Open Road Biker

Where did I stop? Right I was talking about the prices and what we got for our money. Like I said I guess if it was all figured into it the sixty euro wouldn’t be so bad but the food was mighty expensive. You paid for all of the food and drinks with a chip. The chips cost you 1.80 euro. One beer or coke (roughly a 6-8 oz cup) was one chip. A hamburger was 2-3 chips and the other stuff just went up from there. The only fair deal seemed to be the fries. They were 1 chip and you got a descent portion. Well enough about that you want to hear about the rest of the rally not the cost right?

So there we were, we had entered the gates and began looking for a place to set up our tents. I mean it was Friday afternoon around 1:00 P.M. so it shouldn’t be too hard right? If you wanted up close it was. We ended up back in campground four which was probably the farthest away. It seemed the place was already packed. The place we chose ended up okay and gave us a chance to exercise by walking back and forth to the festival area. Tent set up went well and we headed for beer and entertainment. I think the first entertainment we caught was the oil wrestling. Not bad, they chose some chap from the crowd and he had the opportunity to wrestle two attractive young women. I was waiting for the big one to come out of the shadows to wrestle him instead but she never surfaced. Now that would have been funny. After that we strolled through the markets a little and looked at all of the shirts, sunglasses, and parts they had to offer. A little food, beer, and a few trips back to the tent and I got to catch part of a show by Action in DC. Not a bad AC/DC cover band. The guitarist did his Angus Young rendition and the lead singer kind of sounded like Bon Scott or even Brian Johnson. After that I was done. It was early but I was beat and my back was hurting. I just didn’t get enough sleep the night prior so I headed to rack out.

That is all for now, I will talk about day two tomorrow. Inn the meanwhile talk about the Super Rally in our biker forums or add a comment here.

It won’t be long now and my 10,000 maintenance will be needed. Not only that but I am going to need a front tire also. It looks like I ride the front tire too hard because my back tire has plenty of life left in it.
I know right now I will have to replace the oil, oil filter, primary fluid, trans fluid, and spark plugs. There are a bunch more things to inspect and tighten so it may be a full days work. I only have about 550 miles to go so I guess I need to start gathering the stuff for it now. I am expecting the parts and consumables to be around $40 not counting the tire. When is the last time you did a maintenance on your bike and do you do it regularly? Head over to the forums and tell us about it.

I am going to split this article up into a few parts because a fair amount went on and it would be a fairly long article so here it goes;

Day 1 started early for me. I was up and out of the house before 6 A.M. to go and run a few errands and pick up some equipment from a buddies house. By 7 A.M. I was sitting at the bowling alley parking lot with five others packed and ready to go. Destination: Bussloo, Netherlands around 200 miles away. We would be cutting through Brussels during rush hour traffic and maybe even hit a little more as we go through Antwerp. We got off to a good start and made it to the ring in about 30 minutes but there we met traffic and it was crawling. The Road Captain starting splitting lanes so off we went between traffic and saving a little time. Well I ride at the back of the pack as the SGT at Arms. My job is to block traffic and help keep the formation together and if someone breaks down or stops for some reason help take care of the situation. About halfway through the ring the inevitable happens, an accident. One of our guys clips a car as it was slowing down and it crushes his crash bar against his foot. He is almost in the back so the formation rolled on for about a quarter of a mile and then stopped. One other guy stopped with me and the guy who had the accident and then went on to tell the others what happened. They took off to a safer place to wait and we stayed and did the necessary reports and such and after maybe an hour or more we were off again. The guys foot was hurting but he wasn’t missing the Super Rally for anything (that was some determination). From there the way was very smooth. Thanks to the stop we missed traffic in the Antwerp area and rolled clean all the way to Bussloo.

Once there we had to pass through a police checkpoint and one of the guys (the Road Captain) got pulled in for a check. It took a little bit and we began to wonder if he was on the receiving end of a fully cavity check but when he returned he assured us that he could not talk them into it. The next point to cross was the actual entrance where they stole our money uhhh I mean where we paid our way in. It was 60 euro for entrance. Now until we got there we had no idea what that 60 euro would get us but when we looked in the little bag they handed you it was kind of disappointing but I guess it all worked out.
Here is a small breakdown of what your money bought;
1. Entrance to the Super Rally for the whole five days if you can manage to be there the whole time- That included a place to set up your tent, they had trash receptacles and toilets near the four major campgrounds, free access to any and all of the performances during your stay, and showers.
2. Three stickers
3. A super Rally 2007 pin

4. A program guide
5. Breakfast the consisted of 3 rolls (a ham, a cheese, and a raisin) and coffee.

There you have it. Actually 60 euro would not have been a bad price to pay for that but when you start buying food and drinks then is when you really felt the pinch. That is all for now. I will write some more on it later.

I had a great time at Super Rally and I wished I could have stayed until Tommorow. There were over 10,000 people there, all kninds of awesome bikes, and some great entertainment. It rained on us some but that was just par for the course (no rain no gain right?). I haven’t been home long and I am wore out. The ride back was only 200 miles but the wind seemed to drain me today or maybe it was all of that piss water beer last night.I may never know huh? Well I have a few more things to do as well as upload all of the pictures. As soon as I can I will get a detailed story up about this weekend.

Dyna Super Glide
I went and checked that bike out today for my friend and it is in very good condition. The price he wants is more than fair considering the amount of extra work he has put into the bike. There is only one thing that I don’t like about the bike and that is the Buckhorn handle bars. But then again I am a little partial to apes. If my friend buys the bike I will post a picture of it.

Super Rally
Here it is around noon and I can’t wait to go home and pack for tomorrow. I won’t be carrying much just a change of clothes, my tent and bedroll, and some food. We will be rolling at around 7:00 A.M. so that means I will have to strap it all to my bike tonight because I am not a morning person (you would think that after 17+ years in the military I would be fine with mornings). Right now there will be four full club members going and two prospects so it should be interesting.
Just remember this means I will not be making any posts until Sunday night or Monday so until then stay safe.

AAFES New Car Sales
The rep here in Chievres has set up shop in the forums so head on over and see if he has any deals for you. Understand you have to be in the military and on TDY or deployed overseas to take advantage of the military sales program.