2016 was the year of the Chopper as the featured class and some great customs made the show.
BBC Rally Weekend 2016 Recap
2016 was the year of the Chopper as the featured class and some great customs made the show.Every July, the British Biker Cooperative puts on a great rally and bike show in the midst of the stunning beauty of the Lower Wisconsin Riverway, near Blue River, Wis. This year’s rally ran from July 15-17.The Brit-bike faithful who live up to the mantra, “Long live the Limey!” have held this great event for 36 years now, each year with a new theme and featured class of bike for the show. For 2016, it was a marked departure for the group of enthusiasts usually known to be sticklers for original equipment from matching frame and engine numbers to how many teeth the rear sprocket of a 1959 Triumph had.
Throwing caution and tradition to the wind, the BBC made this the year of the chopper! The BBC was rewarded for its daring; some spectacular choppers made the show something special.To belong to the BBC, one must own a traditionally British brand motorcycle—Royal Enfields are given a pass on their heritage despite having been built in India for decades—but any brand of bike and all manner of enthusiastic riders are welcome at the rally.The Rally is held at the Eagle Cave Natural Park high on a ridge just south of the Wisconsin River and a mile or so off STH 60 that threads its way along the river valley.The park facility itself is a gem with tours of Eagle Cave available, a small restaurant, showers and well-kept restrooms, paved main lot and access roads, camp sites, and a layout that facilitates “quiet” camping areas for those who want to get some sleep during the weekend, and not-so-quiet areas for those who take the attitude that they can sleep when they’re dead.2016 was the year of the Chopper as the featured class and some great customs made the show.The BBC makes it a lively and interesting event, but not so raucous as to give participants a headache. There’s live music Friday and Saturday night, door prizes, a 50/50 raffle, Team Triumph demo rides on the latest Triumph models, bike games, a poker run and BBC commemorative products on sale.Of course, there’s unlimited riding available in the rolling countryside, great conversation and the highlight of the weekend—the bike show. See the list of winners of each class below. For more information, visit BBC.For those venturing out and about and wanting to see even more bikes of all different persuasions, there is the totally unscripted, unofficial Lorum Ipsum Motorcycle Rally north of Blue River in Viroqua, Wis. It falls on the same Saturday during the rally and involves no formal anything and no fees or admission, yet can attract some very interesting iron—and riders.For those with a hunger to see some very rare, but very fine examples of post-WWII motorcycles, beautifully displayed there was the Vintage Cycle Room about 40 miles to the east, in Mazomanie that was open on the Sunday of the BBC Rally.The collection assembled by Carlo Krause and his wife Ingrid with the assistance of motorcycle archeologist Peter Kisgen includes some of the rarest light motorcycles that were extremely popular in the lean years after World War II. A block away from the Vintage Cycle Room, the Krause’s have also created the Midwest Microcar Museum.On hand to host riders that may stop in to check it out was Lonna Temple, who doesn’t ride a motorcycle herself, does a great job showing the collection and does like the vintage bicycle that is included in the collection as this image attests.
2016 BBC Bike Show Winners:
Featured Class (Choppers)
Chuck Taylor, Triumph TR6SS 1963
Jason Kesting, Triumph Homemade 1966-79
Jodon Ligman, Triumph TR6R 1971
Late Stock
Greg Sauvbier, BSA 250 Starlite 1968
Dan Smith, Triumph Bonneville 1968
Steve Aretz, Matchless G12 LSR 1965
Modern Retro
David Denemark, Triumph T100 2008
Ron Finster, Triumph T100 2007
Kyle Winkels, Triumph Bonneville
Modern Stock
Dave Miller, Triumph America 2009
Indian, Triumph America 2006
Tyler and Michelle Chamberlin, Triumph America 2002
Rat
Kyle Winkels, Triumph Trophy 1969
Custom
Ted Kukla, Triumph Bonnieville 1971
Greg Johnson, Triumph America 2006
Kyle Winkels, Triumph America 2003
Non-British
Brian O’Connell, Honda CL360 Scrambler 1975
Sunday Morgan, Malaguti 1976
Monika and Glen Winkels , Honda CRF 50F 2004
Radical
Wendy Smith, Triumph Rocket3 Trike 2012
Mariann White, Triumph Rocket3 Trike 2016
Eddy Smith, Triumph Rocket 3 Trike 2006
2016 British Biker Cooperative Rally Photo Gallery
Even a Triumph single can be cool: This little Triumph custom oozes cool!
2016 was the year of the Chopper as the featured class and some great customs made the show.
Lonna Temple hosted the exhibit at the Vintage Cycle Room.
The Vintage Cycle Room in Mazomanie features some very rare, superbly restored Post-war Euro bikes.
The Non-British class included some vintage Hondas. Brian O’Connell’s 1975 Honda CL360 Scrambler at the right won the class.
The weekend had great weather and an impressive line-up of bikes made the show.
Hello everyone and welcome once again to the Ultimate Motorcycling podcast—Motos and Friends. My name is Arthur Coldwells.
Motos and Friends is brought to you by the Yamaha YZF-R7—Yamaha’s awesome supersport machine that is as capable on the racetrack as it is on the street. …and it’s comfortable too! Check it out at at your local Yamaha dealer, or of course at YamahaMotorsports.com.
In this week’s first segment, Senior Editor Nic de Sena rides the BMW K 1600 GT. This is the sporty bagger version of BMW’s K series of machines, those are the models with the awesome 6-cylinder engine. The GT has been given a little makeover for 2023, and Nic gives us his take.
In the second segment, I chat with one of my all time heroes—three-time World Champion racer ‘fast’ Freddie Spencer. I’ll do my best not to come off as too much of a fanboy here, but frankly it’ll be tough!
In my humble opinion, Spencer is a contender for the GOAT—greatest of all time. Sure, his career was a little shorter than some, and his number of championships falls behind the likes of Lawson, Doohan, Rossi, and of course Marquez. But at the time, Freddie literally changed the way motorcycles were ridden. 30 years before Marc Marquez, Freddie was able to push the front wheel into a slide, corner after corner, lap after lap in order to get the bike turned faster than anyone else. Freddie took completely different lines and was able to get on the throttle so early he could out accelerate anyone off a corner.
In the modern era, of course Freddie is the chairman of the FIM MotoGP Stewards panel. This is the panel of referees for all three classes of Grand prix racing. I talked to Freddie about his task there, and although for contractual reasons with Dorna and the FIM he cannot talk about specific riders, teams, or events, nevertheless his explanation of the job makes for interesting listening. It’s a tough job, and frankly I wouldn’t want to do it!
At any rate, Freddie’s new book ‘Feel’ is available on Amazon—I’d highly recommend you reading it whether you’re a fan of Freddie or not, even whether you’re into racing or not; every rider has something to learn from his mental approach.
Actually—Ultimate Motorcycling is giving away five copies of the book—signed by Freddie himself—to the first five listeners who contact us with the correct answer to the question: How many national AMA championships did Freddie win, and which years were they?
Please email your answers to producer@ultimatemotorcycling.com and we will contact the winners and send you a signed copy of Feel. Those five winners will be announced on a future episode. Unfortunately for legal reasons this offer is ONLY open to US residents.
So, from all of us here at Ultimate Motorcycling, we hope you enjoy this episode!
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