This year's event will be held at the Blue Ridge Motorcycle Campground near Cruso, North Carolina. Their website has lots of info about their facilities.

What is it? It's a gathering of F650 riders. But it's not limited to F650 riders. While this won't be advertised elsewhere, your riding buddies and significant others are welcome. This is intended to be a dual-sport gathering, so most of us will be riding dual sports and will be venturing off-road at some point. But not everyone will be riding an F650. And not everyone will be riding offroad. Last year's thread can be found here. Some more fotos from last year here.

This year there will be NO rally fee . That'll get you a gift and a shot at some cool door prizes. All you have to do is show up. Sscratch was generous enough to donate useful gifts for everyone. Thanks Sscratch! We have no expenses to cover this year. This means no t-shirts, but we think you'll dig your gift. The only catch is you have to show up to get it .

The general idea. We're that A right in the middle. I'm working on getting some better maps over here...stick with me.



Let me know if you can't read that map or it crowds your screen. I upgraded my monitor

A Google Earth view of the terrain from the south. The campground is right in the middle.



I believe this map may be older, but probably useful. Try the 'back map' and 'next map' buttons at the top for more area maps. Many more maps from the same source here

More Pisgah/Nantahala Stuff. You'll need the Reader from Adobe to access these if you don't already have it installed. This is not light reading. You're warned.

You'll have a choice in accommodations here. You can either rent one of their small heated cabins for $45/night or camp for $15/night (nights other than Friday/Saturday are $10/night). More on tent rates here. If you'd like a real room, there are towns in the area where you can find those. The venue doesn't start taking normal reservations until March 1. You don't need a reservation for camping but if you want a cabin you'll need to keep that in mind.

Please note that the cabins carry a cancellation policy. More info on cabins here. If you have to ditch within the 11 day cutoff, check back here to see if someone might wanna take that cabin and maybe cut your losses. The point where we can issue a refund has passed. Please contact the venue for any refund issues on or after March 1.

Cabin pre-registration is closed. Please contact the venue on or after March 1 for cabins.

Per the host's website, no RVs will be allowed.

Our location will be quite different this year. We won't be all that far from Asheville. Day trips to the Biltmore will be easily do-able. We're also in the Pisgah National Forest area which has some pretty decent d/s riding. We'll be just a few minutes from the best parts of the BRP. The roads in the area are gonna be hard to beat for the road crew.

I also think it'll be more accessible for most. I-40 gets you pretty close as does I-26.

As meals go, the campground serves breakfast and dinner (no Sunday dinner). We are not providing food at this point, but the kitchen prices are reasonable. This way you can eat when you want and not have to wait for the chow to make its 3 hour journey over Tatum Gap .

Breakfast Menu here

General kitchen info here

Rides are still in the works. As we planned last year, we'll try to put together route sheets for those who want them. No organized rides are planned nor are they expected to be. We feel it'll be better for folks to just hook up and ride as they see fit on the spot. Group rides can be quite a mess. Pick a group that rides the way and places you agree with or do it solo. Or feel free to follow me. I'll be lost, but I'll have fun getting there. The BRP from where we are is a no-brainer if you haven't done it yet. Keep in mind that there may still be construction closures near Asheville and Boone due to a retaining wall collapse. That area is set to re-open in the Spring...no telling what that means. Also, our host rides a GS and KLR and knows the area. I'll be taking his advice on the local stuff.

We're gonna be a bit taller in elevation than last year as well. The campground sits at around 3,000 ft. According to the host, there are 18 peaks above 6,000 feet in our county alone. This could make the nights a bit chillier than last year. And as one might expect such terrain commands lots of hiking trails if you'd rather not spend all day on your butt.

Your hosts will be myself and Sscratch



The "in" list

Again with the color scheme:

Maybe
In


Me
Sscratch Twin Cabin
Fauster Queen Cabin
Prof
IAM
Stickman
mattys
slvrblt
jessehere Twin Cabin
aganon
NancyK764
dziner Twin Cabin
Captain F650 Twin Cabin
KenWVHills Queen Cabin
rreynold6 Twin Cabin
vr46go
mountain man
straggler
Stickman
F B Oldcrow + 1 Queen Cabin
bmwbob rider down and out...heal up quick ninjason!
Bobcatou
mtnguy
gwhis
GS George
treeron

Maps of supposedly open Forest Service roads in the area. You may need a larger Pisgah area map to put these in perspective. This is detail of the open and rideable FS roads in the area. The open roads are highlighted in yellow.







I got this info here. If you have some way to download and view .pdf files on the fly (PDA, Smartphone, etc), that previous link should come in handy (if you're riding DS). For everybody else, there's a mental picture of what's in bounds as FS roads go. If you've ever wondered if there were rideable FS roads all around the best areas of the BRP, there's your answer

I've also come up with a route sheet for a potential ride. It might change a bit, but here's what I have for now:

First a map:




The proposed route:

South on US 276 (Cruso Rd.) out of the campground

Cruso Rd. to BRP South

Exit BRP @ Hy 215 near Devil’s Courthouse and ride South

Through Balsam Grove

64 West to Lake Toxaway

281 North/West (Canada Rd.) to Tuckasegee

107 South to Cashiers

64 East to Lake Toxaway

Repeat portion

281 North/West (Canada Rd) to just shy of Wolf Mountain. Portions of 281 may be unimproved.

CR 1324 East to Balsam Grove

215 North, Cross BRP at approx. Devil’s Courthourse to Woodrow

276 (Cruso Rd.) East/South back to the campground.

I'll lead this ride if anyone is interested in following. I may do it solo one day if I can't find any takers. But don't feel like you have to ride with a group. Feel free to check it out at your own pace.

I'm also adding some opinions/suggestions from others who have ridden the route. You can find those on page 12...trying to keep the clutter down in this post.

Just a few thoughts...

With a campground, make sure that you are upfront with the owners about the type of group attending. The last thing you (as the organizer) need is someone yelling at you every time someone blips the throttle on their way into the facility - ie. the Carbide Club speed enforcer. We're not a bunch of hooligans (well... most of the time) but 10:00 pm quiet hours probably won't work out very well.

Meals. On-site dinners are cool because everyone can settle in and enjoy the camaraderie. Maybe have Saturday's dinner be a pre-paid catered event so no one has to cook or clean-up. That's how the ADVrider BYOB rally operates and it seems to work pretty well. Someone checks your name off the list as you approach the food and that's it. Kind of depends on the number of attendees to reach an economy of scale. Personally, I like going out for a breakfast ride as you don't have to wait for everyone to be ready and you can choose the menu. Or bring DanOH along and have him take care of it.
Lunch is on your own while you're out riding. Of course, all this depends on having a few local restaurants available for our business.

The pre-pay plan worked pretty well at the Northeast Jailbreak. That provided ZD and I some working capital and kept the no-shows to a minimum.

Early spring is pretty early for cycle rallies so I wouldn't expect any conflicts. However, I plan on running down to the MOA rally in July so my recommendation would be to keep the Thumper Thaw out of the Johnson City TN area.

That's all I got right now. Count me as a mebbe / mebbe not at this point. At least I won't be in China this year.

Hiya Fauster.

Some good points you make. These campgrounds I speak of cater only to motorcycles. There are several in the area. And as many cater to cruiser types, especially in the Summer months, they're used to loud pipes. A few of them have excellent feeding facilities on site. We could either negotiate a group rate with them or do it restaurant style...some are set up for that as well. Personally I'd prefer the on-site restaurant style...everyone eats when they want. But if we can get things deeply discounted as a group, we may wanna go that route.

I sure hope you can make it down. I'll put ya on the mebbe list.

I desire to attend; and you recognize all the limits to that statement........especially the big one.

More primitive than last year is the only way that you can go. And, the on and off road riding can't be much better.

Thanks to you and SSSSSSScratch for your efforts; U da man and he's da SSSSSSuperman. One more thing; whatabout "metrosocial"....explain that again.

I would love to make it this year. It was such a bummer not being able to make it last year. Put me down as a purt damn near yes.

Put me down as "maybe" - a lot of future employment scenarios to sort out between then and now.

A place to get out of the rain would be a great idea - that'll ensure that it doesn't.

The Georgia Mountain BMW rally is usually the first weekend in May (IIRC) - so you probably don't want to go a week later...

I'm in as a 100% coming. . . Jenny may be joining us for this rally - she's 50/50 at this point.

I am in, and as soon as a final date is set I will put in for the time off.

Oh, is it OK to ride my new Tiger to a BMW rally

in!

Cool . . . 800GS demo rides

Yes, but one or more rally hosts must do healthy test-rides to ensure everyone's safety. That goes for F800s as well

That's the kind of thing that can only be explained in person, at dark, around a fire.

I thought Sscratch had a place in mind once for hosting a gathering...

We have discussed several sites. We have lots of good places closer to home, but none will provide the wealth of riding opportunities that we enjoy in the area just south of the Great Smoky Mountains National Park. We're gonna try and be picky and get as much to our liking as possible. I'm sure that compromise will have to be made somewhere, but there are a few things we'd really like to incorporate such as low cost and a pavilion. I'd love to think we could click our heels and come up with the perfect spot, but we wanna look at every option available before picking a location. This will take time. But rest assured...we'll find something.

That said...you gonna make it this year?