2004 Bride of the Surf City Tech Day

Airheads Beemer Club

Vintage BMW Motorcycle Owners, Ltd.

National R90S Sport Owners Club

Although the number of people RSVPing at the web page and calling or emailing me fluctuated quite a bit during the last week and a half before the April 10th date, it seemed clear that there would be a great turn out. In actuality, we had more than 50 people during the day.

Just in case you're wondering what a Tech Day is, it's basically a picnic with an attached garage. So, we had coffee, doughnuts (thanks, Keith!), soft drinks and beer, a lunch of BBQed burgers (and a few Corralitos Smokehouse sausages, a local favorite), snacks, chips, dips, salads, cookies, pie, fudge, brownies, and more. Meanwhile, there was a lot of bench racing, and even a bit of maintenance and repair work was done.

This year I not only arranged it with the Airheads Beemer Club (as have been the previous three Surf City Tech Days) but also with the R90S Sport Owners Club and the Vintage BMW Motorcycle Owners, Ltd. club. And we did get a good turnout from all three.

Bill and Mike, from the R90S club and coming down from Washington state, were the long distance riders. They arrived on Friday, along with my friend Martin, and helped to set things up on Saturday morning - my undying gratitude goes out to them. Mike, in particular, seemed to have come prepared to soak up some California sun before heading back to the Greyt Pacific Northwet.

Several folks got to work right away. New springs, bumpers and spacers went into this R100S front end. I was surprised at the end of the day to discover that about 18" of PVC pipe seemed to have been used. I suppose that's one way to get rid of the gummikuh feeling.

Jay's new-to-him R80 G/S needed its fluids changed and a new oil pressure sender. Up on the rack it went. Out came the old sender, then the oil filter.

The beautiful weather really brought out a lot of riders. You can see the number of bikes swell in these pictures.

You can be sure there was a lot of tall tales and tire kicking...

...with new riders on all sorts of bikes showing up. Even some bikes not made in Germany.

The Triumph Bonneville came steaming up the hill. Oh wait, that's oil smoke. How many quarts does this take, anyway?

And Reta's '38 Harley bobber didn't seem to have a lot of front brake... might be a bit of concern at the hairpin turn in the driveway.

Richard's R50/2 from the mid 60s is undergoing an overhaul (say what?), and since I have Ed Korn's famous Many In One tool for manipulating /2 crankshafts... First, read the directions. Then, read the parts manual. Let's see, the thick shim goes in front, right? Sure looks good once it's in place!

While Mik gives Bill some pointers on where to ride while in California, Greg is busy working on other folks' bikes.

Nobody took any pictures of the food and drink, so you'll just have to imagine lunch -- or come by next year. For a while there it seemed like I wouldn't ever get ahead of waiting list for burgers. I guess I got it about right, there were three left over at the end of the day.

By the end of the day, all the bikes managed to make it back together, and left under their own power. I certainly had a fun time and I believe everyone else did, too. Bill, Mike, Mik and Martin all stayed over, and in the morning everyone had breakfast before they got on the road.

A lot of people thanked me for putting this on, but I owe the thanks to everyone who came by. And espeically everyone who brought some kind of potluck item to share! Also, vielen Danke to Martin Lodahl, Richard Soennichsen and John Falconer for many of the photographs. You can see all of them here. You can also see the original RSVP page, and last year's event, the 3rd Annual Return of the Son of Surf City Tech Day.

See you at the 5th Annual, next year!