INTRODUCTION TO... Jay Kuhns, Club Vice President

I'm Jay Kuhns, your current vice president. I was born and raised in Colorado Springs. Graduated from Palmer High Class of 1965, plus two Associate degrees of applied science from Pike Peak Community College. I'm a charter life member of the American motorcycle association, BMW MOA ambassador, charter member of Pikes Peak BMW riders, life member of VFW Post 3917 and life member USS Forrestall association.

I guess I can say that I have been around motorcycles most of my life. Where I grew up just south of downtown Colorado Springs, I could see the Harley Davidson motorcycle dealership from my front door. My older brother, by 9 years, worked part time at that dealership while he was in high school. So needless to say I spent some time over there being in the way.  My mother would never let me have a motor scooter or motorcycle while I was in high school.But after I returned home from four years in the Navy was when I really got involved in motorcycles. It all started  with dirt bike riding with my brother and his friends. In 1973 I got a CL450 Honda Street bike. Then in 1975 I bought a brand new 1975 BMW R90/6. In May of 1975 we started the local club and in September we received our charter with BMW MOA. That summer I attended my first rally which was the Top o' the Rockies. The spring of 1976 I attended bike week in Daytona Beach, FL where I met some of the shakers and movers in the BMW MOA. Then that summer I attended my first BMW MOA national rally in Oshkosh WI, and met the rally chair for the 1977 rally to be held In Colorado Springs at the Flying W Ranch. Through the rest of that year and next spring I spent considerable time helping to put that rally together. Somewhere through the late 70s I ended up with a starter wife and a ready made family. So motorcycle riding had to take a backseat to other responsibilities. This would all change in the mid to late 80s. A back injury that led to surgery ended my career as a sheet metal worker. My two step children were both grown and on their own, my starter wife went her way and I went mine.

In the spring of 1989 I found work in the aviation industry again, this time it was in manufacturing, where before in the Navy it was maintenance. In the early 90s I met Nancy and to my surprise she had more miles on BMW motorcycles than I did. For the next 25+ years Nancy and I rode all over the US, parts of Canada and Europe. We both upgraded our beemers in 96 to R1100 RTs. As before I would do all of our maintenance on our new beemers. It was quite a learning curve from the old style bikes. Needless to say I got quite proficient working on this new fuel injected BMW and began working on other club members bikes. Also during this time frame I was mounting and balancing tires for Nancy and me that turned into a part time job in itself.

On my 60th birthday I placed an order for a new K1200 GT. At that time I was anticipating that this was gonna be my motorcycle for retirement. Wrong. That was three motorcycles ago and 16 years. My first year of retirement Nancy gave me a kitchen pass and told me to go ride as much as I wanted to.  Well that one year turned into 18 months and over 50,000 miles on that 1200 GT. When that GT finally went away it had over 160,000 miles on it. Right now i'm not quite at the 600,000 mile mark on a BMW but should be able to achieve it sometime next spring on my current 2022 R1250RT.

This is not the first time that I have been the vice president of this club. Over the many years I have held various other positions in the club. It's nice to see that the club is alive and well with a promising future.

Always remember to ride your own ride!