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If you missed This Year's Rally, You Missed a Great Rally

stkmkt1

New member
My wife and I just arrived home after attending this year's Rally - our first. We would like to thank everyone who worked so hard to put this rally on. And, we want to thank everyone who came. Because we saw nothing but great people everywhere we went.

And big thank you to the vendors. I know I spent a lot of money with many vendors. My wife was so impressed, she signed up as an associate member with the five-year plan. I renewed my membership for the next five years too. And, we are already planning attending next year's rally in Oregon. Hotel rooms will soon be had.

Yea, it was a bit hot. But there was air conditioning everywhere so you really had no reason to overheat. Great job everyone.

Next year, we may just have to volunteer a bit.
 
Welcome to our happy dysfunctional family! May the good times roll!

Voni
sMiling
 
I second that! Had a great time at the rally and met some nice people. My hat's off to the volunteers and to the MOA leadership for the job they did in planning and executing the event. Kudo's too to the vendors for their support.

Jim
 
The Sedalia rally was great. I've been to every national since 1984 except the one at Moodus, CT. Voni hasn't missed any since 1984. The facility at Sedalia is as good as any we have ever visited. The top two or three venues are hard to rank but I can't recall one I'd say was better.

The weather was hot, comparable to Lima and Spokane, but nowhere near as hot, humid and miserable as Bloomsburg. Virtually all the activities except drinking beer were in air conditioned buildings, and there was an air conditioned building adjacent to the beer garden tents where one could go if they wished, 24 hours a day. The bands were loud enough to hear from inside the building too. All seminars were in air conditioned buildings. The closing ceremonies were in the big air conditioned arena. At least one night was hot enough to bother campers. Others were not.

Lacking some distant riders from the east coast and west coast, turnout was down a bit at 5,200 but this will always happen when the site is between the Mississippi River and I-25. These symbolic boundaries also seem to be real barriers to some BMW riders.

My seminars filled the room and spilled into the open room next door. Voni's Women Who Ride Seminar was filled, and had a premier lineup of speakers like has never been matched before. Without details - go look them up - Voni Glaves, Ardys Kellerman, Dawn Douglas, Valerie Thompson, Tiffany Coates, Becky Baker, and Benka Pulko all sharied the front table.

All four vendor buildings - all in a row and not very many steps apart were also cold. I know a couple of vendors who had to get warmer clothing because they got cold in the booth, even though it was high 90s or triple digits outside.

Bottled water was freely available throughout the rally grounds, and was delivered to camping areas and tram riders by fine folks in golf carts.

Kudos to everybody who planned, organized, and/or helped at this rally. It was a good one!
 
Ditto Paul...well said!

We were blessed with plenty of shade, and a good 8-10 mph steady breeze on Friday and Saturday, which was very comfortable to be outside when you were in the shade, and being in the sun was even bearable.

Kudo's to all the volunteers, and the rally committee.

Ken
 
'12 Rally

Been to many...certainly not all....definately one the best!!!!! Everything seemed well planned, well executed...awesome entertainment!!! My fave: Sh Boom w/Boulevard draft!!!!:thumb
 
Many thanks to the rally organizers.

The Oasis stations and golf carts with the bottled water were lifesavers, I mean that literally. I had a mesh tent, and a tent fan, one night was hard to sleep, but I did some. That was followed by a cooler day that was fantastic. I took a couple of the bottles with me every night, it helps to deal with the heat. At retail prices, the cost of the bottled water exceeded my rally admission. So the vendors got the money.

The showers were VERY welcome, and every morning the portapot near me were pumped and cleaned. The misting stations, while hard on the glasses, were very welcome.

When I got home, all the clothes I wore had salt lines on them. Wow, the panniers were nasty when I opened them, I should have done that outside.

It was my first rally, if I can survive this one, I think I can survive anything.

Thanks to BMW for the demo trailer, my ride on the R1200RS rally was the most spirited I have ever had on a demo. I was expecting a sedate pace, so I put the arch of the foot on the peg. I drug a toe and had to move my foot. I must have a rally edition, I will be saving more pennies.

I hope all the riders make it home OK, the heat on the highway was brutal. I affects your judgement. I spent more on bottled water than I did on gas.

Rod
 
Welcome to our happy dysfunctional family! May the good times roll!

Voni
sMiling

Hey Lady in red. I missed seeing you at the Rally. I did watch for you though. Went to Tiffany's presentation Saturday so at least I got to meet her. We were too busy buying things.
 
Another good rally! This year was different for me since I went alone. Despite not really knowing anyone there I had a good time and shot the breeze with lots of good people from all over. This was my first year as a volunteer, and I really enjoyed my shift at the ice sales. While grinding across I-70 Wednesday afternoon I had plenty of time to reflect and be thankful that I live smack dab in the middle of some of America's best motorcycling country. All too often we take for granted what we have.
 
This rally was a blast! My riding partner and I did 2 evenings on the gates and let me tell you ,we met some really nice people at gate 12 and saw some beatufiul machines. Yeah it was hot but with all the A/C in the buildings and the water and we even got a couple of bags of ice thrown at us for free! I started talking to a gentleman here on the site and when we got there he called me and we met up and talked for over an hour. He did win a custom riding suit so that was pretty cool. I suggested some roads in Arkansas he should ride and he was very impressed with the riding we have here. If you have never voulenteered for anything at the rally,you should. We had more fun doing it. It was really hot wednesday night after riding all day but I did sleep good. friday and saturday night I actually got a little chilly. Good Rally Good Folks and I did leave some money with the vendors but I only bought things I needed.........um yeah that's right only things I needed!!
 
Sedalia Rally

Thought about skipping this one, but glad I did not. Had a great time and thought the rally was pretty well organized. The only part that was somewhat confusing was trying to figure out the seminar locations.

I think they did a good job getting the vendors located where they did. I was a little disappointed that the BMW riding gear/apparel was basically absent.

Thanks to Grassroots BMW for the lunch rides to Lake of the Ozarks. This was a good idea. There are lots of possibilities for future lunch rides around that lake if this ever comes back to Sedalia again.

We have 3 great BMW dealers in the Missouri area who participated: Engle, Gateway, and Grassroots. And the Bentonville, Arkansas dealer is basically in the other corner.
 
turnout was down a bit at 5,200 but this will always happen when the site is between the Mississippi River and I-25

or it could be that a lot of people stayed home because a rally held in July in MO is sure to be a blast furnace.

glad everyone had a good time, i enjoyed looking at all the pics that have been posted. hope everyone makes it home safely.
 
All of us that tent camped at this rally leave with the knowledge that we can survive and actually have fun in the grip of a horrible heat wave.

I hope the MOA comes back to Sedalia, this was a one in 100 years drought and heat wave. I cant happen again. :hide

Rod
 
MC at the Closing Ceremonies did a great job.
Best Closing Ceremonies ever, nice brisk pace.
AC sure didn't hurt!
 
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or it could be that a lot of people stayed home because a rally held in July in MO is sure to be a blast furnace.

glad everyone had a good time, i enjoyed looking at all the pics that have been posted. hope everyone makes it home safely.

Sure it could be that, but history has shown that many western riders won't come east and east coast riders won't come west. Every "middle" rally has suffered from this in attendee count. The exception seems to be Florida, where everybody wants out I guess. They even won a biggest club attendance award at Sedalia.

p.s. The three hottest rallies since 1984 have been Lima, Ohio; Bloomsburg, Pennsylvania; and Spokane, Washington. Not exactly middle southern locations. Looks like it is time to go back to Canada to me. Trenton 2015 anybody??
 
MC at the Closing Ceremonies did a great job.
Best Closing Ceremonies ever, nice brisk pace.
AC didn't sure didn't hurt!

The M.C. , Tom Macintyre, is a good friend of mine. When I learned that it was his gig, I knew it would turn out well. He's a professional. I ended up being on the team that kept the Airhead Central going and as such spent most of the rally there.

Great Rally!, one of the best Iv'e ever attended. Hats off to Chuck and Julie Manley and their crew. A job well done.
 
We were only at the rally Thursday and Friday and thought it was one of the best we have been to and this was our 21st, first one being in 89, missed last year due to mechanical problems. The heat was pretty brutal Thursday and we stayed in a motel 70 miles away so the ride back there was tough. We couldn't imagine camping that night but haven't camped for at least 15 years. The seminars were very well done and the airconditioned buildings were wonderful. I was talking to a friend that had just gone to the Goldwing rally and it doesn't sound as if it is near as well done as ours. Don't know if we will make next year or not being over 2000 miles. Thanks to all that did a GREAT job!!
 
What a BLAST!

Had a terrific time and met a ton of great people. Even a couple I met on the way down pulled over with a flat didn't let the mech failure distract them. And the heat... so what! Yeah it was hot, but with so many AC buildings and so many functions, there wasn't a time of day that you couldn't find a reason to pop in and get cooled off if needed. Thanks you to all that made it possible and to all that gladly extended a hand to shake.

On the down side...

Can we talk about the ANTS!!!
 
Great rally, no shortage of characters and really nice people, a few butt holes but they declared themselves early and they were easy to avoid.

Well done, MOA.
 
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