So, as I'm preparing for the Rat Bike category at the East Side Classic motorcycle show, I get wind that the Republic of Texas rally -- our beloved ROT rally, and Texas' answer to Sturgis (not really, that would be the Lone Star Rally in Galveston) -- is on. ROT always has a ride-in bike show -- I won best Metric Custom bike several years ago. They always have a Rat Bike category. I check the website, and it looks like the ride-in bike show is on. Now, I have to prepare the RustBucket for a show a week earlier than I had intended.
Twice a year the city performs a large brush collection for Austin home owners. If you miss it, you have to wait another 6 months. The above Arizona Ash died in Texas' famous big freeze. It was an old tree that had been slowly dying for years, it leafed out, and the the freeze came and did it in.
I had to drop my RustBucket preparations while I cut this tree down so the city could remove it. This is/was the biggest tree on my property, by far.
I spent five very full days on that tree. Two thirds of it was overhanging my house and my internet cable, so care had to be taken. I also had to take care with a fence which was right next to the tree. Most of the time I spent was making the carefully groomed pile of brush above. I have a very limited stacking area that the city can access, and the trimmings wouldn't fit unless I stacked them carefully. That pile is 10 feet deep.
Most of the logs in this pile are 5 feet long. Someone has already come by and scarfed up the really big diameter logs, I guess to be used as rustic stools.
Cutting down that tree created a further time crunch. So, I didn't have time to get the front brake working. I just slapped the above brake line on, which was long enough to reach the master cylinder, so that at least it would look like the front brake worked. You just have to ride your bike in to the ROT Rally bike show, it doesn't have to be legal. The bike had zero electrics other than a total loss Pamco ignition, and no front brake at the rally.
The ROT Rally was cancelled in 2020 due to COVID. For 24 years, the Rally had been held at Austin's Exposition Center. But, in 2021, the Exposition Center was being used to administer COVID testing and vaccines, so that location was out.
Further screwing things up, was that ownership of the ROT Rally had recently changed hands.
Somehow, the Rally got moved to Austin's Formula 1 and MOTO GP track site, Circuit of the Americas (COTA).
This should have been fantastic. ROT rally on the track would have been so cool. Unfortunately, the rally was not on the track. It was mostly at COTA's largest RV parking lot. What wasn't there, including the main performance stage was way too far away in another corner of COTA. They tried to cobble together a last-minute rally, at a new site, with new owners who didn't know how to put this show on. The result was a total sh*t show. Very disorganized, and very sub-standard.
And there was no ride-in bike show, even though there was a page claiming there would be on the website.
So, big disappointment and waste of time. Not many people who think the ROT Rally will recover from this fiasco.