The Rally Sucked

Rapid_Roy said:

Perhaps the volunteers could ask if they mind. It would also save money for pins that are thrown out immediately.

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I agree. This was my first rally and I did ask that she not yell out in registration, but she did anyway. Seemed to enjoy it too. And the pins, I saw them but had no idea what they were for - thought it was some other club doing their own thing. I never had one, probably wouldn't have worn it if I had.

Water: there could have been some taps or hoses around to fill camelbacks or bottles.

Other clubs: as we were setting up our campsite, another club rolled in. We told them we were expecting other members and we needed space, but they pitched camp within feet (in some places inches) of our tents anyway. Our other members therefore had to camp wherever they could. That was just inconsiderate.

Camping: having been to many large camp-type gatherings, I have seen what is called camp etiquette. There was a distinct lack of it at the rally. One basic guideline is not to walk through other people's campsites. This was thoroughly ignored as people were walking through our campsite like it was the front gate. Have some courtesy people.

Having said that, even though this was my first rally it is not likely to be my last. I really enjoyed the vendors (a little too much if you ask my wife) but that's for another thread.

We're Out of That

Good rally, but always room for improvement


1. No food (brats!!) in the beer garden is inexcusable! ThatÔÇÖs not a garden!

2. Routing traffic through the event did not work. Especially with the shuttles clogging the route.

3. Everything was way too spread out. Many unused buildings in the middle of the rallywhats the deal with?

4. The rally motto was,ÔÇØweÔÇÖre out of that!ÔÇØ

trosenberg said:

.....

4. The rally motto was,ÔÇØweÔÇÖre out of that!ÔÇØ

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Our groups was "4 tooth minimum."

I would also like to say a big THANK YOU to the MOA and Rally Committee! This was by my first BMW Rally of any type and I thought everything was fantastic. I am already looking forward to next year's International Rally in Oregon.

As others have done, I would like to offer my observations:

1) The available "self-led" ride choices were awesome. I personally rode the Four-State and Snake rides and enjoyed both.

2) The parking situation was a bit confusing. I suppose if you were camping, you could park on the grounds with no issues. But with others driving to the grounds each morning (from area hotels), the parking areas were not clearly marked.

3) Introductions of grand prize donors at the Closing Ceremonies was too long and drawn out. Of particular note, "Bob" (Bob's BMW) rambled on way too long! He seemed mostly interested in self-promoting his business rather than in the Rally itself. I would suggest putting a time limit on the speaker's comments.

4) The overall diversity and quantity of vendors was great. Would have been nice if more tire vendors had showed up.

Again, had a great first BMW Rally experience. Thanks to the MOA and Rally volunteers for putting on a great event!

First BMW Rally Impressions

I was a #1 BMW Rally attender. My thoughts

Pro's:
Good vendor selection, but little if anything available for the X Challenge, lots of other stuff though. Great entertainment, the fireworks were the icing on the cake. Food and drink availability was ok. Bless the committee for the showers! The vintage area was neat, good historical representation of bikes.

Cons:
Traffic routing through the vendor area was not the best of ideas. No place to really sit near the food vendors. More drinking water sources would have been a good idea.

Overall I would rate the rally as very good. The organizers and all did a really good job. Great riding in the area, the two guys that came with me logged about 600 miles in the area. I will go again if we have another out here in the southeast.

Kurt

Nice rally for me

Camping on flat ground, where does that happen? Even in Nebraska I have seldom found flat ground to camp on. Anyway when the rain came it ran off and not into my tent! The mud looked like it was contained nicely in the GS ride your bike around area. I am glad I have an R1200RT which encouraged me to avoid all the mud.

The number one pin helped me talk to another person who had a number one pin. Although I was able to talk to an unhappy with BMW motorcycle folk seems his herly has more torque and does not need to be down shifted. How'd he get in?

Basics of BMW mechanics seminar was the best. I am now checking my tire air pressure more often. I am carefully loading my bike and going to make sure to use the correct fluids in the bike and me. Great seminar on electrical connections. I never paid attention to watts but I will now.

Only down side I missed the vintage motorcycle show while I was off riding the "snake" but found the best cold slaw and pulled pork sandwich east of the Missouri river. Not to mention the best twisty roads I have ridden on. Twisty roads are hard to come by in good o'l Nebraska.

My thanks to all who made this rally work. Hope to see you all in Oregon. Will I get a number two pin?

FWIW I saw a golf cart smack into a guy from behind....I know they are indespensible but they still need to look out.

I was really disappointed that there was no swap meet at the rally as sometimes you can find some really good stuff for the older bikes as most of the vendors don't cater to the airheads. I look forward to going through some of the old stuff.
I heard that the reason that there wasn't a swap meet is that the paying vendors were complaining, just curious why no swap meet.

Any answers, seems it might have been politically motivated...i.e. $$$$. I could be wrong as many times I am.
Please bring back the swap meet.

ima4nr said:

I have to second that! After the lousy drivers in Alabama during the Chicken Rally, I thought it couldn't get worse. Sure enough it did. Turn signals must be an option that is deleted on all vehicles delivered to Southern states.

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Not necessarily! Something that has been popular here in GA lately is for the first car to signal a turn, then the SECOND car gives the same signal, even though the second car is not going to turn. My only guess is that it's an attempt to keep the driver of the third car from honking at the second car for being a jerk and slowing down.

Ted said:

That and a cigar vendor - hmmmm (sees way of financing trip to Redmond next year!)

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Ted, there was a cigar vendor at the Georgia Mountain Rally this year. Seemed to do pretty well from my observation, and he even set up a small table outside the main food area/evening ceremony area on Saturday night.

I'll bet you'd do great at the national with this.

In all the comments about the #1 rally pin, I didn't see mention of the the other "gift". There was a table by the registration exit where displaying the pin would get you two tokens, each for a free drink at the beer tent. If only I had known all those pins were being discarded!

All in All, This Was A Nice Rally!

Having attended our rally in TN this year, I had a great time and owe a big "Thank You" to Vance, Connie and all the volunteers that made this party hum.

This thread invites constructive criticism / observations of the attendees, and it should. How else do we continually 'build a better mousetrap' but by examining how things were handled, and how we might handle similar situations differently in the future.

Obviously, certain issues are out of human control, such as the weather and the unfortunate relocation of the beer tent (Bible-Belt politics alive and well in the South!).

But if this event is to be the kind of success it has been for nearly four decades now, it must endure self-examination and fine-tuning, much like our beloved BMW machines.

So, having said all that, here are some of my observations / suggestions:

1) If you cannot accomodate rally registration on-site, you need to provide transportation (contracted school buses?!) for moving masses of attendees from, i.e. the Fairgrounds to Gray Elementary. I understand the pickup-towed 'hay wagons' were not street-legal, and could not go off site, but the lengthy walk across the skeeter-infested grass on school property (twice) was short-sighted.

2) In West Bend and Gillette, great effort was made to minimize the mix of pedestrian and MC traffic. At Johnson City, there was an excessive and potentially dangerous conflux of bikes and people. Do not route motorcycles thru vendors and facilities primarily assigned to foot traffic.

3) High praise to Karen and her husband (Receiving) for providing her personal cellphone number to me when I called to advise that my original ETA was skewed due to a breakdown/overnight stay in Indianapolis, and I rolled in rather late on Wednesday night. But for future rallies, I suggest that Receiving be staffed thru midnight on Wednesday and Thursday nights, and a 24/7 phone number be provided to allay any concerns of rally goers that may have to arrive at all hours of the night or early morning due to unforeseen travel circumstances.

4) The 'idea' of one-way flow of vehicular traffic on the fairgrounds was admirable. In practice, way too many 'violations.' Rules and guidelines are just ink on paper without effective enforcement, and not once over the days I attended did I see anyone forcing adherence to the one-way concept.

5) Signage. Everything from 'trolley stops' to various support facilities were difficult to discern. Many of the signs and placards seemed rather amateurish, and placed haphazardly. An event of this magnitude needs excellent visual communication, and I thought that could have been much better.

6) Metros and wash stations near where some of us camped ('Ruritan' building) were not serviced for replacing toilet paper or wash towels. This might sound petty, unless you're the one sitting on the comode at the time!


Again, these are suggestions for future rallies. None of these review points, nor even Mother Nature, were 'deal-breakers' for the fun time our Rally Volunteers treated us to in Johnson City, and I thank them once more for throwing one heck of a party.

I look forward to the future of our club's rallies with confidence that, not only do we already 'do it well,' but we're mature enough to always consider doing it better.

cgragg said:

Any one know where you can find out who won the bikes ? Had to leave Mid day Saturday.Had a great time!!!!!

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I don't know his name but this is the second rally (in a row) where he won the bike drawing. You could tell he was a really nice guy ... and obviously very lucky in the free bike department. That was one beautiful GS! If I could find out the color formula, I would paint my K100 that dark red.

Yes, the Rally sucked!!!

I left for the rally with a Fiance and returned home with a Wife!! How the hell did that happen?

We booked a tent with the Sherpa, and our tent was all set up and ready to go when we arrived. How the hell did that happen?

Delbert McClinton kept me up way past my bed time on Friday night by rocking my ass off. How the hell did that happen?

The Fruit Twins (there were 2 of them) and the Frozen Lemonade Princess took turns taking my money. How the hell did that happen?

The Bush Bean factory tour and ho down was a lot of fun and we left with a groovy new ball cap and two cans of beans. How the hell did that happen?

My now wife, had a blast and she hates rallies! How the hell did that happen?

For the record, I did not volunteer, though I should have. Therefore I have no right to complain about about what was a well thought out extravaganza that was a lot of fun!

Suggestion to the naysayers, if your expectations were not met, lower your expectations and your holier than thou attitude and when things are not as bad as you expected, everything is a bit better.

A huge thanks to the MOA staff and vollunteers for giving my bride and I a honeymoon to remember!

Rick G

The only disappointment was going to the water jugs and finding they were out of paper cups. That only happened on the last day.

Getting a site, paying the bills, organizing volunteers, managing vendors, booking entertainment, getting expensive door prizes, security, sanitation ... The people who put this together deserve a medal.

This was my first National rally and I was very impressed. For an event that large it was as smoothly run as humanly possible. Anyone who has run a product launch for a corporate project knows that. I was on a simple project with 12 people that turned into such a cluster f#ck I decided to change careers. The organizers of this rally are already working on next year's rally! God bless em.

I just remembered my one eye rolling moment. A guy was on his bike, parked to block the camper crossing/vendor entrance and about 100 yards from the shuttle stop. He was on his cell phone and the volunteer told him he had to move because he was blocking the shuttle (about 100 yards behind him) and stopping traffic (about 30 motorcycles). His response was "give me a minute". He was told to move again and he repeated the response "give me a minute".

That guy was testing the patience of about 50 or 60 people and no one punched him in the mouth. I was just an observer and it would have been so easy to grab that cell phone out of his hand and run it up to the lost and found box.

RickG said:

The Fruit Twins (there were 2 of them)...

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they had excellent canteloupes, did they not?

+1 for much shorter closing ceremony.

This was my first rally and I thought it was great. The food was good, most of the camping looked good, the music was awesome and of course the roads were amazing.

My only disappointment was a lack of friendliness from a lot of the rally goers, I was by myself and was always the conversation starter with people I met where ever I went. About 25% of the time I get a look of "why are you talking to me?" look. The majority of the folks were great. It would have been nice to get a invite to join a group on a ride.

Guess that happens when most of the rally goers are are meeting with old friends. I am sure if I volunteered I would have made more and possibly lasting contacts.

See you in Oregon!

charleetho said:

This was my first rally and I thought it was great. The food was good, most of the camping looked good, the music was awesome and of course the roads were amazing.

My only disappointment was a lack of friendliness from a lot of the rally goers, I was by myself and was always the conversation starter with people I met where ever I went. About 25% of the time I get a look of "why are you talking to me?" look. The majority of the folks were great. It would have been nice to get a invite to join a group on a ride.

Guess that happens when most of the rally goers are are meeting with old friends. I am sure if I volunteered I would have made more and possibly lasting contacts.

See you in Oregon!

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This was our first BMW rally -- My wife volunteered and met some very friendly folks -- I think volunteering is a great way to meet folks and to get involved. Maybe we could have a rally young'un orientation and mixer each day in Oregon so that new people have a chance to meet some of the regulars along with the other rally newbies. Maybe we could have some special first-time-attendee door prizes. We'll volunteer to help host/organize a rally young'un meet-n-greet next year if the MOA so decides