The New And Improved Unofficial R65 Forum V2
Technical Discussion => Ride Reports and Event Reviews => Topic started by: SCJJR65 on July 18, 2009, 08:44:56 AM
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Well, I was at last able to round up a few of our "regulars" who had indicated that they would be at the rally, and we gathered at the Beer Garden last night for a "Meet & Greet" and photo op.
Mike (nhmaf), Neil (R65Guy), and the ever popular Sue (SueCanada) and I got together for the obligatory photo in front of the R65 flag and the autographing thereof. I understand that "Bengt_Phorqs" was also at the rally, but we weren't able to get in touch with him on his cell phone to get him to report for the ceremony, unfortunately.
Naturally, I forgot my cable to allow me to download the photos taken last night from my camera, so I won't be able to post the photo until Sunday or Monday.
So far, the rally has been wonderful, despite the showers that kept popping up Thursday and Friday. Saturday promises to be sunny, so everyone should be in good spirits!
I'll update again after I arrive home on Sunday!
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Finally got back home this afternoon, around 1:30 or so! I did get a couple of pics of the four of us with the flag, as shown below. If I remember correctly, Mike and Sue also got a pic with their own cameras as well. We also got to meet Mike (Bengt_Phorqs) the next night for a few minutes. I wish we could've gotten him into the flag photo as well!
I'm going to take a look at what photos I took at the rally, and will try to put some of them up here, or on photobucket.com for everyone to look at.
It WAS a great rally!! [smiley=thumbsup.gif]
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Great shot John! You guys look like you were having a fine ol'time, or are all the smiles from too much time spent at the beer garden ;)
Of course, we require many, many more pics, from all the R65ers that made the rally.
It's great to see Sue looking so good again too! [smiley=thumbsup.gif]
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Yeah, like I mentioned earlier in a facebook wall post, I had the two things happen that you DON'T want to have happen at an event like a rally. First, my damn memory card was full only a few shots into the timespan I had chosen to do my photo-taking. (I forgot to delete a bunch of photos that were already on the card.) I also discovered that the memory card was only 256meg. PM and I went to a local Wally-world and bought a 2 gig card, and I went back to the rally to finish my picture taking, only to have the damn battery die on me! And all this took place on Saturday afternoon, too! Oh well, hopefully Mike, Sue and Neill will have some good shots they took with their cameras. Here's a shot of some of the tents from close to where I was camping. Those large white tents is the Beer Garden.
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"Be it ever so humble, there's no place like Dome" (Tent, that is.) Here's a shot of my little blue dome tent, with "Blackjack" in the foreground. There was a guy from Daytona Beach named Ron camping next to me who rode a black R1200C almost identical to mine! (You an see it on the right toward the back.)
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The registration for the rally was done at an elementary school that was located next to the fairgrounds. It was still pretty busy Saturday afternoon! (I think the final tally for the rally was something like 8,972 attendees.)
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Yeah, like I mentioned earlier in a facebook wall post, I had the two things happen that you DON'T want to have happen at an event like a rally. First, my damn memory card was full only a few shots into the timespan I had chosen to do my photo-taking. (I forgot to delete a bunch of photos that were already on the card.) I also discovered that the memory card was only 256meg. PM and I went to a local Wally-world and bought a 2 gig card, and I went back to the rally to finish my picture taking, only to have the damn battery die on me! And all this took place on Saturday afternoon, too! Oh well, hopefully Mike, Sue and Neill will have some good shots they took with their cameras. Here's a shot of some of the tents from close to where I was camping. Those large white tents is the Beer Garden.
That black GS-looking thing in the middle on this pic, which won't copy for some reason, is an '00 Moto Goosey Quota.
Did you get a chance to meet the owner?
Ain't too many of those around...
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Never saw the owner, but the bike was parked only a few yards away from where my tent was located. I saw several Guzzis at the rally, including a nice Cali EV with sidecar in a lovely crimson/cream color combo, and a couple of Breva 750s.
Remember that guy who was with the TVR people at Willville the last time we were there, who rode that Aprilia sportbike (Not the red Futura, the older blue-ish one)? (Can't remember what it was called!) Was his name Mark? Well, anyway, I saw him there at the rally. He was probably with some other TVR guys, but he was the only guy I recognized.
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I had another shot taken of the stage beside the Beer Garden, where the bands played each night. And I gotta tell you, Delbert McClinton was simply AWESOME Friday night!!!! He has one tight band backing him up! What a great show!! [smiley=thumbsup.gif]
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John, ApriliaBoy would be Fritz. He rides the poop out of that bike, 15-20K miles a year, and beyond eating tires it refuses to break. That 1000cc V-twin Rotax motor is awesome!
Quite a few of the TVR boys made it, and generally worked the beer gardens and registration too. You probably saw Hank, the guy with the curry R75/5 up at Willville last time. They've got some good pics on their site, here's a link for anyone interested. Most of them begin on page 6.
http://twinvalleyriders.com/forum/viewtopic.php?f=6&t=2088&start=75
Now, where are Sue, Mike and the others with their R65.org pics? :-?
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Well, I hope to see some pics from Mike and Neill soon, since I think they are probably back home by now. I'm sure "Bengt_Phorqs", aka Mike, will also have a few pics to share as well. Sue, on the other hand, is heading up to WV for the RA rally later this week. She and Aida should hook up for the "flag ceremony" and pics from that venue.
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I was so close this year and I had to work.
Great to see a picture of youse guys and Sue!!!! 8-)
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Thanks for sharing John! Now, put some names to those faces - I know 2 out of 4. Glad you and PattiMarie had a great time!
I'm looking forward to meeting up with Sue in a few days. I was hoping we'd have more at the RA rally, but maybe we'll run into some new faces.
If anyone is headed up to the RA, I'll be working the MotoMark1 vendor tent and staying at the Lodge. We're leaving tomorrow and stopping in at Willville for the night before we head up to WV.
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Thanks... put some names to those faces...
Roger that! A simple "left-to-right" identity tagline would be nice anytime R65ers are posting group photos. That is unless you're in some sorta Federal Witness Protection Program, like Bengt.
Monte
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[Edit: Those would be Sue on left, me (in back), Neil (middle) and John(right)]
Thanks for putting up some pics, John! It was great to see you at the rally and I have some more pics with Benqt Phorqs (Mike Crenshaw) to share, too. Will put up some pics tonight..
I just got back home late last night (10:30pm) - I took (2) days to get back and spent much more time on interstates than on my (3) day ride down to TN (and I waited at innumerable construction delays on the way back) all through Pennsylvania and New York state. Rode 465 miles the first day and 602 miles yesterday - the stock LS seat is NOT up to to task of comfortable supporting my butt on 600 mile days - I should have looked more closely at the AirHawk seat at the rally - may get one in the near future.
The R65 performed perfectly for the whole 2140 mile round trip - the only minor issue was it used about a pint of oil in the whole trip, which included some fairly hard running (75 MPH for hundreds of miles on the interstate and riding up&down the twisty mountain roads in Virginia, West Virginia, and Vermont. Actually, I think that she didn't burn any oil at all, just puffed it out through the crankcase breather tubes into the carbs as airheads are want to do. Might have to consider new rings for the old girl at some point, but that little bit of oil doesn't seem too serious, I think. Otherwise ran perfectly well and always gave me between 41 and 47.5 MPG on every tank of gas.
I have tremendous respect for these 'little' R65s and what they are capable of, even at 27 years old!
I'll post up a bunch of pics soon - it was great time !!
-Mike
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OK, since John has a much better photo than I have of Sue, me, Neil, and himself, I've posted up a few other pics that I took while at the rally and/or along the way to it - I rode down to Tennessee from New Hampshire by first going out a bit past Binghamton, New York and picking up Route 220, and following that same Route ALL the way through Pennsylvania, Maryland, West Virginia to Roanoke, VA, and then hopping onto the I-80 over to TN.
Here are some photos in my album on this site, hopefully I've uploaded them correctly..
http://www.suraklyn.com/r65_forum_gallery/thumbnails.php?album=45
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Great pics Mike! Oh, now what were my questions??? I'll have to go look at them again!
I met up with Sue at the RA National and we took some official Flag pics - even though there were only two of us there. I'll get those downloaded and share with everyone a little later tonight...
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I'm still trying to figure out how to post photos on the gallery. Have quite a few that ya'll might be interested in seeing. Monte "Show me the pictures" Miller has been pressing me so I guess I better get it done before he comes down and empties my beverage cooler again.
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Unfortunately few of my "GS Challenge pics" came out worth a darn - that was rather entertaining to watch - there were some pretty good riders on those 2-wheeled Land Rovers. I know that I'd find it a bit intimidating to try to ride those obstacles on those big, weide, heavy R1150/R1200 GS bikes at the rally. Don't know why more folks on the 650 and 800 bikes didn't give it a go. I was pleased that one of the finalists was a guy from California on his R100 BumbleBee who decided at the last minute, "what the heck, I think I'll try riding that course"!
The torque of those R1200GS bikes is impressive, but I still think I'd personally rather have a smaller, lighter bike over the pure brute strength of those big oilheads.
If I can salvage any pics I'll add them to the gallery.
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Glad you and Sue were able to hook up, Aida! As long as the "flag" was present at the rally, that's what counts! [smiley=thumbsup.gif]
Looking forward to the pics!! ;)