Registration has been open for a couple of weeks now and the response has been encouraging. We have roughly 150 riders signed up so far, and many of them are new this year (which I think is very cool). Thank you to all who have signed up already. It is going to be a fun year!
I want to take a few moments to say thank you to a few people who have helped me with this rally the last 2 years. Tim Seawel, Brady Mullins, Justin Long, Wayne Horner – you guys have been extremely helpful in many different areas, including scoring the many pictures that come in, answering questions on Facebook and giving me feedback on my ideas. Several of you have given me suggestions of future locations, and I greatly appreciate it. Riders will find several locations this coming year that were suggested by other riders. I have a long list of places that are fun to visit in the PNW, but I haven’t been everywhere and it is fun to see locations that others find enjoyable. In particular, Dale Wilson gave me a very entertaining group of locations for this year and I liberally used them! Finally, Suze had a big hand in how the rally logo looked last year and the more I look at it, the happier I am with it. Her son put in some time for us early last year – I am eternally grateful because I am just not that creative when it comes to artistic stuff 🙁
Alright, the award show is over. I have the 30 locations for this year picked. I do have a couple I want to scout out before committing to make sure the location is available to all of us without having to ride a Ural. As we did last year, no dirt (without an alternative paved location). In fact, this year there is no dirt and I didn’t need alternatives. There will be some forestry service roads involved, but they will be paved. Perhaps not clearly marked, but paved nonetheless.
Do you want to visit just a few that are nearby, or maybe you want to finish, or maybe you want all 30? Any way you decide to attack it is just fine with us. I have it set up so that the average weekend rider can finish pretty easily. Do you want to visit all 30? You are going to have to put in some work! I intentionally select locations that require some riding. You will not be disappointed, but you will use up some tires!
More to come, including a couple of teasers….maybe!