I re-entered the moto world in 1996 when I bought a BMW R80GS from my brother, Ed. At that time I didn’t have anyone to ride with, but would occasionally see other BMWs around town.
In the spring of 1998 Hammersley BMW in Lynchburg sent out invites to their spring open house and motorcycle flea market.
An idea occurred to me to try to get other BMW riders to ride over to Lynchburg for the event. I decided to place an ad in the Roanoke paper under motorcycles for sale. The ad read:
Airheads, Oilheads, Flying Bricks: If you know what I’m talking about lets meet for breakfast at K&W Crossroads and ride to Hammersley’s for the open house and flea market.
I had no idea who, if anyone would show up. Well that Saturday morning at least 15 motorcycles and riders were at the K&W. We had breakfast and then rode to Hammersley’s. Walking around checking out the for sale items talk of a local club came up.
A couple of us set a date for a Sunday breakfast at the Blue Jay Café near Dixie Caverns and put the word out. This was in May or June 1998. We had quite a few riders at the Blue Jay, and that was the first meeting of Twin Valley Riders.
After breakfast in the parking lot it was decided to start a club.
The name Twin Valley Riders was one of the suggestions, and we voted to name the club that.
There were a few non BMWs at that breakfast. We discussed whether we should be a BMW only club which some wanted, or be an all brand club. The vote to be all brand won by a large margin.
We met once a month in the beginning at the Blue Jay, then started adding other breakfast locations. I put out a monthly newsletter for several years. Then the internet developed to a point that the newsletter was not needed.
Hank also found the May 1999 issue of the Newsletter (First Anniversary Issue! )
Thanks to Jim Moss for finding a page of a 2001 Newsletter
