Misc Rambling Thoughts.........
No order of importance.......things just popping thru my feeble brain:
1. "Thankyou's" to The Iron Horse Lodge/Facility. John/Charlene + their Staff bend over backwards for us, year after year. Kudo's to "Stalky Tracker"......my go-to guy for rally advice on how to handle something. He is quiet, very knowledgable, and a true long-distance traveler on his strom. I call him "the Man behind the Curtain" (The Great Oz). Please send a PM or email to Crazy Fox Coffees and member "Mastery" (Riding Journals), both over on the ADV forum, thanking them for their Door Prizes. Also thanks to Kitesurfer's wife for donating the hats.
2. I'm not going to comment on the Wi-Fi thing as I still use a Flip-phone, have T-Mobile, and don't pick up a signal anyway from Stecoah.
3. Thanks to Les (Prowler) for MC'ing the Nightly Announcements........CLovett for finding a "Best Farkled" candidate.......and "others" who came up to me and said "what can I do to help out today". If I start naming names, I will surely miss someone.
4. LOTS of First-Timers at this rally. Your cherry has now been busted. We had approximately 55-60 total attendees this year.
5. We (the Rally) was interviewed by Mike Gouge of Blue Ridge Motorcycling Magazine, a VERY nicely done quarterly magazine similar to Road Runner, but confined to our riding area........the Eastern USA. We hope the Rally will make the next (or following) issue.
https://www.blueridgemotorcyclingmagazine.com/gallery/
6. Les and CLovett (I think??) were interviewd by a Public Relations Outfit (Advertising) that The Iron Horse has hired to video/photo the facility. We might see something concerning Vstroms in a future IH brochure??
7. Group Ride to Wheels thru Time Museum......all I can say is it rated an "A" for me. Dale (owner) gave us use of the outside Pavillion, chairs, tables, and Grill (if we needed it) to cook hotdogs......plus a chilled watermelon!!! Andy, the English Gent on staff who led some of the walks/talks inside the museum, seemed very interested in next year's Rally. He has traveled the world (Africa twice) and thinks the vstrom is THE bike for that kind of adventure. I will post more pics of the Museum later......and we should consider this an Annual Group Ride??
8. OK, now for my "passing the baton" plea. We need 3-4 folks to step up next year and take over some activities so Stalky and myself can go riding more. possible "positions" include: Tshirt coordinator, SWAG (Door Prize) coordinator, Awards/trophies if we elect to keep handing them out, Liason between the IH and the Vstrom community, and possible activities cat-herder. A couple of folks came to me with suggestions for next year and someone needs to coordinate all this: Rally Stickers (like Realshelby donated in 2016), a photo in front of the Lodge of each rider standing in front of his bike (to put a name with a face/bike), possible scavenger hunt of somekind??, Group Ride to go WW Rafting on the Nantahala, getting "local" dealerships involved with rally.......keep thinking outside the box differently of what we have done in the past. We need new ideas, or chance becoming "stale" with the Rally.
9. We brought a "Hooker" to the rally this year and it worked out great......everyone was "satisfied" one way or another.
10. We had the pleasure of meeting the infamous "Go-Go-Gadget" riding his "covered" Goldwing into camp. The top over the pilot served as a trampoline for toddlers as well as keeping the sun off the rider.
11. We had a good mix of ADV bikes present: Africa Twin, new DL1000's, BMW GS, I saw (3) other sidecars there besides Korney's rig, couple of Yami Tenor-rays, KTM's/a Buell and Trumps. Skip (the Snowbird) had his Spyder there and 2-3 Slingshots came thru the parking lot during the weekend. Of course the ZCar Rally was held at the same time as our's and they were EVERYWHERE. I made a note to myself: never let another member ride my bike in the SS Race. "Spokes" kicked my arse (timewise) on my own bike!! Anyone want to buy a nice little Honda CB500X "Vstronda"....??? ("Spokes" turned out to be my bunkhouse roomie for the weekend and it was a pleasure chatting with him during the day.....he kept me in stitches the whole time. And he really does Love Shinko Tires deep down inside, no matter what he tells you. It was good to room with "old timer" Scott Bonds this year, who sawed enough firewood to keep the IH warm for the Winter. :kiss:
12. SS Race........only 4 folks wanted to compete. A number I was disappointed in, and I guess we need to rethink next year if we want to have it. The first year we had about 2 dozen entries.....some were Gals on cruiser bikes.
13. Winning number for the "guess the widgets in the jar" game had to be closest to "210".......with Stromlurker (or Ms. Stromlurker??) having the Best guess.
Photos will come in a day or two. I use "Webresizer.com" to shrink them acceptable size.
The 2018 Rally will be the same weekend as this year.......weekend between Mother's Day and Memorial Day. Put it on your calendar NOW. If you want to keep your cabin/bunkhouse reservation that you had this year, let the IH know ASAP.
I'm sure I will "remember"other schtuff to post as I re-live the last 4 days here at work in my mind..........
mark444