More on the Rally

Thursday   The official start of the show...  There was a breakfast, but I never signed up for that as I am not much on listening to the key note speaker....   But folks were there way early, while I was back at that Hampton Inn soaking up scrambled eggs and sausages...   Hampton does a nice job with their included continental breakfast...

But when we did get downtown about 9 AM we found everything parked full....   Streets were cordoned off and small alley ways were set up that only motorcycles can get thru...   This was a convention center with an Ice arena and many large meeting rooms as well as a commercial show floor...

We were having  much fun looking at all the motorcycles...  There must have be 6 or 7 thousand of them...  The had blocked off the parking ramp so only bikes could get in...  It was quite full and I had to park outside the first day...   There were three floors of these bikes...

As far as you could see in the parking garage.....  Goldwings...

These utility trailers that look to be something else are cute and were quite the rage a few years ago..

I'm not certain how that opens up, but you can probably put a lot of stuff inside....  But the corners aren't square so it might present a challenge....

While cute, the corvette seemed too small to be practical...  That's my black trike parked next to the trailer...  I had put my helmet on the back rack, but when I came back I found it knocked down on the paint...  I hope it was just the wind...  

We went to the commercial vendor show every day for three days in a row....  Not that we bought that much, but we seemed to be looking at everything presented...  We dug thru racks of accessories looking for just the right half cover to go over my bike when it is parked outside of a motel...  And I tried on almost every helmet in the place looking for one that fits my big head......   No snickering...!

I appear to have taken a picture of myself taking a picture...  In the rear view mirror...  But this is the line up to go on the parade on Saturday Morning....  They counted the rows of bikes and said there were over 2500 on this street they blocked off...

Even behind where I was staged, they started to make another group....  This was mostly full by the time we started out....   We were four bikes wide but they sent us off single file.  It took quite a while to just get us rolling...  The police had every unit at every corner while we went thru town and then left for the mountain to the East of the town...  We wound around on the top of the mountain and then came back down thru the really oldest part of town...  There were really big stately homes that were in mint condition of repair...   Everywhere folks were out along the parade route  with their kids watching us go by and waving...  My arm was really sore when we got back to the parking garage...

This is kind of cheesy but its what you do in order not to have the atmosphere created by Sturgis type of rally...  For the most part the bikes were parked and people walked around during the event....  There was no endless driving up and down the main streets thru town like the Daytona or Sturgis events..  There were no big bars or drunken folks..  The evening events were dry...

On Thursday evening they had a bike light show...  It was after dark and folks did parade thru the pre arranged course with all their bikes lit up...   This is a big deal to some of there folks as they cover their bikes is lights.....  And now that we have LEDs, the bikes are covered in all colors on every inch..  These are hot sales items inside the commercial area....

I include this picture as it was taken in the commercial area of the show...  This is a new modern Indian motorcycle that has been triked by Roadsmith...  It seems we were so busy talking to everyone and looking at all the neat stuff that we didn't bother taking many pictures inside....  The pictures were taken by my friend Al with his Iphone...

The format of the commercial area is half for people that actually work on your bike and the other half of the floor is for vendors that sell smaller stuff or just display their trailers and stuff...  There are quite a few fair like vendors hawking pots and pans and massage chairs too...   Jewelry and T shirts and the ever proverbial wonder cleaner guys........

If you purchased something to be installed on your bike, you could bring it in for the vendor to work on....  This is controlled with armed guards... Well strong arm anyway..   Our ride leader from the Arizona club is one of the guards that polices this...  I found him outside behind the building with a walkie talkie..  Lining people up in the sun to wait their turn.

You buy your accessory, and get a pass with a specific time on it...  Then you go thru a gate with a guard house and show your pass about 15 minutes before your time...  Then you wait in the dreaded line up behind the building...  They call your vendor to see when he is ready...  Then when its time, your are admitted to the show floor at walking speed as you make you way thru the people in the aisles...  Everyone in the show knows how this works so they make way for the guys on bikes going to a specific booth...  Many of the booths are pen stripers so don't touch the paint is another common thing to be heard...

I wondered how this procedure would work, but it seemed orderly and to my knowledge no one was hit or hurt....  

This is getting too long so more tomorrow...

Retired Rod