Plus doing the morning roll out is nice because there is very little traffic and I did not see a LEO on the dragon anytime before 10:00AM the entire time Ive been there.

 

Maybe a breakfast or some type of bbq potluck on the damn...Making the food optional would be great imo. I dont mind getting up early to get some nice runs in on the dragon, cant think of a better way to start my day, and boy does it wake you up.

 

This. Which intolerably cruel mod made it at 8:30am anyways??? IT'S SATURDAY....

 

That's Raul's way of saying "hello"!

 

Yea it woke me up on the way out too. Those eggs I had 20 minutes prior were getting more than scrambled inside my stomach. We dont need to change any of the early times. Go to sleep earlier guys! Its an absolutely beautiful area, that can only be admired the most, during daylight. This is coming from a 21 year old here, who loves to stay up late. Have a drink or 2 less, hit the hay by 11pm.

One suggestion I already mentioned to linesuper. For the poker run, the people at each of the stops should have radios. There were some late folks, it would have been cool if we just radio and see if there was anyone still at the stop. I lost horribly anyways

 

Yeah I was up early and ate breakfast at the lodge...it was expensive, but I liked the food (a few people I talked to didnt). It would be cool to have breakfast and then drive.

 

The "sandwich" on Saturday was pretty bad - one skinny piece of gossamer meat - that is not a sandwich. I agree that the lunch event should be a location where a hundred of us can gather and order a la carte, but where can you find such a place in the area? As I recall, that was an issue when we tried swamping a restaurant in the past - no place around is equipped to handle 200 people for lunch at once, and attendees ended up waiting a long time to eat.

The box lunch is a good idea, but for the money, there needs to be some quality control. I personally think the S2ki team got taken advantage of with those sandwiches! I don't know what other catering options there are, and I've never helped organize a lunch there, but it might help to shop around...

One thing to remember, the reason the event is held at Fontana is because it is so close to the Dragon. That allows us all to get up and get to it before many other folks that come up from farther out, and if you know the Dragon, you know traffic gets worse after noon when everyone wants to be on it. For that reason I prefer a social lunch to a social breakfast - if people don't like assembling for a roll out and driver's meeting, I don't think they'd be any more keen on eggs and bacon, but then again, bacon...

I think an organized lunch is a good idea because if we take advantage of driving the Dragon early, there less traffic and (for a time) no LEOs to deal with, and all the bikers are still asleep. Lunch is a good break from driving, but I admit I've skipped it half the times I've gone to an event because I was on a group drive elsewhere. Maybe morning group drives can be better planned to accommodate getting back to say the damn for lunch. From the Dragon, you can run the Parkway, down to Robbinsville and over to 28, maybe some other routes in 2 hours or so, so maybe that is an option. Longer drives like Cherohala and Franklin can be afternoon events that back into a lunch rather than overlap it.

I did like the Saturday banquet meal.

One idea on the Poker run - set definite time frames for each station to open and close - this keeps people from possibly wasting time chasing closed stations, and allows them to redirect if they are behind. If they can't get to a station in time, have a chance to draw the cards back at Fontana later in the evening. I didn't get to station 1 until 3 pm, and I heard that at 3:15 it was packed up and gone, so if I'd known I might have missed it, I could have just gone straight to station 2, and then gotten my station 1 card at the end.

 

There was actually timings for each stop on the poker run map handout

 

Some good suggestions here; keep them coming!

Yes, we are very limited in our food options for 200+ people in the area, but there are some other lunch options that we will look into. We'll do some polls on registration package options prior to the next event. The only thing we WON'T try again is a totally "a la carte" registration package. Been there, done that, and it was a logistical nightmare!

Raul and I gave Fontana some very specific feedback on the food that we hope they will take to heart.

 

Yummy...... Subway for lunch!