling over and not completing a portion of the course. Additional points were scored for each cone that a rider picked up–catch a cone on your boot, slide it along to the next one, stack that one on, slide those two along to the next, stack it on, etc.  There were five of them and at the end of the row the rider had to raise his leg with the cones neatly stacked on his foot.

There was a tie between Glen Stallings and Taylor Dixson for second place. A ride-off was designed and the spectators would decide who would be the second place finisher via their applause and cheers.

The ride-off involved riding down a hill, through the pond around a tree on the shore, out of the pond and back up a different hill. Taylor rode first and aggressively charged down the hill, through the pond, around both trees on the shore and back up the hill. His whole ride took very little time. He definitely had panache and he garnered spectator’s approval.

Glen miscalculated and ended up sitting in the pond too close to the largest of the clumpy trees, unable to get out of the pond. He pondered his fate and charged forward, falling spectacularly into the pond. Three people helped him right his bike in the knee-deep water, but then he couldn’t get traction on the muddy bottom. Honz pushed and finally he was out. Not to be outdone by the pond, Glen circled around and rode through it again, this time exiting the pond at the proper place, throwing lots of muddy water around. The crowd loved it and Glen was awarded second place.

The Challenge results were !) James Dixson, 2) Glen Stallings, 3) Taylor Dixson. The Dixson brothers arrived at Rogue Creek after lunch and missed most of the instruction, but they are experienced off-road riders. Obviously.

During R&R time before dinner, the muddy ones rode to the showers down the road. Glen stripped to shorts and jumped in the lake and rinsed his muddy rally suit while he was in there.

For dinner Liz served BBQ’d pork steaks (a St. Louis thing) and brats, mac and cheese, baked beans, potato salad, rolls, lemon cake and chocolate cake.

This was a great event and there are thoughts to do it again next year. So if you missed this one, you missed a good one, but you have another chance.

For lots of pictures, see here.

For Leo Weisman’s pictures, see here.  Leo says, “Forward my name and email address to other friends that you had  at the event who might want copies. They’ll have to send me one photo from my Picasa page of who they are and I’ll send them dozens, even hundreds high or low resolution, either fine by me.  Was a fun event.”  Email Leo at toller@aol.com.

–Marilyn