Thanks to everyone who made "Viva Lake Geneva Scooter Rally 2010" the best event so far!

The rally started early Saturday morning with people registering as the doors opened at Midwest Action Cycle. There was even a few people in town the night before. The weather man was saying it would rain until 12pm then stop for a while, and then rain again later. Instead we were treated to the best weather of the summer from start to finish. Saturdays ride was the Geneva Lakes Scavenger Hunt that started at 1:30. We were a little nervous about this one mainly because of what it took to participate in.     There were 20 teams in all ranging from 2 riders to about 6 riders. Every team was provide a map, an item list, and a directional sheet to make it easier to ride and follow directions of the route. The route was a combination of our rustic road ride and our beautiful lake ride around Geneva Lake. The goal was to find as many items as possible and take pictures of them to earn points. There were also questions and riddles and receipts from bars and restaurants along the way to prove you were there. Some of these were extremely hard to find items and some were easy. Around 5 o'clock teams started showing up and showing their items scavenged, pics of unique things, and answers to questions.....Everyone did WAY better than expected. Seeing everyone's pictures was hilarious! The best ones by far were a Harley rider sitting on their scooters! There was one with a huge tough looking Harley dude sitting on a tiny pink scooter not looking very happy. Priceless! Others included people standing in Lake Geneva, and Lake Como, and pics of weird oddities along the way. The team who won (named the "Real Dogs") dominated! Out of 1,045 possible points, they got 975. Knowing how tough this scavenger hunt was that is amazing!   The scavenger hunt turned out to be the hit of the rally.

We all hung out at Fischer's bar and grill on their great deck outside overlooking Lake Geneva and laughed at each others pictures for a while. Then about 20 of us met at Champs beer garden to have a couple refreshments and get ready for the night ride. What was nice about this year's rally was there was something for everybody. Some did the scavenger hunt, some new faces for the night ride, and others did Sunday's rides only. The night ride was a blast. We rode to William's Bay's "Corn and Brat fest" for some great food, music, and an awesome fireworks display that rivaled anybody's 4th of July set. We did not get home until about 10:30 that night and really enjoyed each other's company.

Sunday's weather was even better than Saturday. 80 degrees with no humidity. The first ride started off a little early (10:00am) for the "Scoot for the Cure" breast cancer charity ride. This was a ride for Susan G. Komen's breast cancer charity. We had about 70 riders for this one! Almost everyone had something pink on for the cause. We rode around Geneva Lake and ended up back in Lake Geneva where it was so crowded, we had to alter our route to get around town. When we finally found parking, we walked down to Lake Geneva's famous "Art in the Park" gallery for some more food and music. As cool as the "Art in the Park" gallery is, that might be the last time we attempt to take that many scooters through downtown L.G.!

At about 1pm we all gathered back at Midwest Action Cycle's parking lot for the "Slow Poke Race" and to give out raffle prizes for anyone who donated money for breast cancer research. The slow poke race was great. There were 24 riders who signed up for it. To win a race, you had to cross the finish line last without putting your foot down and without touching the lines in your lane. There were 4 lanes on this track. The final round was epic! All four finalists were neck and neck at the half way point when the crowd started to get into it. Yelling and cheering at 4 scooters going about 1 mile an hour was a sight to see! Finally the last two riders crossed and Todd from Team Real Dogs (the same team that won the scavenger hunt) was the winner by about 1 inch over Ryan from Genuine Scooter Co. (We will have a link on Youtube very soon marked "Viva Lake Geneva slow poke race")

The Rustic Road Ride was the last ride of the day. It had a 50cc class and a 110+ class that would be riding a larger, faster version of the same Rustic Road ride the 50's were doing. What was amazing was there was about 8 people in the 50 class, and about 40 in the fast class. I guess everyone was there to ride hard! The long ride was a 2 1/2 hour ride with a stop in Burlington for some unreal custard and hit 13 rustic roads!   Average speeds were between 40-60mph. We did have one unfortunate rider lay their bike down to avoid some gravel and slid into some sticker bushes, but they were fine. Great save!

All an all this turned out to be a great weekend of scootering! Thanks to everyone who came out, and we hope to see you at next year's bigger and even better "Viva Lake Geneva Scooter Rally!

Thanks everyone! Sherm