Back from BMW RA rally, Pownal, VT

[nhmaf]

I just got back from the weekend rally in Pownal, VT - spent Friday night-through this evening with SueCanada @ the rally and riding around New York, Vermont, New Hampshire, and a tiny bit of MA.

Sue was able to find  Siouxxie and Brainfish @ the rally, but we didn't find any other R65ers that we recognized.   It was a pretty good rally, but not that well attended (last word was 1516 attendees, total).  I'll have some pics and more detailed report up over the next couple days.

Sue is camping out next to Micatech at this time - she is getting some fancy aluminum luggage carriers custom fitted to her Triumph.   Depending on her schedule she may come over to visit me and Mrs. nhmaf in a few days.

-Mike

[darrylri]

Actually, 1500 people to an RA rally is pretty darn good.  I think they got under 1,000 to Canaan Valley, WbGV last year, and I recall that their rally in Idaho only got 500.  (Rallies out west always get fewer people than back east because of the distances.)

I wish I could have gone.  A couple friends did go, and they said it was a great time except that there were apparently very few showers.  

[nhmaf]

Here is a link to a bunch of pics:
http://s159.photobucket.com/albums/t138/nhmaf/BMWRA%20RALLY%202010%20-%20Vermont/

Despite my best laid plans, I had some issues with work and with house projects, so I didn't end up leaving for the BMW RA rally in Pownal VT until late in the afternoon on Friday. Mapquest (I don't need no stinkin GPS !) indicated the straightest/quickest route would be 142 miles and a bit over 3 hours.   I had hoped to take some new "scenic" routes there, but as I had also planned to stop by along the way to check out a 1980 R100T for sale in Walpole, NH, I'd need all the daylight hours I could manage.  I didn't leave the house until after 4:30 PM - not good, but I still did take the detour to Walpole along the way and ended up spending 2 hours trying to find the place, checking out the bike, etc.   The bike may be had for a semi-OK price with more haggling, but will require quite a bit of work to make right (overall quite dirty, leaks at oil pressure switch, neutral switch, final drive, oil contaminated rear brake shoes, clutch lever adjustment issues, valves and carb adjustments/rebuild desperately needed, and it has a bent front rim (not bad, but visually I noticed it.  Original paint is in tough shape, but appears OK from 20+ feet away.   1 cracked Krauser bag, one good bag - no keys for Krausers.   80K miles, and MAX BMW had at least replaced the pushrod tube seals and done some minor adjustments.  Once running (wouldn't idle well, oil pressure light flickering) and on the road, it wouldactually pull quite strong and the gearbox sounded good - so it has its good points.    Still I think I may pass on this and keep eyes open for a diamond that is a bit less "rough".  Anyway, Back to business and getting to the rally!


I ended up arriving at the rally at 9:30 PM - it was dark, chilly, and loud music was coming from the interior of the old Pownal horse racing track building/grandstand.   No one was still running the check-in table, but as I showed that I had at least already pre-paid/registered they let me come in and camp anyway.   I looked for Sue, called her on her cell phone and then promptly discovered that she was looking for me in the parking lot about 50 feet away!!

We had a beer or two in the building listening to the largely unintelligible noise - the band might actually have been semi-OK except for the fact that they were playing a large enclosed room the size of a big warehouse, with cement walls, cement floors, and cement ceilings, and lots of other hard, reflective surfaces and not enough people to provide any acoustic dampening.   So, it was echo-city all around.    Sue showed me her latest "war wound".   Now, I may embellish slightly here, but this is my story and I'm sticking to it until/unless Sue says otherwise...  Apparently she enjoys dancing and was dancing with several guys just before I got there, until one of the larger women at the bar decided that she didn't like Sue dancing with her man.   A brief but intense scuffle occurred, resulting in Sue flattening the 220 pound opponent to the floor - but not without suffering a cut and bruised nose herself.    You guys gotta watch out when Sue has a few beers in her !   ;-)  Of course, Canadians are just too darned polite to stay mad at for long, and Sue is no exception.  So, Sue’s opponent bought her a beer and apologized, and Sue didn’t have the willingness to press charges, so all was forgiven in the end after a few bottles of Long Trail Ale…

Sue is very happy with her Triumph Bonneville Black - she can easily reach the ground on both sides with sandals on!



I set up my tent near Sue's tent and "enjoyed" counting the number of trains that came through the valley, sounding their horns at the crossing beside the rally site, all night long.    I used to love the sound of the freight trains going by in my old home town when I was 8 or 10 and my dad and uncle worked on the railroad.   Now, they just wake me up at night when I'd rather sleep.

The rally in general was pretty good!   We had perfect weather - cool and fairly clear at night for good sleeping (except for the trains), and in the lower 80s, sunny and dry during the daytime.  As I had mentioned earlier, there were approximately 1516 registered attendees, which is OK for an RA rally, but puny compared to even a western MOA rally.    The vendors (not a lot of them) seemed eager/hungry for business, and several mentioned that they were told/expecting the attendance to be considerably higher even for this RA rally than it turned out to be.

[nhmaf]

Max BMW had a number of 450 X Challenge bikes there for people to try, and had setup a cool GS challenge course for people to attempt, and compete in on Saturday afternoon.   There were a number of organized rides of various lengths through the scenic mountains of Vermont, Western/Northern MA, and upstate New York, and some organized GS rides as well.

The camping areas were large and plentiful, with a beautiful small river running alongside and a fair number of trees to provide some shade.   There were plenty of port-a-potties, which was good as Saturday they had water problems in the racetrack building and less than 1/2 the flush toilets, etc. were working there for much of the day.    There was only 1 shower trailer, but if you timed it right and avoided peak showering times it wasn't bad.   As with any BMW rally, the main attraction are the wonderful, interesting people and their stories - followed closely in importance by food, and bikes.     There weren't a huge number of food vendors but those that were there had some tasty offerings, and the beer/wine garden in the main building offered some of the local area brews as well as the generic mass-produced US swill.

As usual, I didn't win any door prizes/raffles of any sort while there, though Sue did win a shirt, hat, and stickers from MAX.   I did a bit of riding on Saturday afternoon and used my newly acquired BMW RA multitool to help a biker open his gas cap at the gas station after he broke off his key in the lock.   We noticed a silver R65LS and a red R65LS at the rally, one of which I think belonged to Siouxzy, whom Sue talked to, and I actually cannot recall who the other LS belonged to, though I think Sue spoke with him at some point during the rally and he has apparently visited our site before.

Sunday morning, we packed up and had coffee with the Yankee Beemers, a fairly large BMW riders club in New England..   As I didn't have to be home until Sunday night, I was determined to make the most of my "free" time.   Sue decided to join me for exploring a bit more of the country roads of New York and Vermont, and also for a visit with some friends of mine at their farm in Shaftsbury, VT.   I left her at the end of the day back at a campground near the Micatech factory in Hillsborough, NH where she is getting some customized aluminum panniers fitted to her Bonneville.  Fortunately they offered her a full cabin with fridge for the same price as a tent site, so the heavy thunderstorms that seem to be passing through now won't bother her too much as they would if she were in a tent!   As we had managed to turn an ~ 80 mile trip from the rally to Hillsborough into a nice, ~ 180 mile ride on Sunday, I considered it a great success.   I hope to go to another RA rally (Especially now that I’ve paid up for the next 3 years) in the future, and also look forward to the MOA rally in Pennsylvania next year.  Of course, the little R65LS ran perfectly well the entire trip, too!

 

[Melena]

Great write-up Mike!  Great to hear about the RA Rally.   Sounds like you  had a good time no matter that the band wasn't that good.  

Glad to see that Sue made it.  Good picture of her on her Bonny Winston.   8-)  I enjoyed looking at the other pictures too.  

It's weird.  You'd think that Vermont would have the good grass to camp on and that the high desert of Redmond wouldn't be so good.  But the Redmond fairgrounds had thick lush very heavy duty, and probably drought resistant, grass all over the place.  But at least you didn't have the high heat.  Looks like the weather was about perfect for you.

[nhmaf]

Oh, there certainly is lots of grass in Vermont, - the horse racing track that was the facility/site has been out of business for many years.   And the grass that we were camping on USED to be the parking lot (and it was mostly paved, at one time).  Mother nature moves back in in a hurry round here..

[Melena]

Oh, there certainly is lots of grass in Vermont, - the horse racing track that was the facility/site has been out of business for many years.   And the grass that we were camping on USED to be the parking lot (and it was mostly paved, at one time).  Mother nature moves back in in a hurry round here..

Oh!  I got it now.  The pot hole reference had me confused.  But then I'm easily confused.      :-?

[nhmaf]

Sue just left our house after popping over for a visit to show me her fancy new Micatech customimzed luggage on her Triumph.   We had to scoot her out quickly to try to keep her (we hope) on the upper edge of a big rain storm headed from the west/southwest.   She'll be slabbing it across New Hampshire into VT, and then cut across VT over to New York near Saranac Lake  (or if the rain gets bad she can stay on the interstate through Vermont and go further northward and westward to get above the storm path.

In any case, here is a new picture of Sue's new black powder coat alloy panniers from Micatech on her Bonneville - looks pretty good - and LOTS of storage!

[Melena]

Wow!  She is really loaded up now.  Looks good.

We will be waiting to hear from her when she gets home.  Hope she misses that rain.  

[suecanada]

I'm home now as of Monday the 9th!! Boy did I have a grand time and am so grateful again to have seen nhmaf and meet in person his fine SO Laura and Barley and Coco too!! Mike has the best location...on a lake!! Even the gravel road was no problem even though I worried about it on the way.

OK, to get it out of the way, I wasn't really in a fight-fight....I had a startling disagreement with a huge hole in the grassed over old asphalt parking area where we camped that was a leftover hole (light standard?) from the days when the racetrack in Pownal was active. As Mike said grass had taken over the huge field where we were camped. We knew it was pavement in days gone by because our tent pegs went in only so far before clunking into asphalt! So for some reason there were some deep holes disguised by long grass in our field. Well, didn't I ride right into one coming back from a tour of a trail bike museum. I was lining up with a tent I recognised from a distance to guide me to my tent when I rode right into it...stopped abruptly having the front wheel go in and out of the hole but the rear wheel went in a stayed there. I was pitched down suddenly and my nose hit the NC windscreen, cut my nose and shocked the windscreen right off onto the grass!! So there I was sitting on an upright bike with the rear wheel in a deep hole (15" across X 15 " deep). A wonderful fellow named Hans came right over and said "don't put your glove on that nose!" He said he'd drive the bike to my tent site and put the windscreen back on. He needed help to ride the bike out of the hole!!! I got some ice from my doctor tent neighbour to avoid the WC Fields look and sat out the afternoon for a bit. Mike and I checked out the Bonnie for bent rims and oil leaks. All was perfect thank goodness and proved to be so riding with Mike on the Sunday and all the way home. My new Renntec engine guards and the double frame of the Triumph took the brunt of the sudden stop and protected everything well. That's the real story and I'm sorry I can't stick with Mike's as it is much better story. Story designed by all tent neighbours!!!

I love my Micatech bags!!! Bob Gould worked with me in attendance on Monday and Tuesday p.m.'s. Sat out Wed. as was so hot at my cheap cabin in the most beautiful, safe, clean Oxbow campground. Highly recommended!!!  Had to gerryrig the Micatech's around my Hepco Becker rear rack mountings but I carry extra fuel on the rear rack and I like it for tie-down attachments.

Lost new tent pole set enroute to NY/VT ferry at Crown point!! Had to call Big Agnes for 2 day postal delivery of another set to Pownal GD. They came 3 days instead of two and a good friend at the rally went and got them for me after I banged up my nose on the Fri.!

My M/C was compromised somewhere too! It's all cut up now. I evidently bought some art work in Illinois! If M/C hadn't caught it and stopped the 2nd and 3rd transactions I'd be out $4500.00!!! They red flagged it immediately, phoned Derek and I phoned them fast. I have already signed and sent back the affidavit they require to start the investigation. Site was 1Stockphoto but who knows who used the numbers from my card. Investigator said the privacy laws make it difficult to trace. I suggested thumb screws!!!

So had a great time..errr....yup. Bike was a joy even loaded. Mike is fabulous!! Weather good. Rained on twice only on the bike. Yeah I hit rain from Mike's but warm and dried quickly. I stopped to put on rain pants after getting wet...then it stopped! Off to Cape Breton tomorrow with Derek and brother Rich who is riding right now from Cape Breton to mid-Ontario for a cottage family reunion this weekend, then leave from there back to Cape Breton for a month on the bikes and D. in the van with our gear!!! Yay!!!