chelan sidecar rally

[whitham_wannabe]

I think your response "So you guys are saying I have the worst bike and the smelliest wife?" should be your new sig line!

Awesome weekend, but poor old Bruce froze his tail off on the ride home.

[NortwestRider]

I think your right,and so does my smelly wife!!.


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk

[whitham_wannabe]

Our pictures from the weekend …

This was our first ever rally of any kind, so we weren’t quite sure what to expect, but had a superb time – good weather, good people and great to see everyone’s variations on the theme of converting two wheels to three.

Showed up and parked in front of a familiar rig …



Our fearless leader’s machine.



We didn’t arrive until Friday lunchtime, so missed the Poker Run, but got to watch the sidecar games.

Blind folded autocross, what could go wrong?!



Oh. This. "Look out for the tree!!" Crunch.



Carl’s phenomenal Blackbird rig.



Superb fake BMW … I think the residents of Chelan feared ze Germans were invading when this ran through town.



Riding boots and shorts – Tony be stylin’!



Even Santa showed up.



Naturally, Bruce was not impressed by all the shenanigans.



Friday night drive in was excellent – apologies to everyone for Bruce’s interruptions to the show!

[whitham_wannabe]

Saturday morning, and the beast is ready to roll.



Lining up for the group ride to lunch. Somehow I managed to end up at the front – which was bad as I had no idea where we were going. My intention was to keep turning right until I caught up with the back of the group and ride around in circles all afternoon, but fortunately I gave up the lead to someone who had a better idea.



We had a nice forty mile ride to lunch, through wine country.



And arriving at our destination … a lot of rigs in convoy.



Lunch was held in a private lodge at the top of a hill, with panoramic views all over the valley.








Back to the State Park for the afternoon show.




Carl’s Blackbird again. After the show, he let me take it for a ride and all I can say is …. Ohmyfawkinggawd! It was an incredible thing to ride, a ton of power and the handling was amazing. Just think and it responds. I want one of these very badly indeed …!



And what I personally thought was one of the best bikes at the rally, because it was one of the few that had actually been built by the guy riding it … Mr NortWestRider, take a bow!




Saturday night, we missed out on the cruise, as Bruce wasn’t allowed on the boat, so took a little ride up into the hills.



Very dusty, but a nice little ride.




Bruce helps with the weight transfer on the way back to the campsite.



All round, an excellent weekend away and it was great to meet everyone.

[tony the tiger]

"Riding boots and shorts – Tony be stylin’!" it is what it is...

Some verra' nice pic's in this thread! Here's a coupla' mine...

I stopped off in Roslyn for lunch @ The Brick



I think this was Friday, on the way back from the poker run... bad day for somebody.

I di'int do it!

Also on Friday - I diverted to durt... quick run up the Chelan Butte

...more posin'

Sidecar games on Saturday - caught all three in action

and closing day - outside the awards breakfast @ Company Creek

I had a ~really~ good time - pleasure meeting new friends and getting re-acquainted w/old ones. Let's do it again sometime!

Prosit!

[Square4]

Les and I stayed around on Sunday and Monday for the Phase 2, to do some exploring of the back roads around Chelan. On Friday afternoon Roggie joined us and we went above the ski area on the North side of Lake Chelan and made good progress on the road that is part of the WA Backcountry Discovery Route. We did good until we went to the north side of the ridge and ran into show everywhere including filling the road. On Sunday we explored the lower route that seems to parallel the north side of the lake and ran on this till past 25 Mile Creek Campground (which was obviously on the other side of the lake) until we ran out of time. On Monday we went past 25 Mile Creek and as far as we could to the south until we ran into snow for both roads. We found that we ran into snow at about the 5,000 feet level. In two of the cases of being stopped by snow it was apparent that the snow was just drifted across the road but for the other case there was no snow anywhere except on the road and we were told later that they had groomed a number of these roads for snowmobiles and they had ice packed to a 2 to 3 foot depth. Well that is what we found. We also learned that at these higher elevations the snow pack was 125% ABOVE normal! It was not possible to make any loops on these back country roads but we had a lot of fun riding out and back. We were thinking for next year and the phase 2 activities this would open the door for several options: one would be to make a loop if the snow pack was less and there was warmer weather but if not then we found a number of very good remote campgrounds that could be used to set up camp and do out and back rides. If we got some expert dirt sidecar riders, we were thinking that this might be an excellent time to teach each other riding techniques to handling the challenging conditions on these roads. It was a lot of fun and just riding the roads gave challenges that were good training experience. Hopefully others will want to try the phase 2 next year.
Also wanted to mention that on Sunday evening Tommie from Blaine rode in on his R50/80 Bingham sidecar rig. He was looking for other sidecarists and only found Les and me. He especially wanted to say hi to Tony the Tiger. So consider it done.

[Sidecardoug]

I tried a similar route when I was last at the Chelan Rally (2010). It's really too early in the year to ride a lot of the Forest Service roads. I went up into the hills from 25 Mile Park


Some great views both toward the mountains


and toward the lake


Too soon, the snow stopped me

[tony the tiger]

Originally Posted by Square4

Les and I stayed around on Sunday and Monday for the Phase 2, to do some exploring of the back roads around Chelan. On Friday afternoon Roggie joined us and we went above the ski area on the North side of Lake Chelan and made good progress on the road that is part of the WA Backcountry Discovery Route. We did good until we went to the north side of the ridge and ran into show everywhere including filling the road. On Sunday we explored the lower route that seems to parallel the north side of the lake and ran on this till past 25 Mile Creek Campground (which was obviously on the other side of the lake) until we ran out of time. On Monday we went past 25 Mile Creek and as far as we could to the south until we ran into snow for both roads. We found that we ran into snow at about the 5,000 feet level. In two of the cases of being stopped by snow it was apparent that the snow was just drifted across the road but for the other case there was no snow anywhere except on the road and we were told later that they had groomed a number of these roads for snowmobiles and they had ice packed to a 2 to 3 foot depth. Well that is what we found. We also learned that at these higher elevations the snow pack was 125% ABOVE normal! It was not possible to make any loops on these back country roads but we had a lot of fun riding out and back. We were thinking for next year and the phase 2 activities this would open the door for several options: one would be to make a loop if the snow pack was less and there was warmer weather but if not then we found a number of very good remote campgrounds that could be used to set up camp and do out and back rides. If we got some expert dirt sidecar riders, we were thinking that this might be an excellent time to teach each other riding techniques to handling the challenging conditions on these roads. It was a lot of fun and just riding the roads gave challenges that were good training experience. Hopefully others will want to try the phase 2 next year.
Also wanted to mention that on Sunday evening Tommie from Blaine rode in on his R50/80 Bingham sidecar rig. He was looking for other sidecarists and only found Les and me. He especially wanted to say hi to Tony the Tiger. So consider it done.

I was looking over the maps & brochures just last night and thinking the same thing... I'll be headed back out that way for the USCA National and plan to overnight in the area. Maybe further up the road (and off the beaten path) this time.
Was ~ALSO~ talkin' trash about Tommy... he's a helluva' guy, ain't he? So - he DID show up, just late for the show... damn. I wonder how th' hell he did that?!
Thanks for lettin' me know.

[Square4]

Sidecardoug: The photos that you posted are nearly identical to the ones that I took this year. Useful to know that things may be the same at this time of the year for planning next year.

Another opiton that we had was to look at going into the Entiat Valley and doing some rides out of there. They will be south facing mountains and I am sure that we will run into snow but it will be new roads to explore.

I also forgot to mention that Les brought a new rear Tourance tire for his R1100 and we wanted to change it using the same tools that we have on a typical back country ride. We removed the rear wheel and changed the tire and had it back on in less than an hour. This was one of the simplist tire changes that I have ever done. Les had a plastic bead breaker that worked well. The secret was that it was going to take going around the tire twice to get the bead to release on each side. We gooped up the tire when we put it on and using a small electric pump we got it to star inflating but then he had a band that we put around the tire which seemed to help in getting the bead to seat on each side.