Just added a couple of events to this years calender.   We'll have a corral at the AHRMA Vintage Bike event at Road America, June 11-12.  Should be fun. 

Nora and Mark Hoesly have invited us back to Hoesly Mtn. for a campout Aug. 27-29.  This was a wonderful time last year, ask anyone who was there.  Contact Mark or your airmarshal for more info.

Hey folks, 2009 has been pretty good for riding and general Wis.  airhead stuff.   We had a great winter tech day at Rich Ryan's last winter.  A very successful tech day at Kevn K's in the spring.  Could have used another tech day or two but that's often the case.  Mark and Nora Hoesly hosted a great campout, feed and ride at their wonderful place in New Glarus in Aug.  The Wildcat Mtn Campout was fun as usual.  To add to that there is a barley therapy scheduled for the Delafield Brew Pub, the one out on the highway for Nove 21.  Hope to see you there.  So 2009 was fun, hopefully 2010 will be as good or better.  Some further events are listed in the repeat of one of my recent group emails below.  Take care folks.  Jeff T 

 What's the saying something like "Sort of like fun, only  different"  That's a bit how I felt about the Wildcat Mtn. Campout.  Three days of riding in the rain is a little much.  Though I will  say the goofy camraderie mostly makes up for it.  Great bunch of   folks as usual and their attitude makes up for weather, mostly.   Thanks to those who showed up.  The Minn. contingent was strong and  included Minn airmarshal Curt Henry, the IL bunch was mostly no  shows except for hearty Mark B.  24 signed up altogether, 13 showed up. Not bad  considering.   Another plus was I was a much better rain rider by  Sun. afternoon, can't wait to put that to good use.  The sun did  make an appearance about half an hour after I got home on Sun.  Glad  to hear Steve Z made it home OK. His /5 was having starter issues,  sounds like it was water related which isn't too hard to believe. 

 Michael Mcsherry has offered to have the winter tech day at his new  home in Waunakee.  The tentative date is Feb. 20.  It will be the  same drill as before limited to 15 signups and will be a potluck  lunch.  One tech subject will likely be steering bearings and would  appreciate other ideas and we will also need a bike or two to  perform on.  Other particulars to follow and will be on the website.

I also have penciled in some dates for Winter Barley Therapy.  Nov.  21 at the Delafield Brew Pub, the one out on the interstate.  Jan 17   at the Grumpy Troll brewpub in Mt Horeb.  I've also penciled in  March 20 without a location.  We'll see.  My guess would be show up  between 6-7 and well BS and have a burger.  Holler with ideas,  suggestions on dates locations etc.  It's a fluid thing until it happens. That seems to be all at present.  Let me know if you've anything else.
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Hey Airheads,  I've been slightly lax in keeping in touch so good time to
touch bases on  a few items.

Had a few events this past winter that were well attended.  John Tokarz
organized a Airheads at the Harley Museum event back in Jan.  Wish I could
have made it but sounds like it was a good time.  Thanks John.

Our winter tech day at Rich Ryans in Hartland was great fun and well
attended.  We did pushrod seals and a rear main seal on one of Rich's /5's.
I had a couple of folks get back to me already that they went home and did
similar jobs on their bikes.  That's sort of the idea of the winter tech
day.  To demostrate that many of these airhead maintenance projects are well
within the grasp of most of us and seeing them done helps develope the
confidence to tackle them.  Many thanks to Rich who was a wonderful host and
to the folks that brought food and helped out.  Not too soon to think about
where to have it next year and what projects you'd like to see demonstrated.

Just a couple of weekends ago Kevin Knuth had a tech day at his home in
Wauwatosa.  It was a milestone of sorts also as we actually got some real
work done.  John Lewis did a pushrod seal job on his /5.  Mark Hoesly was
having some fuel starvation issues on his bumblebee gs and John Tokarz tore
into that and seemed to solve that problem.  Another good time and thanks
much Kevin.


Mark Hoesly is going to host a campout, picnic and ride at his place in Mt
Horeb on August 8th.  You can come on Friday if you like, lots of room to
camp and sounds like Mark will start a fire.  Lee Potratz is going to lead a
group ride on Sat.  I or Mark will fill you in on other details.  Marks
phone is 608-424-3709 and address is W4007 Kammes Drive Belleville WI.  Let
Mark or me know what your plans are.  Sounds like a great time.

The Wildcat Mtn campout is Oct.  2-4 this year.  I missed out on the site we
had last year so we are in the smaller one in the woods.  It is limited to
25 people.  So first come first served there.  If more folks want to attend
they can reserve a regular campsite and come back and visit.  Camping is the
same $10 as in the past.  Your spot is reserved when you have paid.

That's all I can think of at the moment.  I've posted a few new photos to
the website and will update other items in the next day or two.

Thanks guys and have a fun and safe summer.

Jeff T

Our Wisconsin Airhead riding season got off to wonderful start here in May.  Last weekend May 10 saw David Paulus host a tech day in Wauwatosa.  The day say 12-14 airheads, doing the usual yakking, wrenching and eating.  One intrepid fellow and I apoligize for forgetting his name was putting some 40mm bings on his r100rt.  Not sure if he got done or needed a ride home.  We did get some better front braking on Rich Ryans toaster /5.  Turns out they were just badly glazed.  Kevin Knuth's r100 needed some carb syncing also so David gave us a demostration of his expertise.  I had a good time and certainly enjoyed the day and thank David for his hospitality.

 This morning, May 18 say a dozen folks meet on the old beltline in Madison for a airheads breakfast.  Lee Potratz organized the morning.  The owner of the restaurant is a friend and has a beemer and offered us his banquet room and free coffee.  I think everyone enjoyed the breakfast and the chilly ride over.  Thanks Lee

The Wisconsin Airheads had their first ever Winter Tech day on Feb. 9.  The premise is to demonstrate a couple of  jobs that we all will need to do sometime or other yet are intimidating if you haven't seen it done.  The two chosen were spline lubes and pushrod seal replacement.  Michael McSherry graciously offered use of his wonderful shop.  This shop is a wonderful museum of a lifelong love of motorcycles.  You could spend hours looking at photos, posters, signs, and other memorabilia not to  mention the bikes and
parts.

Attendance was limited to 15 due to the size of the shop and these folks had to swear to not using kids, soccer or weather as an excuse to not show up.  They did pretty well in that department.  One prominent airhead from south of the Wisconsin border did use work as an excuse at the last minute.  That 4 letter word will probably be included in next years attendance requirements.

This is a record snowfall year for Southern Wisconsin so was astonished when Milwaukee Airhead Andrew Hargarten showed up on his sidehack.  The hack is a oilhead gs1100.  At least he showed enough sense to not expose his airhead to the salt and grime.

Wis. Airmarshal Jeff Trapp did a spline lube on C. R, Krieger's recent Acquisition, a 1978 motosport rs.  After stuggling with rusty battery box mounts and removal of the usual mouse nest and dead mice, that job went smoothly.  It seems that one of the perceived difficulties of this job is pulling the swingarm pivots so you can pull the swingarm, tranny and wheel back as a unit to get at the splines.  Everyone seemed to appreciate that it isn't a big deal at all and the complete project is easily done in less than 2 hours.

For pushrod replacement demo, John Tokarz brought the engine out of his r100r.  He made a stand for the bare engine so everything was especially visible.  John makes a special effort to show how keeping track of things like rocker arm orientation etc.  makes this job relatively easy and doesn't have to take more than a hour or hour and half per side even for the first timer.  We've also found the simple green and some green scotchbrite pads make pretty quick work of decoking the heads and piston crowns.

Despite the  motorcycle mechanic theme, as usual, a highpoint for the day was lunch.  Mark Hoesly made a big pot of venison chili.  It was wonderful!  I've never seen mushrooms in chili before but now think it's a perfect match.  There was lots of other god food and drink offerings brought by the rest of the crew so no one left thirsty or hungry.

I'm guessing this will become a annual event for Wisconsin.  It served nicely to break up the long motocycleless winter and hopefully will encourage airheads to dive into their bikes like never before.

It's the same old song, bigger and better than ever.  The 2007 Wildcat Mtn campout had super weather, almost too hot, 27 folks attending over the weekend and a beautiful fun ride on Sat.  This year saw folks coming from all over Wis. and from Illinois and Minnesota.   There was a new route for Sat.'s ride that went north to avoid the gravel from repairs of the Aug. floods in the Gay's Mills and Soldiers Grove regions.  It was good fun and if you haven't attended a campout yet you should. The people, the bikes, Wildcat Mtn and the roads make it pretty special.

 The campout has reached a point where it probably is worth getting a group campsite.  We tried it the first year and there weren't enough folks.  It would make it easier as far as reservations etc. go.  I also will be emphasizing that it is a Wisconsin Airhead club event.  Classic BMW airhead motorcycles are the glue that started this event and what we all have in common and I don't think it would be wise to stray too far from that idea. 

 This will probably be the last update I make to this site.  I want to move it to a url that allows me to post photos etc. I'll post it here and on the Wis. airheads email list when I get it going again. It likely will be at the old URL I used to use.  It's free. 

 Jeff Trapp

 Wisconsin Airmarshal

I wondered if anyone was paying attention.  I guess a few, I've been negligent in keeping this site updated. The airheads are having some webmaster problems in general and the photo gallery on this site is goofed up and I haven't had any liuck getting the webmaster to respond to my appeals for help.  So the heck with him/

 We just wrapped up a fun and successful tech day at my home.  I'm amazed how airheads I haven't met yet seem to come out of the woods.  Half the folks here today were new faces.  Good folks and good fun.  Once again got a few things accomplished, some valve adjust and carb sycn lessons to folks looking to lean, some fluid changes and tire changes, including one from hell on Peter H's bike.   After a couple of punctured tubes, lots of verbal encouragement and a little blood it finally got changed.  Thanks for coming all.

 Also lately wrapped a very successful Airhead Central for the BMWMOA National Rally that was held in West Bend WI.  The Wisconsin Airheads did themselves pround.  Airhead Central was a very popular gathering spot of the tribe.  Even had sightseers stopping by to take photos of our comfortable hangout.  Oak liked the chair we reserved for him so much he took it home with him.  Thanks to all the people who helped out, bringing gear, finding furniture, helping set up and clean up.  Couldn't have happened without you. 

A couple of fun events are still coming up.  Rockerbox is Aug. 11. Always a fun event.  Then it's not too early to make a reservation for the Wildcat Mtn Campout, Oct 5-6-7 for Wildcat Mtn STate park if you plan to attend.  They let us put 3-4 folks per site so contact me or your buddies to fill up. 

Catch you later,  Jeff T