Rally postscript

The stage and part of the crowd at last night’s awards ceremony. More of the crowd.

The official rally attendance figure was 8,972 people with 6,870 bikes. Perhaps the most significant statistic was the only 5 percent of the bikes came to the rally on trailers.

Indy Club member Rick Nelson won the Grand Tour Award, having traveled more than 23,000 miles since he left home in January en route to the rally. Nobody else was even close.

Sometime between 6:30 and 7 a.m. today a cold fog descended on the fairgrounds while thousands of us were breaking camp. I was actually cold for the first couple of hours on the ride home. I left about 7:30 a.m. EDT and arrived home at 4:52 p.m. CDT. Total travel time for the 522.6 miles ridden was 9 hours 59 minutes, of which 8 hours and 16 minutes were spent in motion and one hour and 43 minutes were spent stopped for food, water, gas or restroom. My average speed overall was 52.3 mph and my average speed while on the road was 63.1 mph.

Pretty damned fascinating, eh?

Here’s a sign on a Shell station restroom door where they apparently have a graffiti problem: