Red River Gorge Rally – Mt. Sterling KY

This was the first MSTA Rally I have attended outside the states of Arkansas and Missouri. I was excited to attend the event. Due to the current world situation, the riding had been limited. This was going to be the first long trip I had taken since we went to NC a couple of months back. Here is my Ride Report from the Rally. I am looking forward to attending more MSTA events in the near future.

The versys all loaded up and Ready to go.

I packed up the Versys and was ready to hit the road for my 45 mile commute to the store. I worked a good 3/4 day and actually got out of the store without incident. This is a rare occurrence so I took it as a positive sign that the weekend would be a good one. I rode the 3 hours to St Roberts Mo where I met up with Bill. We got checked in and then headed over to Cantina Bravo for a quick dinner. The food was good and the service was exceptional. We headed back to the room and made it a short evening. We had a good 500 miles day ahead of us so a good nights rest was in order.

Thursday started bright and early as we wanted to hit the road around 7am. It was very muggy out as the humidity was very heavy. We did a few miles of slab but then headed off into the Mark Twain National Forest. I did not get a lot of pictures on this day of the ride. I did take some video, so please take a moment at the end of this ride report to watch that video.

One of many fuel stops along the way. It was a tad toasty out.

We arrived at the hotel and there was already a good group of people there. We got checked in at the Ramada, kicked some tires and just relaxed. We hit the Cracker Barrel located in the same parking lot of the hotel, so that was a nice touch. That was the end of the day. We had rode 517 miles and we were looking forward to the next two days of Bluegrass exploration on two wheels. Let’s Ride!

Matching AT were at the hotel when we arrived.

Love showing up at a rally – so many cool machines.

Friday morning arrived and there was excitement in the air. It is always exciting riding in a new area. With that being said I was not expecting to have to lead a ride group. As you all know I lead many rides, however I was hoping to play tourist on this trip. Alas that was not meant to be so I took on the task. We had a good group of 8 bikes. We headed off around 8am. The roads in Kentucky are beautiful, but they are also tight, not very wide and some of the road surface was not very good. I have been spoiled in Arkansas when it comes to the state of the road surface as it is very good.