September2016

Club Night 13th September Eastham Ferry Hotel Ferry Road Eastham CH62 0AU

Issue No 218

September 2016

W I R R A L A D VA N C E D M O TO R C Y C L I S T S Group Council 2016-2017 Web Site

IAM Group 5115 http://www.w-a-m.co.uk

Chairman

Tim Brown

chairman@w-a-m.co.uk

Vice Chairman

Ken Smith

vicechairman@w-a-m.co.uk

Honorary Treasurer

Tim Holme

treasurer@w-a-m.co.uk

Membership

Nina Jeffries

membership@w-a-m.co.uk

Associate Coordinator

Derek Jeffries

associatecoordinator@w-a-m.co.uk

Chief Observer

Mike Boston

chiefobserver@w-a-m.co.uk

Honorary Secretary

Rob Cooper 0151 648 4503

secretary@w-a-m.co.uk

Events Organiser

Dave Spotswood events@w-a-m.co.uk

Newsletter Editor & WebMeister

Peter Lovatt

newsletter@w-a-m.co.uk

Minute Secretary & Social Media

Steve Lord

socialmedia@w-a-m.co.uk

Group Shop

Martin Titley 0151 632 3570

groupshop@w-a-m.co.uk

Gift Aid Coordinator

Tim Holme

giftaid@w-a-m.co.uk

Ride Out Coordinator

Rob Tutchings

rideouts@w-a-m.co.uk

Other Council members Lindsay Boston Carl Mason Cliff Evans Graeme Thow

MAGAZINE TEAM:

CONTACT WAM

Editor: Peter Lovatt

Rob Cooper Coopers Upholstery The Old Bank Everton Valley Liverpool L5 0RH

Duplication: C3 Imaging, Liverpool Distribution: The Post Office!

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Welcome to the September edition of the WAM magazine.

This will be the first paper edition of the mag since earlier this year, as I’ve been up to my eyeballs with house renovation and upgrade, which, by the time you read this, should be by and large complete. Well, at least this current phase, anyway. Thanks to all who have contributed content, it’s very much appreciated. It makes my life a bit easier, as I don’t have to go and regurgitate old copy from previous magazines, or plunder the web for stuff. It’s also written by club members, so the content is topical. Feel free to contribute anything for the mag, its all very welcome!

OK, enough of the waffle, so what has been going on? Well we’ve had the WAM Barbeque on the 12th July, see the pix below, and as usual a BIG THANKS to Dave and Steve for organising this, including doing the cooking!

At the time of typing this up, the September club night topic has yet to be finalised, but it promises to be a good one.

We've had a few passes to in various categories, so Congratulations to all who have passed the various tests - see inside this issue.

STOP PRESS:

Derek has organised a short break in Scotland from the 23rd June 2017 for 3 nights at the Ben Nevis Hotel, Fort William. A rate of £56.00 per person per night to include dinner, bed and breakfast and a single room supplement of £16.00 per night will apply.

Places are filling up fast, so if you want to come, please contact Derek, email address opposite or Mobile phone 07957-341692 Pete

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WIRRAL ADVANCED MOTORCYCLISTS

Diary of Events www.w-a-m.co.uk *************************

September

13th Club Night - Club night *************************

This is the link for the WAM Official Forum, set up for Members of Wirral Advanced Motorcyclists ONLY. It is a forum for Associates, Observers, and members of WAM to discuss Official Group Rides out, riding techniques, FLC matters, and similar topics. To join you MUST give your name and Postcode when you Subscribe.

Group name: WAMOfficialForum Group home page: http://uk.groups.yahoo.com/group/WAMOfficialForum

Subscribe: to subscribe to the group send a BLANK email to WAMOfficialForum-subscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk Unsubscribe: to UNsubscribe to the group send a BLANK email to WAMOfficialForum-unsubscribe@yahoogroups.co.uk Once your submission has been approved, you can then post emails.

WAM Dates FLC 3 is 4th September to 15th October Proposed official ride out dates - subject to confirmation Sunday 28th August and Sunday 23rd October.

Bikesafe dates August 20th/21st, September 10th/11th, October 8th/9th

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Chairman’s Chatter You’ll all now be aware of the new IAM RoadSmart branding; its first appearance within the group was on the new gazebo at the Irby bike show in May. This is more than just a makeover - the IAM as an organisation is working hard to make itself more engaging, approachable and relevant to all road users. The familiar roundels will remain and, as I’m known to be a ‘badge-collector’, the green roundel sticker will continue to be displayed on the front of my bikes. Skill for Life has been updated to Advanced Rider Training, with refreshed learning material and an emphasis on developing ‘thinking riders’. You’ll see the new branding spread across everything we do as a group, so we can maximise our association with the IAM. We must remember the aims of our group: (1.) …for the public benefit to promote the improvement of the standard of motorcycling and the advancement of road safety. (2.) To encourage and assist motorcyclists to become members of the IAM and to maintain their IAM and Group membership.

Our dedicated observers give their time generously to the first aim. WAM is doing well updating our team to the IMI standards when compared to our regional counterparts - with 10 National Observers we’re 64% ahead and with 9 Local Observers we’re 360% ahead of the average. Thanks goes to Mike Boston (Chief Observer) and Derek Jeffries (Associate Coordinator) for making this happen, and to our qualified National Observers for their extra effort. We need to complete the training of all our group observers to achieve IMI qualification by the end of 2017. The purpose of which, is to ensure that associates have a consistent training experience with any of our observers and that this will be in-line with IAM RoadSmart groups nationally.

With regard to our second aim, this is where we all need to do our bit. There are many ways we can help. Talk to other bikers about WAM – it’s social meets & ride-outs and that we’re together because of Advanced Rider Training; remember that our monthly meetings are open to guests too; support your group’s efforts when it attends an event; when you’re out-and-about on the Wirral at places where bikers may visit, take it upon yourself to put up a WAM/IAM RoadSmart poster. We have a half-price offer for those who are 30 years old and under – A5 flyers are available and details are on the website and Facebook. Trying to convince younger riders that advanced rider training is worthwhile is an ongoing challenge within the biker community and this is summed-up quickly in the recent Tweet from @DorsetBikeCop shown here.

So let’s do what we can for the Wirral.

Tim Brown chairman@w-a-m.co.uk

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WAM Social Media Update Since taking over responsibility for our Social Media after the AGM, I have looked to increase our presence on Twitter and Facebook by introducing more content to both streams, so we can increase the number of followers. Assisted by Chairman Tim on Facebook, the number of followers has increased and as a consequence, we have signed up two associates this year who made initial contact by both Facebook or Twitter!

We currently have a bigger following on Twitter which reflects the easier way that Twitter works, in that it is open to all and not as with Facebook, were you can restrict who sees your posts, etc. IAM have latched onto this as well and they currently have over 11,600 followers! Currently we have over 134 regular followers on Twitter and 116 people on Facebook. Both medias are open access, so just like a website, anyone can do a search and read our content.

So in reality, many more people have seen both our Twitter and Facebook feeds.

This is especially so when several of our followers like what has been written or posted and then, re-tweet or re-post it to their followers.

So for example, when I tweeted from the Shippons Bike Show with photos of our new gazebo and bikes on show, one of the tweets was read by 2,956 people with three followers re-tweeting it to a potential audience of 12,882 followers!

Facebook is starting to grow and a July re-post from Norwich’s Think Bike campaign of “Sweat it or regret it” was seen by 256 people and start-

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ed a debate with three comments on the pros and cons of both of wearing or not wearing protective clothing in hot weather!

If you are not on Twitter or Facebook, fear not, as Tim and I are planning to do a presentation to cut through all the jargon at the October Club Night.

In the meantime, if you do have access to Facebook or Twitter, you can still search on the internet for “Facebook Wirral Advanced Motorcyclists” and you will see all our posts to date. For Twitter you can do a similar search, “Twitter Wirral Advance Motorcyclists” or on the front page of our website, you can see all our Twitter feed to date.

Steve Lord ****************************

As I’ve been sorting through a lot, no not a lot, a mountain of stuff all this year, I came across this flyer for WAM from the 1980’s when the club had their meetings at the Black Horse Pub in West Kirby. Some good times there, for those who were in the club then (including me!)

But it’s amazing how things have moved on in attracting members, don’t you agree, looking at Steve’s write up.

Pete

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The Four Amigos On Tour In Spain During June, Chairman Tim, led Rob C, Dave Spot and myself over to Northern Spain. We took the ferry from Portsmouth to Bilbao with the returned booked from Santander, just over a week later.

Queue for the boat at Portsmouth

ing looked doomed! The only decent weather looked to be just north of Madrid which was sheltered by the Sierra de Guadarrama, Sierra del Norte and the Sierra de Gredos ranges…so on the boat over, a final decision was made and we headed south loaded with the camping gear on all four bikes!

We had planned some brilliant routes all around The Pyrenees but very unseasonal weather forced us to change our plans a few days before we left which was finalised on the Ferry over.

For the whole week we were there, heavy rain was forecasted with overnight temperatures of below 5c, so our plans for camp-

Strapped down for the Bay of Biscuit!

On the first day, we made our way down via Logrono and we found some great roads. One impression that will live with us all, was seeing the view of a huge Spanish plain as far as the eye could see, as we descended one of the Sierras with no buildings or any industry!

Our first night under canvass was out of the question due to the weather, so we booked into a B & B or “Hostal’s”, as they call them, at Castrillo de la Vega which was Route planning on the Ferry

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Amigos pit stop.

our mid-way point. The next day, again we found some brilliant roads over to the ancient city of Segovia with the odd castle or three and an Aquaduct!

We just managed to dodge the rain that was forecasted but unfortunately, we couldn’t dodge the el torrents that followed, as we climbed to go over one of the Sierra’s to our planned base at Escorial, just north of Madrid. Again, even though we had booked a camping site, camping was out of the question due to the rain and cold overnight temperatures of 5c and we were still at 1,900 metres above sea level so… we booked a log cabin on the camp site for two nights instead!

This was a great base for us to explore the Sierras west and east of North Madrid over the two days and importantly, keeping us dry…apart from when we climbed over the same top that gave us el torrents the day before and this time, it gave us freezing temperatures and fog in June! Once through that, I pleased 9

to say the rest of day got warmer as we explored the Sierras NE of Madrid.

Just by chance we discovered the charming town of Vilanueva de la Vera with buildings dating back to 1784. We entered the town down a very narrow street with tall buildings either side, thinking this can’t be the way in and then, a large square with café’s greeted us. I have to say this one of the highlights of the trip but there were so many! It would have been rude not to stop and have some lunch, so we parked the bikes up under arches of the buildings!

After two days exploring the Sierra’s NW and NE of Madrid, the

Handy to have an extra pair of arms while riding in the wet!

weather was starting to improve, so changed our plans and made our way north again towards the Picos mountain range and our overnight stop at the town of Avila which provided the best entertainment so far. Two Guardia came into the café to ask who this bike ignition key belonged to. Having seen the Ducati logo, Rob 10

The main road into Vilanueva de la Vera screamed, “It’s mine!” and then he proceeded to jump up and hug one of the Guardia! I wasn’t sure if he was going to be arrested at that point but it turned out that they were bikers themselves…so they must be used to bikers hugging the Guardia in Spain then!

After Avila, it was a quick blast up the motorways to our final destination…The Picos de Europa. Again with no accommodation booked and it still too cold for camping, we headed for the town of Aguilar de Campoo on the edge of the Picos.

While Spotty and I looked after the bikes, Tim and Rob headed for the local tourist office to find accommodation, as via Booking.com was fully booked for the area. We found out that there was a Triathlon and Vintage Car Rally on that weekend, so everything was booked in the town but we could try a small hostel in a village called Mave? So slightly Bikes cooling off under the “No Parking” sign! concerned, we made our way to Mave to find the Hostal Bar La Llave and what a find it was! Nicely furnished and run by a local young couple who didn’t speak a word of English…thank god for Google Translator!

This was an excellent base for our final two days in the Picos. How would you describe the Picos? I suppose the Spanish version of the Lake District and the Highlands rolled into one? Fantastic twisties and switchbacks, roads in good condition and fabulous weather (it wasn’t two days previous by the way!).

So, after two brilliant days in the Picos, we made our way back to Santander for the return “Cruise” ferry back to Portsmouth. By being able to be flexible with our plans, we managed to dodge all the bad weather and a lesson learned there for next time. We spoke to a couple of bikers who we saw on the way out and they had accommodation booked and paid for in the Pyrenees and it was only the last two days that it stopped raining!

We left the port in bright sunshine, only for the cloud to descend after two hours 11

A panorama of the Picos Amigos! and for the Bay of Biscay to give us it’s best shot which resulted in a very uncomfortable night’s sleep and for myself, nearly getting thrown out of the top bunk in our cabin, as we hit a big bow wave around

3 in the morning! After the boat docked, it was a blast up north with some swift filtering on the M6 during the Birmingham rush hour and then the A41 back home.

So, it looks like the Pyrenees will be back on the agenda for next year’s outing but with a plan B, just in case!

Bikes parked outside Hostal La Llave

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Associate Co-Ordinator report August 2016 The second course of the year is now complete. We have had 8 new associates who have attended. One has passed their test, two are having their tests shortly and three should be test ready in the near future. The remaining two will be rolled over to the next course.

We currently have three associates who are not on a fixed length course and are having sessions on an ad-hoc basis when they are free and we have an observer free. One of these lives in Malta and we fit him in when he is back so our reputation is world-wide!!

The new course starts on Saturday, 3rd September. This will be using the new course material supplied by the IAM, replacing How To Be A Better Rider with a new manual and this embodies many changes.

There will be an observer training day on the 20 th August which should highlight the way forward.

At the moment, we have three new associates starting in September and with the returning ones, we have the capacity for more so spread the word. **************************

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IAM Test Passes and Observer Passes So it’s Congratulations to:-Steve Threlfall who's passed his IAM test.

Congratulation to observer Carl Mason on passing his National Observer Qualification. He passed with flying colours!

Congratulations to observer Tony Barber who passed his Masters test.

Tony is first member of WAM to achieve this.

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Steve Molyneux STEVE Molyneux being presented his IAM pass cert from Dave Rees

Rob Burns being presented his IAM pass cert from Tim Brown

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Alan Ireland receives his IAM test certificate from Examiner Dennis Nicholls

John Temple receives his IAM test certificate from Examiner Dennis Nicholls

Kate Williams receives her IAM test certificate from Examiner Dennis Nicholls

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DISCLAIMER:-

The articles published herein do not necessarily represent the views of the Institute of Advanced Motorists Ltd, or the Wirral Group of Advanced Motorcyclists. They are the opinions of individual contributors and are published with the view that free expression promotes discussion and interests. So you have been warned.

Interested in doing the Advanced Car Test? Wirral Advanced Motorists are the people to see. Go to www.wirraliam.co.uk