Spartanburg Rides, 2008 (BMW Performance Center) 56k = no

[WildBlue]

So, I attended the MOA's Spartanburg Rides this weekend, and it was awesome!

Here is a photo journal of my weekend.

We started Friday afternoon at the BMW Zentrum which is a Museum / Visitors Center.



The next three pictures are of the James Bond Z3 from "Goldeneye".







There is a very cool display of motorcycles through the ages suspended from what appears to be a steeply banked road.

[WildBlue]

More motorcycles in the Zentrum.





This GS had something to do with the 2002 Olympics in Salt Lake City.















Me outside the Zentrum.

[WildBlue]

Now for Saturday on at the Performance Center.

Me riding off to the staging area for the On Road Course behind the building.



The wife and I got a kick out of this poster on the inside of the Performance Center.



A pair of X6s.



Staging area for the Saturday morning On Road course.





Off we go!





Quick lap around our first area.



There were three areas, Obstacle Avoidance, Stopping, and clutch control / tight area maneuvering.

In Obstacle Avoidance we had to rapidly accelerate to 30 MPH then pull in the clutch, roll off the throttle, and swerve (left, right, back left to your original track) to avoid the obstacle. After avoiding the obstacle we had to come to a quick stop. If you did that well, we progressively went faster and to the left or right each run. We ultimately hit 50 MPH in this exercise.

They wouldn't allow my wife too close for safety reasons, so here are several shots on the return lap after the obstacle run.

[WildBlue]

The second area my group went to was the braking exercise. For those of us who had switchable ABS (I don't), they had to do several runs with and without ABS on.

Start off accelerate to 30 and stomp on the rear brake ONLY to a complete stop. One more time at 40. Now at 50 go for full front and rear brakes. Faster if you chose to.

The return laps on this course were either twistys or sweepers (your choice of route and speed). The most fun to be had on a return lap all day. No pictures here, as it was too far away from where they would allow my wife.

Here is an aerial photo of this section. Green line on the left was start, second green line is where you started to brake and the third was where to talk to the instructor. Red was the twistys and blue track for the sweeps. There is a significant amount of elevation change on this section of course that is not visible in the aerial photo.

When we were done braking, we had about 5-10 minutes of pure lap time on the red track, passing only on the straight.

[WildBlue]

These pitures are from the Clutch Control portion of the course. This was a big loop of inline weaves, offset weaves, reversing weaves, large and small figure eights, large and small 90 degree turns, large and small 90 degree right - 180 left - then 90 degree outs, and circles.

Initial Lap.



Circles.







90 in then 180 then 90 out... OOPS! (This was the smaller side)



Circles.



Final Lap.

[WildBlue]

Finally it was off to the time trials!

You started out with a lane change, then several reversing turns, a 1x6 to cross, a cone to circle, a cone to move from one side to the other (more on this later), and finally accelerate to the finish but upon finishing stop before the final red cones.

Time penalized for knocking cones over, going outside of the cones, falling off the board, not completing the circle, not moving the cone, and stopping beyond the red cones at the finish.

We all got two runs.

Staging for the trial.



Tight turns.





Crossing the board.



Circling the cone.



It's hard to see in the picture, but my throttle hand is reaching for the cone. (I missed on both runs.) There are 2 cones you can transfer the smaller cone to. One directly behind my 1150 and the one in front of me.



My first run time. +1 for missing the cone.

[WildBlue]

Run two!

Tight turns.











Circle.



Run time, +1 for falling off the board and +1 for missing the cone, but a big improvment over run one!

[WildBlue]

All in all a great time, I definately want to come back and run the full day course.

Me, super happy enjoying lunch.



My R1150R.



And one more in front of the BMW Performance Center.

[wncbmw]

I got back from a weekend trip to VA Sunday and went out with my wife for an afternoon coffee here in Asheville and a couple in full riding gear comes in. My wife notices she is wearing a BMW shirt. I look outside to see and RS parked and wander over to talk. They were just coming back from this event! He seemed quite happy with it. Actually had a similar grin on his face as yours!

Looks like a good time. I may have to find out when another one is going to happen, since it is only about 75 miles away.

[MikeCam]

Chris,

Great! Thanks for sharing the pics and the story.

M

[Photoguy]

That looks like great fun. Don't know how I'd do on the tight turns though... but I'd sure like to try