Thank You, Rally Staff

Now that I'm home, and the camp gear is spread out in the sun to dry, I'd like to thank all the folks who worked so hard in what turned out to be a pretty difficult situation.

Thanks to the people of WVa who could not have been friendlier. No matter where I stopped, the locals came over and struck up conversation.

Prayers for the four members who were injured in the Beer Tent Catastrophe, and hope you're home and on the mend a.s.a.p.

Here's hoping for drier weather in Spokane !

TB

Home in Pittsburgh, installing various new bike goodies.

from a local WV hillbilly, how exciting it was having you BMW riders in town. It became fun to try and guess...empty parking space or BMW? didn't see or hear a single Harley all weekend. The BMW has a much lovelier sound. wish the weather had been better for ya and the camping facilities consolidated, but I think of the organizers did a nice job of getting U of Charleston grounds for camping and Johnny Statts for music. would have been perfect for smaller group. really hated to hear about the injuries from the beer tent blowdown. hopefully all will recover with good stories to tell. from my distance, I don't think the City of Charleston did enough to roll out the red carpet for your group. but from this local, I really loved having you BMW riders in town and seeing all the bikes and of course, I WANT ONE. Thanks for visiting and I hope you enjoyed it as much as we did.

Hope everyone that went down on the RR crossing on the way to New River is OK. Everyone I talked to seemed to have seen an accident at that spot.

Sure hate to hear about the mishaps at the RR crossing. I feel VERY guilty because one rider asked me how to get to the New River Gorge and I explained the route while extolling the beauty of the overlooks near Hawks Nest and the fun switchbacks on old US 60. After we parted I suddenly realized that I should have warned him about the sharp angled RR crossing on the bottom east side of the Hawks Nest pass. Hope he wasn't one of the statistics. I've considered that stretch of 60 to be one of my favorite rides for years and take it for granted but newbies should beware of it's hazards.

Rick Reynolds
R1100RT
Borden, IN

I hit that crossing at a good speed two up on my LT and prayed to God that there would be enough traction to hold the front tire (it worked!).

That crossing really should be better marked!

I was notified of that crossing in casual conversation the day before and was on the watchout fot it. There were two bad crossings and I was prepared for both. I think a warning in the rally literature during registration would have been very useful.

I can't believe why someone never posted some sort of warning sign at that railway crossing. I seen three riders go down on Saturday and the local authorities were pretty useless. We asked why nothing was posted or why the crossing was not serviced by the rail company and he said people crashed all the time at that location when the surface was wet. As I was assisting one couple who laid down their R100 pretty bad, we were flagging riders to slow down hoping to avoid another catastrophe. What *issed me the most was the fact a clan of Metric Cruiser Harley Bad Boys (And Girl) wannabees, were sitting at the falls parking lot watching everyone crash. I asked why they didn't walk to the road and warn the riders. Not impressed with their answer (It was Fun) Jerks!

I hope every rider that had the misfortune of lying their bike down is OK especially the RT rider who was taken away by ambulance and his bike was totaled and the great couple that laid their R100 down. Not sure if they trailered their bike back to Michigan or not they were pretty shook up.

Cheers
Tomas

Thanks be to the gods. I saw a sign saying Buffet Breakfast at Glenn Ferris. Wrong day!! Did talk to a bunch of bikers whose buddies had gone down on the infamous crossing. They warned me and when I got there in the wet conditions, I slowed to 20 MPH and still skidded my front wheel sideways slightly. There was a sign saying "Slippery when wet" but still you would not think it could be that bad. The people that set up the Poker run, Ronald McDonald House, were not biker people so maybe they were not aware of the nature of bikes in those conditions.

White knuckled as I saw the RR crossing sign w/slippery when wet did not prepare me for the sight of the tracks with that rubber matting between the tracks. Thank god it was 1 pm, dry, was already slow doing two-up, didn't feel it slide out, but my attention was completely and surviving that curve, that when we got to the New River Gorge Bridge, the other riders I was with were talking about the waterfall at that corner, which I never even notice, I even passed going back and people wanted to stop and take pictures, turned around, so I did that crossing 4 times. A marker a quarter mile down the road from that crossing would be definitely beneficial to riders warning of the slick nature of the crossing.