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Ride the Ridge Rally in NC

HERRBAYEMVAY

Lovin' my CLC!
Maybe I'm looking in the wrong place, but I wuz wonderin' why I haven't read any accounts of the "Ride the Ridge" rally in Asheville, NC at the Biltmore Estate this past weekend. I was rarin' to go until my bike's splines began screaming for a lube job and went on strike, resulting in my ride being in the shop for the past two weeks. Did no one check this deal out? (And if you have never seen the Biltmore House in person before, you owe it to yourself to ride to Asheville and tour it. It is simply stunning!)
 
BeemerloverÔÇö I share your curiousity. Here I am, an Asheville resident who had to be out of town that weekend (sidecared it with my son down to Savannah, GA on business), and I really wanna know how it went! I would have been there in a blast had I been home.

Anybody out there who went? Anybody out there who took photos ??
 
Well, I know at least a few Beemers were there, since I saw a photo today on the Chromeheads website of a few R1200Cs parked in the lot in front of the house on Saturday. I'm like you, I would have LOVED to have been there! Surely there are at least some riders out there who went (and took some pics) who can let us know what we missed!
 
The guys on the K1200LT site said it was a bust. Not good at all.
 
some guy is ripping the crap out of it on r1150r.org too.

from what i gathered, they charged 50 bucks and had no camping, little/no events, no pins, no awards, no nuthin. i guess everyone just hung out the whole time in some parking lot. apparently there was some snafu with the sponsorship and in general, i think the folks organizing it weren't as experienced as they needed to be.

some people are pretty riled about it though.

Link to rant

i figure the worst bmw rally is still probably better than a lot of other things. at least youve got other enthusiasts with you, and heck, youre in asheville which is (i hear) a really nice place. to me the biggest screwup is the 'no camping' bit.

from what i hear, you can put kbasa and bradfordben together with some martini fixins and it instantly becomes a first-class rally, with or without pins/patches/etc. thats just a rumor though.
 
Hmmmmm..... Methinks someone at the Biltmore Estates really dropped the old ball on this one........ Wonder how long it will take for BMW to publicly distance themselves from this festering and steaming heap?
 
"Wonder how long it will take for BMW to publicly distance themselves from this festering and steaming heap?"

They already did when they dropped out several months ago.
 
Oh yeah, I know, but I'd be willing to bet they will quickly reiterate their "position and / or culpability" relating to the bad vibes this fiasco is bringing forth toward the Biltmore Estate, with them in the path, whether they like it or not.
 
Greetings,

There is a vital difference here.

The "traditional" BMW Rally is put on entirely by volunteers at either the local or national level.

These events are designed to accomplish a primary goal of having fun. The volunteers are motivated because they want to host a great time for their fellow BMW riders.

The event at the Biltmore, BMW's event in Tahoe and other "sponsored" events are designed to make money or serve marketing goals. The problem is that is just about impossible to break even in a for profit setting because you need to pay for all the labor that is put in by volunteers at the traditional rallies. Plus who is going to be more enthusiastic about putting in extra effort, the rider or the kid spending the summer working for a caterer.

Too bad the Biltmore was a bust, but quite frankly I am not surprised. The writing was on the wall and it was discussed
here

Best,
 
It was obvious this was a first time effort on someones' part. My wife and I were there Saturday & Sunday. The breakfast was nice and well presented. We did the tourist thing and toured the Biltmore house, Winery and estate. We were surprised there were no rally events scheduled in the evenings. However, there did not appear to be anything scheduled on the estate after 5:00 PM. The estate is ran as a self supporting business and thus kept business hours. Who ever planned this rally treated it as a business event and not as a rally as most of us know it. If they do it next year, hopefully the planners will get some feedback from a riders point of view and plan accordingly.:dunno

BE in IN
 
Been on the road wandering for a week, stopped in Asheville for a long weekend with good friends and we paticipated in the Biltmore Estates, Ride the Ridge Rally. Or non-rally...

They had the basic elements, but got their times confused. Group meal was Saturday morning and not the evening, entertainment was good, but presented in the afternoons
not the evenings, NO central camping, and since all the planned events were on the ONLY non rainy afternoon, no one attended them.

However, it was an excellent chance to score brownie points with the women in our lives. They LOVED the Biltmore, house, grounds, gardens, shopping and winery. Only the rain slowed us down. Taught a old friend's Yankee wife (raised in
NY, living in suburban Connecticut) the finer points of southern cooking. Query: What is a grit? and why is their gravy with breakfest?

But the roads were excellent. Rode big stretches of the Blue Ridge, then the Hungry Mother Parkway starting from the Mouth of Wilson, Virginia, wondered down Kentucky's Mountian Parkway, and coal expressway. Now I am heading back
west for a long, long wander through the ozarks with camping gear. btw: Hungry Mother State Park in SW Virginia is a SUPER place to camp...

one last thing, the stock packing on my Z-technick exhaust lasted 5200 hundred miles, the super duper refactory ceremaric batt lasted almost three times as long. Now it is just about blown out with 5 days of travel left...got to go slow and quiet through towns...

Howard
 
username said:
check it out - god is punishing the biltmore folks for having a sub-standard rally.

Ouch! That usually happens during a BMW rally.

I wonder if it's dry in Canaan Valley, WV?

MarkF
 
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