Home Coming

Notes from Homecoming:

Let me start with these disclaimers:
I didn't get there until 2am on Sat. morning. I assume that most of the really fun stuff had already happened.
I didn't travel with anyone else or know anyone who was going to be there.
I didn't go on the poker run or do any riding with anyone other than myself.

With that out of the way,

I saw 2 other black Runes, one Cherry and one Blue. I didn't speak with any other Rune Riders except RadRuneRider. John is a heck of a nice guy and really enthused about our bikes.

Everywhere I went, the Rune drew a crowd. I spent 10 minutes talking to onlookers every single time I fired it up. That includes a guy who shouted, "Buy a Harley" during the factory tour and later proceeded to drool over my Rune and proclaim, "That is the finest piece of machinery I've ever seen."

That part of Ohio has the biggest damned bugs I've ever seen. It was like driving through a flock of hummingbirds every time I took to the road. Maybe I'm not as deadset against a windshield as I thought I was.

I saw no one trying to sell anything for my Rune, except for the Ultimate seat guy. I'm sure it is a great product, but waaay too big and clunky for my taste. It looks like a couch perched up there. If you make something sleek and slim then I'm interested. I thought the stock seat was comfortable, but if anyone here is able to sit on one for more than 100 miles then you are far tougher than me.

The wheelie guy was interesting for my 7 year old son. I thought he was talented, but 5 minutes was enough for me.

The factory tour was somewhat interesting, but I'm in no hurry to do it again. Maybe if the line had been running it would have been better.

The homecoming seemed like a nice little getaway and was being enjoyed by the riders of the seemingly millions of GoldWings.

Nice trip. Nice long ride home. Nice, but not anything special or particularly interesting or exciting. I don't expect to go back anytime soon, unless we can round up and organize a group of RuneRiders.

Dirk

i said it in an earlier post, but i'm gonna' repeat it. i go to a rally a month somewhere....almost EVERY month...sometimes two rallies a month. i've gone to just about every rally (but NOT all of em'...yet)...and most of them multiple times.

By far....the Homecoming...while 'ok'...is at the bottom of my list for things i would attend (again). I've done it three times. Done that plant tour three times...etc. I said in one of my earlier posts that the Homecoming is a BIT more of a Gold Wing thing. i see you saw that too.

Don't get me wrong, with the right group of friends, i could have a good time. but with the right group of friends, i can have a good time at just about any rally...just about anywhere...just about any time.

When the Homecoming was combined with the InZane, it was worth it to go over for one day as part of the 1000 Valk march. But it has never been worth me riding 720 miles up there to attend just that event (oops, let me correct myself, TRAILER 720 miles. Silly me, i'm not about to ride my Rune 720 miles there and back on my tight schedule :roll: )

but that's just my take. we each have our own tastes and likes and dislikes. But that's why when they made the InZane the week before the Homecoming, it was a 'no-brainer' for me to pick the InZane. Now...if i had vacation time to blow....and more money to blow....and some good friends were going to the Homecoming, heck ya', i might have eased over there after Paducha (InZane) and done that one too. That would have been killer!

that's also why when some folks on this board said they had to chose between the Hoot and Homecoming...which one should they do? Again, i said this is a no-brainer, do the Hoot.

On the Gold Wing board, i suspect you'd get a different answer but hey, i could go to a dang Harley rally with some good friends and enough 'hooch' and make the most of it :!:

Don't anyone flame me now...this is just MY opinion. We all have em'.......and i'm glad those that went (for the most part) had a good time.

What i'd really like to do is get a Rune Rally planned for next year. But right now, i just don't know if we'd have enough interest. And as much stuff as i'm already doing in the biker community (VRCC State Director for Bama, working on this board, Road Captain(s) in Southern Cruisers and Air Force Military club, etc.)...i don't want to take on another job/rally planning like that, unless i know we have the interest. I worked on the InZane staff this year, and we put A LOT of work into it to make it a success. I also put on the CHeaha Mountain Valk/Rune rally in Alabama every year, and i run that one and put it together all on my own...with just a LITTLE help from a few key volutnteers. If i'm going to plan a Rune Rally, i don't want to do it unless we're going to do it RIGHT! So far i have never got much positive feedback on doing something like that. Part of that may be the fact there are already so many existing rallys to go to....and so little time to do it in most of our lives!


Irregardless, i sure wish we could get ONE rally where a BIG number of us could show up and hang together. We could even pick an existing rally, and have a Rune "Ground Zero" hotel....with rooms blocked off just for us. And maybe a group dinner, and a group ride. i talked about doing this at the Hoot, but not many showed interest. i put this together at Daytona last October, but only a few showed up!

but i'll keep trying once in awhile and maybe we'll pull it off yet!

So did any of you make it over to see Direct Line while at Homecoming?

potential rune rally

hey tim... good idea... was a pleasure to meet you at Inzane (paducah) this year... thx for all your hard work at the VRCC event. I'm all in favor of a special rune rally for 05 but would really like it to happen someplace other than the ' hot and sticky' places the Inzane folks seem to favor. Lots of ski resorts in UT, CO, ID, MT, WY (or enven VT if you wanna stay east) are anxious to attract summer events to fill up rooms normally empty in their "off season". And in summer the weather is perfect and the riding is spectacular. (Since you are the "trialer queen", it should make no difference to you how far you pull the twins. LOL). By the way, ratdog and i just got back on sat afternoon... 6,450 miles round trip... stopped by Sturgis on the way back, had only 20 minutes of rain on the entire trip, just east of Indianapolis. And the really miserable heat was restricted to Paducah where the 'misery' index hit 115 by 0900. If you are not amenable to a separate rune rally, we could plan something sorta separate and special at the Inzane next year for us 'runers' (although that is definately my second choice)... later dude