Greg Sample
Treasurer
When people ask me where I’m from or where I grew up, I tell them it depends on the timeframe, honestly. Elementary through junior high school was in Houston and high school and college were in Seattle…two really different worlds! I got interested in riding when I was a junior in college and my roommate got a Yamaha Radian. I thought it was a beautiful bike. The next year, 1987, I went and took the beginner riding course, joined the AMA, and with my summer job money bought my first bike, a ’79 Yamaha XS1100 full dress tourer! Weird, right? But I was trying to be smart; I was young, inexperienced and didn’t want to hurt myself. I figured the one bike it’d be almost impossible to do something really stupid on was a giant touring bike. I had that for my senior year, sold it and then moved back to Texas to start my first job.
When I got to Dallas, my cousin told me about a friend of his who had an old BMW in his garage that was just sitting there. I was one of those guys who said, “BMW makes motorcycles?” So off I went to buy my first beemer, a silver ’71 R60/5. Since then it’s been pretty much all-BMW for me, classic K bikes and airheads. I’ve finally settled on my forever beemer, an ’84 R100 police bike that I bought from the original owner three years ago. Almost all my riding is touring, usually to go to a rally/campout or to see family/friends.
I’ve been a member of the BMW Riders Association since ’92. I joined while living in Lubbock, Texas and getting involved with the Dustbowl Beemers out there. I can’t remember the first RA National I attended. If you have a list of them, I can ID it for you. My first National was with the MOA in Oshkosh, WI. I was blown away.
I’m a member of the Airheads and am the current Airmarshal for TN. I volunteered to help the RA because I like how the club is able to go places for its rally that the MOA can’t, and I really appreciate the smaller scale of the RA. It makes things easier to a certain extent and I’ve always felt most welcome at any RA event I’ve attended.
I hope I can contribute by helping the club expand its reach to BMW riders out there who don’t know about us, have let their membership lapse for one reason or another, or at least get them to come to the National Rally and check us out. My professional background is in risk management and insurance, so hopefully I can use those skills to help the club avoid any unnecessary risks that might present themselves in the future.
