It’s not widely advertised, but about this time every winter a gathering of BMW “Airhead” motorcycles and their enthusiasts occurs in Naples, Florida. It’s technically a “Tech Day”, but it’s grown far beyond that into “Tech days” and maybe even “tech daze” as more than a few airhead bikes are treated to everything from mere valve adjustments to full on rebuilds. That’s just the tech side- A lot of us just show up to socialize and never lay hands on a wrench. And with good weather forecast and the fact that Airheads attack food with all the subtlety and reserve of a flock of locusts just breaking an involuntary fast, it was time to lay in some supplies…

This presented some logistical dilemmas… My first inclination was to bring in a New Panamax shipload of supplies, but it turns out that when the creator was handing out natural features Tampa and Miami got the harbors and Naples got the beach, and Miami’s just gettin’ started on dredging out their pond to New Panamax depths. Plan B was to bring in a unit train of supplies- a couple carloads of triscuits, couple more of brownies, a few boxcars of disposable plates/parts trays, etc.. And of course several tank cars full of adult beverages! But sadly, the tracks to Naples were pulled up long ago. So maybe we hook together triple 53 foot trailerloads of supplies and sneak them in on I-75, and if the troopers stop us we say that we we’re headed for the turnpike and got lost, and we didn’t know they only allowed three little trailers on the turnpike? But looking at the fancy remote sensing devices they’ve put on I-75 to sense something or other suspicious, that plan wasn’t gonna fly. That’s it- Fly the supplies in… But try as they might, Naples’ airport can only handle “puddlejumper” class aircraft that even a junior vice president of a bankrupt corporation would sneer at. Well heck, if the drug smugglers can land DC3s on the two lanes in Golden Gate Estates, why not?… Well, turns out that DC3s are now too rare and valuable for drug smugglers, and all the old drug smugglers have been released and are comfortably retired.

That left us but one alternative- a Costco run! After being distracted by tool boxes and floor jacks we overfilled a supersized Costco cart with supplies. That was just the first load of cups, “cutlery”, and such… The shopping for vittles ain’t even started yet! First arrivals are expected tomorrow, a good thing given that there’s an R100GS build and something like three transmission surgeries scheduled!

Stay tuned… the mechanical mayhem of the Naples Airhead Tech Daze is about to begin!