Introducing……Club Mileage Awards

Have you clocked up 100,000km, 200,000km or more on one bike?

To celebrate the epic achievements of these milestones, the Club will be issuing Mileage Award Medallions and Certificates to those who qualify. It can be for any make and model of bike that has reached these impressive kilometers in your ownership, and must still be in your ownership.

To nominate your bike, email our Secretary, Geoff Hodge on secretary@bmwmcq.org.au with:

• Photo of the bike or you with bike - this photo will feature on your certificate so a good quality photo will enhance the certificate

• Where and when purchased and mileage at time of purchase

• Photo of the odometer to show the kilometers.

Presentations have started at the monthly meetings – so get your details in!

JOHN EACOTT’S 4TH K1600 GT PURCHASED ON OCTOBER 3RD 2017. IT REACHED THE MAGIC 100,000KM ON JANUARY 19TH 2020

Bmwmcq Training Course Subsidy

Your club encourages all members to continue to improve as a rider and offers a financial incentive to foster greater uptake in rider training. A broad interpretation of training has been adopted to include First Aid Training and Traffic Accident site safety management. The intention of the subsidy scheme is to not only improve the road craft of individual members but also to enhance the safety and enjoyment of club runs and events for all participating members.

These are the simple rules to qualify for a subsidy:

1. Every financial member is eligible.

2. Subsidy is limited to one in three years for each member eg subsidy February 2022 re-eligible February 2025.

3. Subsidy provided in the form of a $50 reimbursement after course has been completed and invoice presented to the Treasurer.

4. The applicant must present details and receive approval for the intended training course from the Club Secretary prior to the course being undertaken.

There you have it, an incentive to help to make you a better and safer rider. If you undertake a course please let us know your thoughts on the success of the course, positive or negative.

Tony Gray - President BMWMCQ

GO2 PATAGONIA THEY SAID, YOU WILL HAVE FUN THEY SAID!

By Margreth Van Aartsen, Member #4496

Nic often will stop and take some photos along the ride, there sometimes just isn’t time or an appropriate place to stop. This prompted me into looking for something I could use myself, either mounted on the bike itself or on my helmet, in order to be able to capture moments from behind the handlebars.

Likeour intrepid editors, we have recently completed a trip through Patagonia with Compass Expeditions. While Cindy and Duncan continue their South American tour, we will await their write up of all the adventures. I have no doubt their translation of the Wild Patagonian Winds and fist sized marbles you have to navigate on ‘The Damned 73 km’ of Ruta 40 will be much more detailed than my attempt.

This piece includes a visual teaser though. The photos were taken with an Insta360 GO2 camera and this is my very non-technical review of this newly purchased tech-toy.

As you do these days, the search for a suitable camera started online. My criteria were relatively simple – I wanted something small and easy to use. Something that was 1) going to be light and compact to take along on travels, 2) not look like a massive rock sitting on my helmet or bike and 3) was able to do video and still photos at good quality.

These searches led me to the Insta GO2. At that time I had never even heard of the brand but I was immediately fascinated by the size of the camera, being not much bigger than your thumb. So, the next steps of research ensued, including more googling and many YouTube reviews… needless to say, I was impressed enough and into the shopping cart it went. I am very happy with my purchase; it was ticking all the boxes I wanted ticked and it is relatively easy to use.

As some of you may know, I have come into riding only later in my life. As a pillion I loved sitting on the back having the freedom of clicking away with the camera on the go. Now that my husband and I both ride, I quickly realised that there was hole in our photo documentation of our trips. Though

My review will be touching on things from a user perspective, focusing on what I find positive, the short comings or “good-to-knows” prior to purchasing. I am by no means a tech guru nor an expert in photography (being very much a happy snapper). Therefore, I will leave the techreviews for the experts who have done them to death and are out there on the Interwebs for you to pursue, should you be interested.

The first thing to clarify is that this is not a 360-degree camera. The brand name ‘Insta360’, makes for the confusion. They actually produce several different types of cameras and their 360-degree camera is the ‘X’, with the latest update being the ‘X3’. These seem to become quite popular amongst video bloggers. what you have first, it may be interchangeable. For example, handlebar mounts used for old cameras might be compatible with this camera, as the screw-on fittings seem to be standardised. It was specifically compatible with some of Nic’s old GoPro mounts.

I deliberately steered clear of the 360-degree camera. The main reason is that I wanted something simple and the 360-degree cameras are not only a bulkier thing to mount but the footage seem to require quite a bit of editing afterwards to create a useable video. I am not planning to become a video-blogger and to me, this seemed overkill for what I wanted.

The GO2 comes in two sizes, a 34G and 64G, referring of course to the storage capacity. The camera comes in a small charge case which is very handy, as you can quickly re-charge your camera on the go, for example when you stopped for coffee or lunch, as it takes only 35 minutes to recharge in its case. Having used it at length in Patagonia, I have only needed a recharge on the go when shooting HD-video, in other settings the battery seems to last quite well.

There are a multitude of settings you can use, like HD video, slow-motion, timelapse, hyperlapse and there are a variety of photo settings as well. Therefore, this little thing quickly becomes a good all-rounder on a trip, even for shooting off-bike activities. It has a wide-angle lens, able to really capture the vastness of the beautiful landscapes we often ride through. It is waterproof, so no need to worry if it starts raining. The camera’s horizon stabilisation is excellent, which means you can mount it either vertical, horizontal or neither, the footage will be the same.

The box it comes in includes a variety of mounts. Before you purchase any add-ons, be sure to check

After purchasing mine, I played around with a few mounting positions on the bike itself, but found that having it mounted on the helmet was the best option for me. I was not keen on sticking things on my helmet, nor was I wanting to put all my faith in the 3M stick-on mounts, though they might probably be fine. So, instead I purchased a TELESIN chin-mount. It fits securely with Velcro straps, making it easy to transfer from one helmet to another, should you want to. You do have to make sure to really pull the straps tight though. The mount fitting is universal and I secured the camera with the standard action screw-on mount that came in the box. At about 30g, you don’t even know it’s there. It’s in easy reach to quickly push the snap button on the go. Having survived 90km/h+ side winds in Patagonia, I can attest to the sturdiness of this set-up. ‘It ain’t goin’ nowhere’. You do have to make sure to firmly tighten the mount screw. Trust me, you know it’s not tight enough when you click the snap button and you push the camera angle backwards, thereby ensuring excellent footage of your nasal cavity.

Of all the settings at hand, I have only used three on a regular basis to date. The quality of the HDvideo is excellent and, in my opinion, comparable to the well-known GoPro. In the HD setting you have the extra benefit of ‘flow state stability’, making for very smooth footage. The HD video does chew up a considerable amount of battery and storage fast. On HD setting you can take about 10 minutes of video on the 34G. At first, I thought this is useless but 10 minutes of footage is actually quite a bit. I would reserve this for videos of rides in twisties or scenarios where there is a constant change of scenery. To save storage, or on longer rides, I really like the Hyperlapse (Timeshift) option, this allows you to capture longer stretches without depleting the memory in one go. The video quality is not as good as HD but still plenty good enough for detailed recalls of the fun. Taking footage directly into the sun is not great due to lens flare. There are addon filters you can buy, but I have not investigated these. I find this not to be a critical issue, as you just need to be aware your footage won’t be great and not waste too much of your video filming directly into the sun. when your camera is connected to your phone it won’t have connection with your hotels internetwifi, should you be relying on this for connection to the outside world while traveling.)

No product is perfect. The following are not necessarily negatives, but are good to know prior to purchasing.

I quickly realised that taking any form of video when riding through the vast open planes of Patagonia is a waste of time. There simply isn’t enough detail or variation to make for interesting footage. In these scenarios, taking the odd single snap-shot on the fly is a better option. You do have to be aware that it takes a second from pushing the button to when the photo is actually taken. So, the camera is really good for capturing landscapes and the surrounds. When going at 100kph, don’t expect a detailed capture of the odd lama next to the road; for those you are still better off stopping and taking a proper still shot.

Setting up the camera is relatively easy. There are a lot of step-by-step guides on the internet. I also relied on recommendations from the internet and YouTube tutorials to choose the resolution settings for the photos and videos. Once this is set up and you have played with the settings a little in the comfort of your own home, it is all quite straight forward and the camera becomes a simple click and play/shoot device.

The camera has a great interface with an app on your phone. The app allows you to set up some of the device settings, which is a little less fiddly than having to do it on the camera itself. The camera interfaces with the phone app via direct wifi (not Bluetooth), making it easy to preview your footage, download it to your phone and/ or delete immediately what you do not want. The app also allows for very easy editing of your footage prior to exporting it to your phone. The exported footage will be in a ready to use and share format. (On a side note: be aware that

The first thing to be aware of is that the GO2 does not have a preview screen. You can preview a live image via the app on your phone, if you want to make sure your camera angle is set up properly. For use on the bike, I have not once done this. Given the wide-angle lens you are almost guaranteed a good shot. On any given trip, when viewing your photos at the end of the day, you might find on some days the angle is a bit low and other days a bit high and by day 3-4 you pretty much figured out the correct angle by just eyeballing it. The GO2 has two trigger settings; a single tap and a double tap. You can easily customise what you want this to be in your app. I have it currently set-up as single tap = still photo and double tap = hyperlapse video. However, if you find yourself wanting another combination it can easily be changed on the go via the app. You stop the video recording by clicking the trigger button again. You can also set it up in the app to automatically switch off after a certain amount of time, this is handy as it will prevent you using all your data if you accidentally forget to click it off or find yourself in a gnarly situation, unwilling to let go of the handlebars to click it off! (For example, holding on for dear life through those marbles – that is if you found a safe window to actually tap it on to record the evidence!)

Engaging this on/off button can be a bit confusing at first, as you have no way of knowing if the thing is recording or not. There is no light or other visual warning to help you out, if mounted on the bike itself. The camera does give off a little vibration, which you can feel when it’s mounted on the helmet, so that is helpful. However, at high speeds and with a lot of wind noise, I find that these vibrations are often not that obvious. With a little practice you do quickly get used to the feel of the button click, even with a glove on. I found the only ‘stuff-ups’ I’ve had was thinking I switched off videoing but didn’t. The other thing is not to forget to format the camera the night before, to make sure you have a clean slate every day. different snippets. Hopefully a future update will bring the Studio version on par with the app.

Be aware that the files are large. If, like me, you get a bit trigger happy when visiting new places and also use your phone for taking photos when off the bike, you will find that also exporting the GO2 files to your phone will quickly use up your storage if you are on a trip that is longer than a week and half. This means you need extra storage to download your footage, especially if you are planning to only edit things by the time you get home. Good to know is that the files are in a RAW format, when downloading the files directly from your camera onto your laptop. HD videos generally get downloaded as two files (one low quality for preview and one high quality for editing). The photos download in a fish-eye format, and therefore are not ready to use, as they are when downloading them in the app. There is an editing program for the laptop called Insta 360 Studio. The problem with this is that the interface is not as user friendly as the app; I had to refer to several online tutorials to help me out with some technical workarounds and export glitches, requiring specific settings. Secondly, the current version does not have all the editing features that the app has. This is rather frustrating, for example you cannot compile one video by merging a whole lot of

There are work arounds for this, because the files are in a format that can be edited in other types of photo and video editing programs, should you wish to do so. My work around for it is to simply use my Apple iPad as my “go to” device for editing and downloading my footage, keeping it separate from my phone. The Insta360 app is so easy to use and on the iPad the image is obviously a little easier to view. Once you have set up your preferred viewing settings, the photos are pretty much ready for export. You can choose to edit them in the Insta app or in your photos-app once exported. Video editing within the app is self-explanatory and super easy. It allows you to speed up/ slow down footage, easily merge different videos, add (free to use) music etc. The app also features an AI editing option to create videos. I have not played around with this yet, but suspect it might be more useful applying it to the 360-degree videos. There is also a feature to easily take a snap-shot from your video. I have found this particularly useful, as I often find that some of the videos are pointless to keep, but this allows me to easily take a still shot of the key feature in the video, automatically saving it as a single photo to your photo library.

In summary: If you are looking for a small, easily transportable and easy to use camera to capture your adventures, I can highly recommend the GO2. It is such a fun little thing which you can easily stick in your pocket and take anywhere. I have even used it with the cap-clip on some hikes. My advice would be that, whatever you purchase, make sure to play around with it on some non-critical rides first and mount it in different settings to find what works for you. It only takes a few rides to figure things out. It is totally worth investing in something like this if you are keen to have some awesome visual documentation of your adventures. Happy snapping!

MAINTENANCE TIP - LOOK UNDER THE SEAT

By Tony Gray, Member #3905

Itakepride and get a great deal of pleasure from servicing and looking after the Gray Ghost - our 2007 R1200GS. We have covered close to 240,000km on her during our 13+ years of ownership. Yep I think I know her pretty well. She has only ever had one failure on the road during that time and that was a blown seal & collapsed bearings in the final drive many years ago. I lay the blame for that failure at the feet of BMW as the spec for those models was 230cc of oil in the FD. The spec was subsequently revised down to 180cc and I have never had another problem. It would appear that the original 230cc built pressure in the FD that was too much for the oil seal to withstand. Fast forward to February 2023 and Jane and I were returning to our motel from a day trip to the northernmost point of NZ’s North Island at Cape Reinga. It was late afternoon and we stopped at major roadworks still 50km from ‘home’. We got the green light to go after a 5 minute wait, I fired up the GG, moved five metres then everything went blank. Nothing, zilch, not even an indicator light. I pushed the bike to the side of the road in a safe area and lifted the seat. The battery connections were both tight but the (12 month old) battery was DEAD as a Dodo. What had happened was the rider seat support bar (metal) had somehow bridged the battery terminals dead shorting the battery. This had created enough heat to melt the nylon webbing straps of the tank bag where they touched the bar.

A good bloke and fellow biker by the name of Brent pulled up in his 4x4 and offered to help. After I advised that the last rites were to be administered to my battery he took off home and returned 10 minutes later with a smaller AGM battery that he had removed from his Kawasaki Cruiser. I connected the new battery, fired up the GG and returned to our Motel after much thanks to Brent who refused any payment for the battery. He said it was a bit undersized for his bike so he had replaced it recently with a more powerful battery. What a champion. I had to put a 2x1 pine block under the battery strap to safely secure the smaller emergency battery. We were able to get a proper sized battery the next day in Whangarei with advice from our good friends from the BMWMC of NZ.

I am totally in the dark as to how the bar could have bridged the battery as there is clearance below the bar, the battery was still securely strapped into position, the bar was not bent or deformed in any way so it remains a mystery. If anyone has a bright idea (pun intended) please let me know and put me to rest. The Guru of all things electric, Les Fitzpatrick, told me that he held concerns that such an occurrence was a possibility so insulates the metal bar and puts additional rubber under the bar on his GSA. This little wood duck will do likewise henceforth and

I suggest you do similar if you have one of these models.

The February mid-week ride was very capably led by Michael Ahlberg and tail-ended by Ann. Around 10 bikes rode on some scenic Sunshine Coast Hinterland roads over the 150km in ideal weather conditions - unlike the previous few days. A BYO lunch was enjoyed at the Glasshouse Mountains Lookout where a curious goanna joined in the fun. Thank you Michael and Ann!