news
NEWS
along with the rest of the LT. Nor- mally, you’d think a rider whose bike suffered a mechanical failure as sig- nificant as that would be out, but Hatcher finished the rally on a Yamaha FJR1300 loaned to him by a rally finisher he’d never met. He lost half his points—a 50 percent dock is the penalty for switching bikes mid- rally—but he finished nonetheless, going down in the record books as dead last (75th place). Married couple Sam and Sydney
Liles suffered a heartbreaking DNF (Did Not Finish). Sam bought his dream bike, a 2015 K 1600 GTL Exclu- sive, just a few months before the rally, putting about 4,000 miles on it before heading to the starting line in Albuquerque, New Mexico. A mere 2,576 miles later, the Liles were out of the rally. Their Exclusive had been dogged by unusual electrical faults. After a frustrating morning and a lack of a meaningful diagnosis from a BMW dealership in New Mexico, the bike’s main computer failed com- pletely, not just putting them out of the rally, but stranding them almost 2,000 miles from home. One of my part-time jobs is work-
ing for an independent BMW motor- cycle mechanic. Mostly what I do is
Lynda Lahman aboard a C 650 GT and Terry Lahman with his R 1200 GSA prepare to hit the road on Monday morning. Lynda would finish 43rd; Terry, 42nd.
look, listen and learn, but I also act as a sec- retary. I answer the phone, get customers checked in and out, manage the used parts inventory, and yes, I occasionally get to work on a bike—my own, mostly, or one belonging to my brother or one of our rid- ing buddies. My boss at Beemers Uber Alles, George Mangicaro, has been fixing BMWs for 20 years and is something of a motorcycle whisperer. Just last week when a customer rode up, George turned to me and said, “That bike needs at least one pencil coil.” It needed two, but I think you see what I’m getting at here. The man knows motorcycles. What’s more than that, he understands
long distance riders, and he especially understands Iron Butt riders. He worked
closely with Roger Sinclair (mentioned above) in prepping a pair of R 1150 GSs to cross Europe and China, and Iron Butt rid- ers from all over the East Coast bring their Beemers to him to prep for various contests and competitions. This year, we had three customers in the
Iron Butt Rally—the aforementioned Allen Hatcher and his doomed K 1200 LT, Kirsten Talken-Spaulding and her 2009 R 1200 RT, and the husband-and-wife team of Jon Good and Ande Bergman on their 2013 K 1600 GTL. We spent a good amount of time getting their bikes ready for the rally, and when I say “we,” I mean that George did a ton of mechanical work, and I cleaned and polished the bikes with an eye out for any fluid seepage or bolt or panel out of place.
Allen Hatcher on his borrowed FJR 1300, Wes Fleming, George Mangicaro (inside trailer), Ande Bergman, Jon Good.
44
BMW OWNERS NEWS September 2015
Page 1 |
Page 2 |
Page 3 |
Page 4 |
Page 5 |
Page 6 |
Page 7 |
Page 8 |
Page 9 |
Page 10 |
Page 11 |
Page 12 |
Page 13 |
Page 14 |
Page 15 |
Page 16 |
Page 17 |
Page 18 |
Page 19 |
Page 20 |
Page 21 |
Page 22 |
Page 23 |
Page 24 |
Page 25 |
Page 26 |
Page 27 |
Page 28 |
Page 29 |
Page 30 |
Page 31 |
Page 32 |
Page 33 |
Page 34 |
Page 35 |
Page 36 |
Page 37 |
Page 38 |
Page 39 |
Page 40 |
Page 41 |
Page 42 |
Page 43 |
Page 44 |
Page 45 |
Page 46 |
Page 47 |
Page 48 |
Page 49 |
Page 50 |
Page 51 |
Page 52 |
Page 53 |
Page 54 |
Page 55 |
Page 56 |
Page 57 |
Page 58 |
Page 59 |
Page 60 |
Page 61 |
Page 62 |
Page 63 |
Page 64 |
Page 65 |
Page 66 |
Page 67 |
Page 68 |
Page 69 |
Page 70 |
Page 71 |
Page 72 |
Page 73 |
Page 74 |
Page 75 |
Page 76 |
Page 77 |
Page 78 |
Page 79 |
Page 80 |
Page 81 |
Page 82 |
Page 83 |
Page 84 |
Page 85 |
Page 86 |
Page 87 |
Page 88 |
Page 89 |
Page 90 |
Page 91 |
Page 92 |
Page 93 |
Page 94 |
Page 95 |
Page 96 |
Page 97 |
Page 98 |
Page 99 |
Page 100 |
Page 101 |
Page 102 |
Page 103 |
Page 104 |
Page 105 |
Page 106 |
Page 107 |
Page 108 |
Page 109 |
Page 110 |
Page 111 |
Page 112 |
Page 113 |
Page 114 |
Page 115 |
Page 116 |
Page 117 |
Page 118 |
Page 119 |
Page 120 |
Page 121 |
Page 122 |
Page 123 |
Page 124 |
Page 125 |
Page 126 |
Page 127 |
Page 128 |
Page 129 |
Page 130 |
Page 131 |
Page 132 |
Page 133 |
Page 134 |
Page 135 |
Page 136 |
Page 137 |
Page 138 |
Page 139 |
Page 140