2018 Grand Tour Suggestions

[rpmendez]

Here are a few ideas:

-Historic Sites as marked by the brown or blue signs (or whatever color they are in your neck of the woods)

-Bridges, tunnels and ferries ("The ya can't get there from here tour")

-Music related places (recording/rehearsal studios, concert venues, music schools, music stores)


-Towns & counties with the same names as Presidents

-BBQ joints

-Museums of any kind or subject matter from tiny farmhouse/doll museums through the Smithsonian

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I know I'm a new-guy around here and not a member of the club but I just wanted to voice my opinion on a couple of things regarding this years tour.

First and foremost, I want to thank you guys so much for all the effort you put into running these tours! I have been riding in various random Grand Tours, sometimes 2 or 3 at a time, since 2003. When I came back to riding this June from a 3 year hiatus I had trouble finding Grand Tours. It seems that almost no clubs run them any more and none are listed on the AMA page! I reached out to several of the clubs from my past Grand Tours and many of the clubs didn't exist anymore, they weren't running them anymore and even some of the original contact people hadn't even heard of them, lol! So again: thank you, thank you, thank you for continuing to run these tours!

I just have 2 suggestions for future tours. One is to extend the end date to October 31. All the other tours I have been on ended then and I, personally, prefer to do my riding in the cooler weather.

The other is regarding the specific places and the limits on the general places. First of all, I was never a fan of specific places, part of the fun is poring over maps and web-sites to figure out where I want to go. Its a perfect rainy/winter day activity. Additionally, the specific places in this year's tour were horrible in my neck of the woods (northern NJ). Statue Of Liberty and Edison NJ???? Both horrible places to have to go. Boring highways, traffic, not exactly pretty scenery either. The other ones in NJ and PA were 3-6 hours away...each way! I have too many aches and pains to ride 6 hours round trip to get 1 point. 5 hours is about my absolute limit, but I certainly don't want to be on a long, straight, boring highway that whole time. If I took the fun, scenic roads it almost doubles the time I cannot imagine what I would have done if I lived in the middle of Texas or Montana. So my suggestion is many more specific places and/or much higher limits on the general places and try to make them in areas with nicer roads rather than commuter hell.

Thanks again for all the work and putting up with me