Saturday night, 11:00

Well, the rally is over.  It was small, laid back, easy to get around, friendly, sunny and great.  It was exactly what I wanted.  After trying to pin down why I like it so much I'd have to use the word "accessability".  There were no lines for anything except the demo rides.  (They did over 500 this weekend.) 

Everybody and everything I was interested in was accessable.  Lloyd Greer treated me like we'd been friends for ten years and I just met him Thursday morning.  Bri put up with me all weekend.  I spent nearly two hours at the Road2ACure booth talking to those guys.  I spent almost two hours talking to a Polaris volunteer (Amy) from accounting that had been there since day one at the Spirit Lake factory, 16 years ago, when there was no Victory Motorcycle.  She was there for the first 1999 bike produced, the 2003 Vegas and the Ness's coming onboard and the six years leading up to the release of the greatest gamble in the 50 year history of Polaris - the 2008 Vision.  I met two life-long H.O.G. members who were 70+ years old, had ridden nothing but Harleys since 1953 and now ride Visions.  I met James Holroyd, chassis engineer on the Cross bikes projects and VisionTex and I talked to him for probably an hour all told today.  I talked to Scott Kietzmann of Conquest Customs for over an hour and he educated me on custom made wheels.  (He had a 23" Foose wheel displayed for $4100 and explained why it (one wheel!) cost so much.)  Bak (pronounced Bock) of Bak Victory in Sioux City let us get right in on the bike as he changed out a headlight bulb on a Vision today.  (He hadn't done it before and it only took 30 minutes and a severely cramped hand.)  You can have Sturgis, this was a constant, eye-to-eye, three day conversation with a bunch of really nice people.  Even though the factory tour was a bust this year, I got the feeling that the people in charge were listening to the feedback and it won't be like that next year.  We got listened to.  I don't think anybody would hear a word I said at a huge rally (both figuratively and literally).

If you get energized by the vibe of a huge rally, that's great.  If you get energized by getting one-on-one time with people who are normally too busy for that, you will love Spirit Lake.  The Polaris employees want it to be a big deal but I'm trying to convince them to capitalized on what they have to offer right now - access.  The Sturgis rally is 70 years old this year.  Started in 1941.  The AVR is less than 10 years old.  Going to Spirit Lake this year is like a Harley guy saying he went to Sturgis in 1951.  It's just getting started!  I would say that 90% of the bikes parked in the grass today were from within a days ride.  It did not have a national vibe at all.  Very mid-western and local.  You guys that are from the coasts and neighboring states need to plan a trip and take advantage of it while it is like this.  The locals were truly amazed that VisionTex and I came all the way from Houston and Memphis just hang out in their little Iowa town for the weekend.  This is a special time to be a Victory owner and it will only get bigger. 

I'll spend the next couple of days posting some pics and videos of some really memorable people.  I hope to meet a lot of you guys here next year.  Viva Spirit Lake!

I think Rylan is heatstroked.  He and Andrew worked their butts off this weekend in the corner of a hot parking lot with very little shade.  Bak, the Sioux City dealer who had set up in the park, was also constantly sweating from about 8 a.m until the day ended.  The wrenches were in the trenches.

If any of you guys are within riding distance of Rylan, I can't recommend him highly enough.  If you look at my bike in the dyno video, it is spotless after he and Andrew finished the install.  I can't remember the name of the tiny little town he lives in.  (Put it in your profile Rylan.)  If I lived within 200 miles of him I would make up an excuse to go see him.  He had done about a dozen cam upgrades before mine and he has it down pat.  Andrew, the rookie, learned a lot from working next to Rylan all weekend.

Pencil me in for the rev-extender next year! 

As I was leaving the AVR, (literally walking between two tents on the way to my bike), a voice called out behind me  "SongFan!?"  I turned around and there was this guy with a big ol' grin on his face.  "Man314....Mark?"  "Yep."  "Heeey, finally!"  We had missed hooking up all weekend but he finally tracked me down.  (He recognized the hat.)   By that time VisionTex was walking over and we spent the next 30 minutes chatting.  Mark is a typical Iowan.  Nicest guy you'd ever want to meet and truly feels blessed to be living in a town as beautiful as Spirit Lake.  He was literally the last guy I talked to at the Rally.  Perfect ending.

I'm hunkered down in Keokuk, IA tonight and will try to get some more stories posted before bedtime.

Bri -

You have read the thread that Jedi Jeff posted about her and seen why she is such a hit.  If you remember the beginning of this thread, I thought (assumed - yeah, I know) that she was Lloyd's wife.  I was quickly corrected, along with the spelling of her name.  Once I got a request from Visioness to track her down again, my interest was piqued.

Here's the Bri you don't know.  She was born to immigrant parents;  Irish mother, Brazilian father.  Because her parents were not citizens of the U.S., she and her brother were put up for adoption and adopted by a couple in Illinois.  She was raised in a very small town and when she got old enough to notice, she saw that all the other local kids were pink, she was dark tan.  She knew deep down, early on, that she was "not from around here".  She survived small town life, got married, had a daughter and went to college.  She was studying pre-law.  Her husband forced to to quit school and stay home and within a year after that they split up.  Bri and her daughter moved back in with her adoptive parents and she soon became very restless.  All of her life had been spent conforming to what everyone around her wanted and she had no clue who she really was.  She asked her parents to watch after the baby while she left home to find herself. 

In 1999, she loaded up a 1990 Dodge Omni (yikes!) with all of her worldly possessions and drove straight to New York City.  She had never been there before and knew no-one.  While driving through Pennsylvania, she got pulled over by a State Trooper (big Smokey Bear hat).  She was doing 68 in a 60.  He asked if she knew why she was being stopped and she said "Yessir!  I know I was going over the speed limit but if I go 60 the car shakes so bad (insert dramatic head and steering wheel shaking here) and I can't even think straight!  If I can get it to above 65 it smooths out.  I don't know what else to do!"  He stared at her for a second, shook his head and said "You couldn't make that up if you tried.  Please be careful."  "Yessir!"

She got to New York and parked her car in the middle of downtown.  She walked a short distance down the sidewalk and stopped in front of the legendary FAO Schwarz toystore.  There was a giant Mickey Mouse on display above the door and all she could do was stare at it and wonder how she could get it in the Omni to take back home to her daughter.  While standing there, she felt a tug on her sleeve.  It was a very nice older gentleman.  He asked if she was new to the city and she said "yes".  He introduced her to another guy standing there and it turned out to be his son.  They asked her if she had eaten lately and when she said no they invited her to eat lunch with them.  They proceeded to tell where to go and where not to go and eventually they ended up in Central Park.  The two men broke out a Hero sandwich and shared it with her.  She eventually got back to her car and it had miraculously not been towed.  

There's a 10 year gap in her story here but she told me that 10 years after those guys had shared that sandwich with her it occurred to her that they had to have been homeless.  They had shared their only meal of that day with her, given her advice to protect her and to this day she gets choked up thinking about it.

Her little daughter has now graduated from college and Bri has learned to live for herself.  She plans on racing at Bonneville and deeply wants to beat out Laura Klock for a world record.  She is awesome and I was lucky to get to talk to her.

Roger and Tom -

Roger is wearing the red ballcap (his black Vision is on the lift, to the left), Tom has the white, long-sleeve t-shirt on.  They are both around 70, retired businessmen, lifetime members of the Harley Owners Group (H.O.G.).  They have ridden nothing but Harleys since 1953.

Tom lives in California, Roger lives in Nevada (used to live in CA).  They have been friends for over 30 years.  One of Tom's sons had a Vision, hurt his back, and had to sell it.  He asked his dad (Tom) if he wanted to buy it.  He said "No, but maybe Roger might want it."  Roger said "Thanks, but no thanks."  Tom lives within 20 miles of Arlen Ness's shop in Dublin, CA and has known Arlen for over 20 years.  Bought several Harley's from him.  Tom asked Arlen to sell the Vision on consignment. 

Shortly after that, Roger came to visit from Nevada.  Tom said "Let's go to see Arlen and see if there have been any bites on the Vision."  Tom introduced Roger to Arlen and before long,  Arlen (after quite a bit of prodding) convinced Roger to take it for a spin.  "Just go out for 30 minutes and come back and tell me what you think."  Roger came back, got off the Vision and called his wife back in Nevada.  "Honey, I'm coming home on a new bike."  Tom was blown away.  Roger is the most conservative, anal, over-thinker Tom had ever met.  He never does anything on a whim.  Tom walked up to Roger "What the heck is wrong with you!?"  Roger tossed him the key.  "Take it out, you won't believe it."  Tom took it for a spin, parked it, walked up to Arlen and said "Can you build me one?"  "No problem."

Tom with his Arlen-prepped bike.

This is what makes the Vision a game-changer.  I met BMW guys who would ride nothing else....until the Vision came along.  I met a Goldwing guy who had bought every model since the 1975 GL1000 and wouldn't even look at anything else.....until the Vision.  All four of those guys; Tom, Roger, the BMW diehard and the hardest core Goldwinger all stood under the same tent, talking about their bikes.  Name any other bike on the planet that would make that happen.  There isn't one.

Gene,  it was great meeting you too!  The organizers work so hard and want it to be so great and I really had to convince Amy that they have something very special going on here. 

Chris, I feel the same way but I just can't bottle this thing up.  I told VisionTex during this trip that I finally figured out what I want to do when I forced to retire from the FAA in three years.  I will be on a journey to document the story of the Vision.  It's not going to be commercial for Victory, it's going to be something that will be shown on the Documentary Channel.  It will start with Polaris wanting a chunk of the motorcycle market and the first numbered bikes.  It will move to where they brought Mike Song and the Ness's onboard, the '03 Vegas and the Design Center in Wyoming.  A rash of young engineers and designers.  Then the real story begins: the six years leading up to the release of the Vision.  I want to really know what was going through Mark Blackwell's head through all of that.  The infinite design changes, timeline overruns, cost overruns.  The clay modelers and their relationship with the designers.  People like Amy in accounting.  What was it like to have to organize purchase orders for so many more new vendors?  Which vendors came and went over that timespan?  The workers who built the first Visions - how many really couldn't stand it personally?  How close did the whole project come to being canned?  The Vision Project pushed every single person at Polaris the the brink at some point.  The single greatest gamble in Polaris history.  At what point did they actually feel they were going to actually pull it off?  How were they going to present this to the stockholders, dealers and the press?  I could go on and on.

This story is every bit as compelling as "Tucker" or "The World's Fastest Indian".  I just want to pursue the real story without any corporate spin on it.  That's what I'm trying to convey with this journal.  The AVR is not about the Rally any more than the Vision story is about the bike.  The story is about the people.

We'll see.

af goalie -

John Hart, in the Air Force, plays ice hockey, thus the callsign.  19 years active duty.  Currently stationed at Whiteman Air Force Base and if I told you what he does on the B-2, I'd have to kill you.

af goalie with the infamous Roger and Tom.  John was one of the 7-minute wonders who bid on a 10th Anniversary Vision.  He ended up with #002.  Very cool.

John is by far the most laid-back guy I met at the rally.  He just finished up a year long tour in Korea, is moving from Rapid City and is house shopping in the general area of Kansas City.  He found his dream house on 5 acres with a killer view at a great price.  Problem is, it is literally on the wrong side of the street.  His daughter has a friend whose dad also got stationed at Whiteman and she goes to another school.  In order for John's daughter to go to that school, they would have to find a place across the street.  The zoning lines are so convoluted that there is a story in town about a house on a cul-de-sac that was literally split down the middle.  The kids had to go to different schools based on which bedroom they were living in.  Anyway, truth or not, John rode to the AVR to forget about "the dream house that got away".  He literally zones out and gets a 10,000 yard stare as he describes it.  Great guy.  Hope he comes back next year with a good ending to the story.

Vin Do -

"utvvdo" here on the Forum.  A bunch of us were standing around the Lloydz tent in the parking lot.  It is right at the entrance to Arnold's Park so anyone standing there gets the first view of any bike turning into the rally.  This black Vision with a totally different rumble turned the corner and when we looked to see who was onboard we saw this unbelievably short guy swing that thing into the parking lot.  His legs were fully stretched out and they barely went halfway up the floorboards.  I thought "Jeez, this ought to be good when he has to stop."  He pulled the bike right up like he owned the place, blipped the Thunder Sticks and put his feet down on his tippy-toes.  He put the kickstand down and hopped off with a big grin.  You could tell he gets these looks every day. I may be pushing it to say he is 5 feet tall.  Maybe 5'1" in boots.  To see him throwing a Vision around is absolutely awesome to watch.

Vin is from Salt Lake City and is a total gear head.  He has owned a ton of different bikes and works on all of them himself.  He loves the Thunder Sticks and has the full blown cam upgrade except for the rev-extender.  Vin's bike is a 2010 and Lloyd is still waiting for the software code from Victory.  His bike pulled 112 ft/lbs of torque on the dyno.

I used myself - 6'3" - and Vin as a graphic example of how versatile the Vision is as far as fitting different riders.  We looked like Arnold Schwarzenegger and Danny DeVito in "Twins" and we both feel comfortable on our bikes.  How in the heck did they do that?  Vin was one of my favorite guys at the Rally. 

Hal Hockett -

Hal grew up in Estherville and was in town for his 55th high school reunion.  He did 20 years in the Naval Reserve and was a Northwest Airline pilot for 30 years.  He retired as a 747-400 Captain. 

He was staying at the same motel we were and we had seen his truck and trailer in the parking lot.  I had unpacked in my room and forgot to bring the camera up so I had gone back out in gym shorts, a t-shirt and bare feet to get the camera out of the trunk of my bike.  As I opened the trunk, I saw a guy opening the trailer.  He put the ramp down, walked in and back out on this old survivor Harley.  A 1946 EL 61.  He bought it when he was 16 years old in 1953.  He was going to ride it to the reunion later that day.  It was exactly like it looked when he graduated from high school, scars and all.  This video shows the very first time it had been started in over two years.  I stood in the parking lot talking to him for nearly two hours.

Hey walmarty, we talked about those pipes.  They look fantastic on the 8-Ball. 

The Vegas on the right is interesting also.  It belongs to Amy's husband.  The saddlebags are the prototype bags that Victory was having made back around 2002/2003.  The bags have the name of the company on the lids (just above the flames) and are the only ones ones in existence with that name on them.  He scored them because of Amy's connections at the factory.  (That is not him or Amy in the background.)

I just realized that all the stuff we have talked about in that picture isn't even why I took it in the first place.  It's about Bak (nobody calls him by his first name).  He literally packed up his entire dealership in Sioux City (except for the bikes) and moved it to Spirit Lake for the weekend.  The canopy on the left was his maintenance shop.  The red/white striped canopy housed his entire product inventory from his showroom.  It was stripped so bare that they had to leave big notes on the doors "WE HAVE NOT SHUT DOWN!  PLEASE COME SEE US WHEN WE GET BACK FROM SPIRIT LAKE!"  His wife and kids were manning the striped tent.  Amazing.