Quote Originally Posted by Phantom View Post
Some of us have attended these rallies for years, .... In April , June, Labor Day Weekends, late September (Arkansas with low turnout) and even smaller gatherings in DAYTONA.

The reason why Labor Day weekend has been the best is because of the 3 days that most have off from work.
It allows some distant riders to mysteriously develop THROTLEITUS on their right hand on either the Friday before or the Tuesday after the weekend. This allows enough time to ride in and ride out without missing 2 days from work. Some (like myself) even develop THROTLEITUS on Thursday morning around 1:00am and hit the road to see the rally doctor and arrive around 2-4pm at the rally site.

Generally, in past years the best scenario has been the following ....

Early arrivals on Thursday afternoon (1-5pm) we then go to a local restaurant or order pizza for dinner (largest early arrival group was around 30 people)
Friday is normally registration day and a quick ride for those that arrived on Thursday, kickstand up at 8:30am returning by 2-3pm.
Saturday, nice large group ride to multiple planned destinations, a lunch restaurant and the main Dinner under the tent. Sunday is early departure day for those that have a distance to travel and want to be home by mid-monday before the week starts. Sunday is also a small ride day for those that will not be departing until Monday morning.
Labor Day Monday is when everyone is on their way home or have arrived home.

My apologies for not being able to orchestrate this. Steve has done a fine job.

FINDING a HOTEL with prices in the $60-$75 per night on a holiday weekend near great riding roads with adequate restaurants is not easy.
In years past our west coast rallies have ALWAYS had small turnouts, largest I recall for our HONDA Rune rally had 14-15 bikes. We tried a centralized location last year and the turnout was small.

The KEY here is a 3 day weekend and Labor Day is at the end of summer. Most families spend Memorial Day and July 4th together where most of us can't take off. It is NOT perfect but has worked best. I plan on being back next year, I need to get away and the T-Rex has been yearning for the mountains.
This all may be true, but still doesn't help out the riders on the west half of the country, with a very few exceptions.