Well been here only a cpl hours and aparently nothing has changed. Still doging carts everywhere still parking and blocking all movement. Its dangerous  to walk half still have no lights and the other half arent paying attention to where the are going.

I agree totally.  My wife and I tried to ride our Harleys on the Parade Route......Hell for that matter, even just driving them around was a pain in the butt.

 

"Yield to Motorcycles ?"  Shit no.  The fucking Golf Carts are everywhere and they absolutely just STOP in the middle of the fucking parade route and (as usual) stop ALL traffic.  Sheriff was standing there watching and being very patient about all this.  But they (the Sheriff's Dept.) would not tell the damn Golf Carts to move over and let us by.

Same old shit - same old problems.

LET THE UTV's BACK ON AND LET EVERYBODY WORK THIS OUT AMONGST THEMSELVES.

We left early because of this nonsense.  We're done.  Too many other Rallys that actually WANT our money.

I completely agree with the both of you. I'm just glad my evasion techniques have been honed by years of emergency vehicle driving. Something has to be done in regards to the golf carts. It wasn't just the golf carts, though. People regularly crowded the roadway to see what was going on and never returned to the sides. The golf carts have got to go.

There were more golf carts there this year, because we could not bring our UTV/ATV's.  We rented a cart for $425 for 4 days since we could not bring our UTV. The parade route was BORING this year.  We rode the Harley during the day and parked it at night.  The motorcycles were hauling ass around the parade route like it was a race track.  Actually, the golf carts may have helped to slow down the racing.  

I didn't have any problems getting around the parade route.  We made several rounds on the Harley and several rounds on the cart.  Other than the fact the route moved too fast and you couldn't visit at all as you rode around or you'd get run over - we had no complaints.  I have never been able to make two rounds in less than half an hour on Saturday night before.

 

I TOTALLY AGREE....I thought this was a MOTORCYCLE RALLY, not a Golf Cart convention. I came with a happy heart knowing the ATV's wouldn't be a problem any longer..But, I think the Golf Cart Problem is worse...I brought cousins in from AZ, and they almost left because of the Golf Carts running us over all the time. They were everywhere. Don't see this at Stugis they said... Well I was proud to have them come to OUR ROT RALLY, but now I feel EMBARRASSED. I hope the Rally officials take notice , or We may have to go elsewhere , to a BIKE RALLY, NOT A golf cart rally.

We have been attending the ROT rally since 2003. We would always come home with a good feeling after ROT and could not wait for the next year. NOT THAT FEELING THIS YEAR. There was NOTHING EXCITING to tell about the parade route to others after we got home this year. It was very different this year. We missed seeing all the ORIGINAL ROT rally decorated floats, UTV's, ATV's, campsites. FUB,I see now why they stayed in Oklamhoma this year. And no one could shoot a water gun to cool off. Not sure about attending next year. We will miss our RV neighbors that we have made friends with over the years.

hookbcs@yahoo.com said:

.I thought this was a MOTORCYCLE RALLY, not a Golf Cart convention

I hate it when people say that! It has almost messed up the rally for everyone. This is my 10th year and the attendance was definitely down this year! I had a really good time this year! Please Be careful about your comments, we do not want  the parade route to be all motorcyclists

wulfenstien said:

The golf carts have got to go.

I see you are a rookie so I guess I could say what I want about you and you would never read it again! But I want to try to be nice! Since you are a rookie you have to learn how to go to the rot rally! You have to be prepared ! You have to come with a good attitude! In less you have a girl on your bike or trying to show your bike off you don't want to be in the parade. Park your motorcycle and have the party come to you! And no the carts don't have to go!

Spirit said:

I didn't have any problems getting around the parade route.  We made several rounds on the Harley and several rounds on the cart. 

 

 

Spirit - what rally were you at?? You clearly were not at the same one I was at.  I'm sure it was the time of day/night you made your rounds, however, I was almost run over several times by golf carts that had no inteniton of yeilding to motorcycles.  I only made 2 rounds for my own safety...   I was pretty pi$$ed when I saw (and have pictures of)several Polaris Ranger UTV's - exactly like mine.. but mine wasn't allowed.  And this rally was just no fun... we left early and won't be back.

While it says I am a rookie on the website, I am not a rookie to the ROT rally. I have attended in years past, and don't recall every it being such a cluster. I did have a girl on my bike. It was her first time to the rally. She was not happy with all the golf carts.

SpottedWarPony said:

left early and won't be back.

I sorry you had a bad time! If you do come back take a ice chest, chair a bunch of beats get plaster and you will not care about the golf carts

wulfenstien said:

While it says I am a rookie on the website, I am not a rookie to the ROT rally. I have attended in years past, and don't recall every it being such a cluster. I did have a girl on my bike. It was her first time to the rally. She was not happy with all the golf carts.

[/quote

I've had bad times and good times at the rally. If you had that girl on a cart she would have had a better time!

Sorry about the rookie thing

Well it sure was fun to see everyone that was out. I don't think that the ban and added registering the golf carts helped at all, rented a golf cart myself POS could not get out of the way of all the motorcycles going way to f ing fast with the number of people in the road. BTW it is hard to get the chairs and cooler to the Nugent concert on a bike, but guess restricting the parking to bikes only sure did not stop anyone as the concert was pretty packed.

neil said:

hookbcs@yahoo.com said:

.I thought this was a MOTORCYCLE RALLY, not a Golf Cart convention

 

I hate it when people say that! It has almost messed up the rally for everyone. This is my 10th year and the attendance was definitely down this year! I had a really good time this year! Please Be careful about your comments, we do not want  the parade route to be all motorcyclists

ROT Biker Rally...think what that says.....originallythere was lot more camping/tenting going on and now just a big party to see who can out do the next one, we only rode the parade route 1 time and that was thurs evening, the sheriffs can't enforce due to not being on public roads. I saw several young(<21) really drunk and/or messed up by other means.motorcycles/golf carts/utvs'/atvs' do not mix together due to their own operational habits without adding the human and and alcohol factor, it is a very unpleasant mix in sometimes narrow paths thru the crowds standing on the sides....some people act  like they have never seen a pair of bare breasts and go crazy...

wulfenstien said:

While it says I am a rookie on the website, I am not a rookie to the ROT rally. I have attended in years past, and don't recall every it being such a cluster. I did have a girl on my bike. It was her first time to the rally. She was not happy with all the golf carts.

we agree

You are so right. NO FUN. We missed the decorated trailer floats and other homemade contraptions. There is nothing fun to talk about now that we are home.

Really are we not all ADULTS.  If we aren't don't need to be at a rally.. If everyone goes and treats ppl with the same respect we want then no problems...  Well... not to be rude but . why do ppl have to whine about whether it is a biker/bike rally.. hell you dont even have to own a bike to enjoy the fun of a rally with lots of old and new friends, it is the environment we all go for  .. I have been to alot of rallies.. big and small and they all welcome golf carts but it wasnt the carts causing issues on the parade route this year it was the bikes that were trying to make it a race track to keep theyre bikes cool.. I was under the impression that ppl go around the parade route to check out everyone that came.. it is hard to do that at 25-30 miles an hour.. dang I was bitching at the hubby for driving tooooooo damn fast.  couldnt even see what was happening much less take a pic.. AND YES WE WERE VERY RESPECTFUL to stay to the right so the bikes could pass and would even motion them around.   But with that said, I agree was little better without the trailers.  as far as atvs....was damned pissed to see a few of them there if not all could have them.. NO THEY DID NOT CHECK IF IT WAS A GOLF CART... JUST WANTED MY 20.00---FURTHER MORE IF IT WAS TO PAY MORE SECURITY... FIRE THEIR ASSES.. THEY LET VEHICLES DRIVE THE PARADE AFTER 9 PM

I have to agree ... not even close to being as much fun as in years past.. we are seriously discussing NOT GOING BACK TO ROT..

I had so many stories to tell ppl about all the fun we had in years past but I think the best thing we did was the Friday night ride to the capital... kinda got bored Sat and was ready to go home.  If our friends werent there to make it better.  LOVED seeing friends from other rallies.. but just gonna meet them at others.

neil said:

wulfenstien said:

The golf carts have got to go.

 

I see you are a rookie so I guess I could say what I want about you and you would never read it again! But I want to try to be nice! Since you are a rookie you have to learn how to go to the rot rally! You have to be prepared ! You have to come with a good attitude! In less you have a girl on your bike or trying to show your bike off you don't want to be in the parade. Park your motorcycle and have the party come to you! And no the carts don't have to go!

why do you have to have a girl on your bike AND/OR "to show off your bike" be prohibited to be on the parade route????????? What abour getting on the parade route to "cool off"? "to find your friends"? isn't the so called parade part of the BIKER RALLY?

Yes, unless the powers that be can come up with reasons why all this happened I will not return next year. a few things that upset me.....

1 The cars, trucks, and vans in the parade route after 9. Even when you asked someone about them they basically said to mind my own business. HELLO is this not something ROT wanted stopped?

2  The four wheelers. Although I did not agree to the ban, they still said there would be none on the grounds. Not only were they on the grounds but they still hit the parade route as well with the same response from the ROT folks as well as the sheriff support. Don't worry about what others do , you worry about yourself.

3 The bikes ( mostly the crotch rockets) flying through the parade route and doing burnouts. The only thing slowing them down were the carts.

4  The crowds gathering on the edge of the road, and I do use "edge of the road" lightly. There was at least a dozen places wheree people were 5 to 6 feet out in the road and refused to move back so we could pass by. Sheriff standing right there not only not doing his job but taking pictures with his phone as well.

5   ROT said with the extra money gained they would have more deputys to enforce the rules , if there was more there they should have told them they were there to uphold the rules not to take pictures.

 I guess thats the top 5 things I personally saw witnessed or was involved in. I will say with all the rallys I've been to this was the worse. As a matter of fact there's only one that even comes close to as bad and again it was ran poorly. But it didn't cost me 1/4th what ROT did! So no, you can almost bet ya life I won't be back!

You are right on the point, TerryM.

We were on the parade route at the opposite end of Spirit in C/D row, right next to Lime.  In that corner, we have a sheriff's deputy from 7am, all day and night until 2am in the morning.  As it turned out, we had the EMS guys hanging around Saturday night in our little corner, too...guess they liked the tunes we were playing. 

 

Anyway...regarding the comment, "the sheriff can't do anything because it's on private land..."  Well, that's not quite true.  Over the four nights, we saw two arrests for groping (of a passenger on the back of a cart); multiple carts kicked off the route because they lacked lights; two 4-wheel ATV riders escorted off the route; multiple riders stopped for speeding and/or attempting burnouts (BTW...over half were on Harley's, not sport bikes); and one UTV without a sticker tracked down and removed from the route.  I'm no lawyer...not even a current Texas resident...but can assure you that the sheriff deputies have full authority on-site to include traffic violation enforcement within reason.

 

We in our group of seven RVs looked for the errant UTV in the crowd and over the four nights saw only five, three of those on the Saturday night.  The first one on Thursday was tracked down after we pointed it out to the deputy (he radioed to the other guys on the route) and never reappeared. The second was on Friday, and same result.  The other three all appeared on Saturday night after midnight.  Of those, one was the green Mule that had the large flag over near the bike parking in the vendor area by the model RVs--we recognized it from the flagpole mount on the hitch receiver.  Obviously, they were allowed into the grounds for the purpose of holding that flag and the vendors (or guests of that vendor) used the green Mule to traverse the parade grounds.  About half-past midnight Saturday night/Sunday morning, a Ranger with multiple speakers appeared on the route.  This one had no sticker and was OBVIOUSLY not a cart.  It being late, and the deputy being tired (and new), we were unable to get that one off the route.  About that same time, another green Kawasaki Mule copy (same size/shape but not Kawii logo) appeared on the route.  It had a license plate, though, and was likely driven onto the grounds as a street legal vehicle.  About 2am, when the vehicular traffic rule expires on the parade route, several more street-legal (had license plates) UTVs appeared on the route, along with several cars.  Since the ROT rules prohibitting vehicular traffic END at 2am, but the parade goes on for hours, the sheriffs that remain (not many) can't do anything about it.

 

Note, we DID see several other UTVs driving around the route and the grounds with ROT Staff on board to include in and amongst the parade route.  No doubt, there were more in other areas of the grounds. But sitting where we were on our corner of the parade route...every night, we didn't see more than a half-dozen or so UTVs skirting the rules.  Not saying there weren't other UTVs in other sections...didn't venture into Red, or Orange, or Brown much.  Just didn't see many on the route.  BTW...we did see several actual carts that had been lifted and extended to the size of a UTV...but they still said "Club Car" or "EZ GO" or "John Deere" on their model plates and though tall, were still carts.

 

We didn't see any trailers...didn't see any double-deckers except for the one green mule late Sat.  Still, we had two 'riders' not survive the 90-degree corner in front of our camp--both fell off the carts and landed (with injuries) on the asphalt.  Had those carts been double-decker (taller) and had they both not been so drunk, they probably would not have survived since both landed head-first.

 

That was our view of the rally...from ROT in Purple-C.

 

Rockett

There is no doubt that there was an effort to enforce the ban.  I was stopped by a deputy while making a round in an electric recliner.  He told me that it was not allowed.  I showed him the cart rules that clearly allowed "toys".  After reading the rules and scratching his head for a moment, he let me continue.

 

The big failure was at the front gate.  They let them in by the dozens.  Our camp is in Red right on the RV entry road.  I did not count but am certain that I saw over 100 come into the grounds.  Asked the guy at the RV gate why they were letting them in.  His answer was "Not my decision".   Rules clearly said that they would "not be allowed on the grounds".  They were - in mass.  Its pretty simple - enforce the rules. 

One thing that was irritating to me was the number of ROT Staff checking for wrist bands at the same entrance.  At the main entrance coming onto the grounds, I was challenged by 4 different people along the entrance wanting to see my wrist band.  Also once on the grounds going onto the parade route from Green lot, they were stopping folks on Friday and Saturday to check wrist bands while going onto the parade route.  We were already on the grounds and a few of the ROT staff seemed to let their authority to go heads and were a little bothersome.

Overall, I had a great time as usual with all of our old and new friends.

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