If you attend a rally and no club members know you did, do you still need to write about it?? The answer is, “YES”!! Mary gave me “the look” when she found out that I attended two MC events and didn’t write about them for the newsletter. Contributions are what make the newsletter so here’s my “two cents worth”.
I let the weather channel decide what day to leave and which motorcycle to ride. It looked like it would be a cool and damp rally so I left on Thursday so at least the ride down would be dry. The temperature was 33 degrees on Thursday morning so I didn’t leave until it hit 50 degrees at 11:00. This is the closest rally I attend, only 220 miles, so I pulled into the campground around 3:15pm. For maybe twenty miles north and thirty miles south of the Missouri border there was evidence of high winds. Corn fields were flattened and some older buildings and bins were destroyed. I set up camp next to Lloyd a Guzzi rider I know from eastern Iowa. He and I went into Maysville for supper Thursday night. About 25 people showed up on Thursday. It was a cool ride to the rally and after supper the bonfire felt great. Little did I know but the bonfire would feel good for the whole rally.
Friday morning it started to rain lightly and continued until after dinner. Friday evening they served hot dogs, three kinds of chili and of course cold beer. The chili and bonfire were the best. They had the same band as last year on Friday and Saturday nights. They were great. The bandleader even camps over night at the rally. It was cool and windy on Saturday but only had a little light rain during the field events. The Saturday supper tasted great. Camping in cool weather really makes a person hungry. The number of persons attending rallies this year is down all over, only 101 showed up at Maysville this year. The good news was you could eat all you wanted. The bad news is the club lost money. Since this was the 20th Mo-Kan Guzzi Rally they had some special cakes made with green and red frosting (Guzzi colors). It looked and tasted great.
Sunday morning I went to the showers at five. My tent, bike and even the grass was dry. Decided to have coffee and pack up as soon as I had a little daylight to do it. Not to be. A light rain started to fall before it even started to get light. This is the first time I packed up in the rain for a long time. It’s been a pretty good summer in the rain dept. Skeeter and I and a guy on a GS were the only BMWs at the rally so what happened next was embarrassing. I have had my RT a year now and it usually fires on the third or fourth turn of the motor. After ten turns and no sign of running, I waited for thirty seconds and hit the starter again. My RT backfired. It sounded like a short barreled forty-five going off. Four Guzzi riders nearby pooped their pants and then started laughing. She fired right up after that and ran great all the way home.
I rode in rain, downpours, sprinkles or wet roads all the way home. The good news was my First Gear jacket that I bought in June worked great. It was really the first time I have worn it for any length of time in the rain. The bad news was about every livestock farmer in Missouri had fed their cattle Sunday morning and lost the usual crap & mud from their tires on the roads. This is the dirtiest any of my bikes have looked in a long time. At least the temperatures home were in the sixties. Depending on the weather this might be the last rally of the season for me. See ‘ya all next year. Ride safe.
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