Event: Utah 1088 Endurance Rally Date: June 22 - 24, 2007 Location: Salt Lake City Utah Sponsor Motorcycle Endurance Riders Association (MERA)

Comments:
The Utah 1088 was a great event and I am glad I participated. From signing up for the event, to answering ‘newbie’ questions, to the pre-ride BBQ, the 1088 staff was outstanding. The fact the ride master opened his home to out of town riders of which many he had never met was extremely generous. The food was good (and plenty of it), the conversation was good and the BBQ was a perfect fit after riding 14 hours the day before. The support during the ride was great and the volunteers at the check points should receive an award. They were helpful and did what ever it took when riders showed up tired and confused. A big Thank You to the 1088 staff.

Looking back I feel the event should be called the Utah 1088 Enduro (not endurance) rally. The reason is that many of the large high point value check points were down rough dirt roads that many would not take their expensive BMW (or any brand) touring bikes down. At the awards banquet, many of the folks that went down those dirt roads stated they dropped their bikes. For the GS riders this might be okay, but for the folks that prefer not to scratch and ding up their bikes, this was not an option.

From attending my first Utah 1088 it is clear that technology or improvement suggestions are not utilized or accepted for the most part. One example is the pre ride mileage check. A route was provided for riders to follow to check their odometer. During the riders meeting one rider ask how many miles should the odometer check have been, and the answer was 11.8 miles. However, a lot of riders (over 12) with GPS units (of different brands) stated their GPS units all registered 12.01 (plus or minus .0001) miles. For the most part the ride master blew off these riders with a statement about GPS is not always accurate.

It was weird that riders were not allowed to see their final "detailed" computed score. Many of us keep a running total and it would have been nice to see why our totals were different than the final posting. For a few of the riders around me, the differences in scores were very large.

I provided a few suggestions that would help (in my humble opinion) those riders from out of town (small things to make one’s life easier and the event more enjoyable) that cost nothing and basically was informed the event “has never done that”.

I am not sure if I will ride it again knowing it is just about impossible to win unless you agree to ride down some really bad dirt roads with an expensive motorcycle. If I do ride it again, it will be just for an interesting ride.

The entire ride was saved using the "tracking" feature in Garmin along with most all of the bonus locations. The MapSource file (MapSource Database Version 2) can be download in an single Winzip file by clicking here .

Choose a video from the following list Or, Choose One Click to download all three vidoes in Microsoft Windows media format. (~13MB)

Heading to the Rally on Wednesday

Click to download all pictures in a single WinZip file.  (~13MB)

Rally BBQ on Thursday evening

External fuel tanks

At the hotel the night before

Riding the 1088