The Rover-Landers of BC

Just in case anyone wants to convoy down, the NW Overland Rally this year is June 25-28, two hours south of the border.

Tomorrow is the last day to register and get the early-bird rate at www.nwoverlandrally.com

And I will likely need some additional volunteers, so if any Roverlanders want to volunteer, let me know.

If we can find you a volunteer spot, you get free admission to the rally.

Cheers

Ray

Hi Ray,

Our family will be there and will be glad to help out with the event. My 3 boys are excited to hang out with your sons.

Cheers,
Andrew

Ray, do you need any more volunteers still? I'm interested in helping out, I have event experience etc.

Shoot me a PM

We may still need volunteers, PM me if you are keen.

Cheers

Ray

PMs don't seem to be working properly, so if you are keen to be a volunteer, please email me at nwoverlandrally --at-- gmail.com

Cheers

Ray

Schedule

Subject to change.

http://i.imgur.com/rGoJPUk.jpg

Link to source file: http://i.imgur.com/rGoJPUk.jpg

North West Overland Rally

First, a great big thank you to Ray Hyland for donating the prize of admission to the Northwest Overland Rally, at the RoverLanders annual Christmas dinner last year. I was the lucky winner of this prize, and Dawn and I attended the event a couple of weekends ago.

A quick recap – the event was held in Plain, Washington, just north of Leavenworth (worth a visit in it’s own right).My estimate of the population of the town and it’s immediate vicinity, is a couple of hundred people – the rally multiplies this by a factor of ten times at least! There are a handful of stores across the road from the campsite where one can get fuel (essential for the dirt bike crowd!), groceries, coffee, souvenirs and hardware – and absolutely essential on this occasion, ICE!!! Temperatures were in the high 30’s (Celsius) all weekend.

We arrived early Thursday afternoon, and were quickly checked in by Marianne and her friendly volunteer crew. We were directed to our camping spot – the field was already about half full only a couple of hours after the gates opened!

As we explored the grounds, it became clear that there was a huge motorbike presence in the event. There were a significant number of people who arrived in trucks or campers who had also brought motorbikes, and a very large contingent of people who rode their bikes in to the event. What struck us was that the majority of these bikes were BMW’s (the various flavours of GS models), and of these, most were the big R1200GS or GSA machines. We were surprised to see such a large percentage of riders at this event!

There was also a fascinating variety of vehicles, with several Defenders, Discos, Range Rovers, and one particular little Series 1 80” that Ray and Marianne had brought from the lower mainland, with 5 people on board – well done! Mixed in with the other more commonly seen North American and Japanese vehicles, there was also a Unimog, a Volvo 303 (I think, it’s the small-ish one with portal axles), and many interesting and varied arrangements of camping rigs, purpose built trailers, 4x4 conversions of vans, rooftop tents – a candy store of camping gear! Everyone was very friendly and happy to talk about their setups.

We also noticed a lot of people using solar chargers for their batteries, and it seems this technology is becoming more practical and mainstream.
The events available for attendees (at no additional cost!) were motorcycle riding clinics, MANY group rides of varying challenge levels, a technical course which was used for both motorbike and 4x4 challenges, and group drives for the 4x4 gang. You could be busy from sunrise to sunset with organized events. We were totally impressed with the commentators or MC’s for the events we saw – they were knowledgeable, great presenters and quite funny! Everyone seemed to have a great sense of humour!

One of the events we witnessed was a motorcycle competition on a course laid out on the technical track. Most of the competitors were on BMW R1200GS machines – it is an impressive thing to see these big bikes being finessed around a course which requires zero speed turns, navigating through rock fields and sand traps, side hill ascents to hard turn descents, multiple log obstacles – and some people did this 2-up! The more comic relief came with one fellow who ran the course on a Ural with sidecar (including the single track teeter totter!)) and Captain Jean Luc Picard (in uniform) on a Honda minibike. Another event had the same course navigated by various 4x4's (including a Disco and a brand new LR3 I believe, which did a great job).

In the evenings there was a campfire (nicely done in a hanging cauldron to eliminate fire risk), with a gentleman from Mountain Khakis serving as the MC and Ray feeding him draw prizes (Ray, are there any fire extinguishers left? Anywhere?) The prizes given out were amazing, including a full set of tires and a set of motorbike tires!

The people were all awesome, our camp neighbors were very friendly and polite, and it was easy to get a good night’s sleep because everyone respected the 10pm quiet time. Everyone involved starting with Ray and Marianne (who seemed like the energizer bunny, she was everywhere all the time with a smile and cheerful word, keeping things under control), the volunteers, vendors and attendees, made the event a pleasure to be at.

If you are into motorcycle adventure touring , and overland touring of any sort, I would recommend this event as a great place to meet friendly people, share experiences, learn about others and just have fun!