Ride to OTT

It was late Thursday just before the OTT Rally in Nacogdoches ,TX was supposed to start on Friday. I was at work, and decided I’d try to make this one.

After clearing everything with my boss, I was all set to have my bike serviced for the trip at AMTC, and head out about noon the next day.

I assumed all the motel rooms were taken, so I quickly contacted Danny with “Bike Rally Camps” to see if he had an extra tent set up at the rally – he did. So that was my plan – leave at noon, ride to the rally and spend a couple of nights in one of Danny’s tents, all the while promoting our upcoming grand opening event for our new store in Mansfield, TX, “AND” looking for motorcycles to add to our inventory. We buy a lot of motorcycles from individuals wanting to sell their bikes.

It was almost a 200 mile ride to Nacogdoches, and the ride out of the DFW Metroplex was pretty typical of any survival test. It was extremely windy, and there were at least a million cagers on cell phones, in a hurry and not paying attention to motorcycles – all just part of riding in the big city.

After about 30-45 minutes of being invisible and driving for everybody else, I exited onto Hwy 175, and headed toward Athens, and on down to Jacksonville. The further I got away from the city, the better my ride became. Soon, I was cruising through the green rolling hills, pine trees and farmland in rural east Texas – beautiful riding!

The bluebonnets were blooming everywhere, and patches of red clover were scattered along the side of the road. And not only was I about to hyper-ventilate on all the cool fresh air, but I got an occassional whif of freshly plowed dirt, blooming flowers and even some burning leaves. For a while, I thought I must’ve been in biker heaven.

I made my way onto Hwy 69 at Jacksonville, and after a brief pit-stop, hit Hwy 21 at Alto toward Nacogdoches. Highway 175 is pretty nice, but 69 & 21 are both excellent roads to ride.

Oh, by-the-way, Nacogdoches is the oldest town in Texas. That’s where the abbreviation OTT comes from – Get it? Oldest Town in Texas Rally. And even though it has all the modern stuff we’re accustomed to, Nacogdoches is a town filled with history, brick streets and old architecture.

Anyway, the main event at the rally was the BBQ Cook-off. Texas is famous for it’s BBQ, and the atmosphere at the rally was filled with the smell of meat on smoking cookers. There were big smokers, little smokers, store-bought smokers and home-made smokers. And the cooks were all very proud to offer free samples too. Ummm-umm.

I didn’t get off at noon on Friday as planned, so I was about 6:30 p.m. rolling into Nacogdoches that evening. I unloaded all my stuff from my bike, and got settled into my tent before I began meandering around through the rally.

The OTT Rally was really setup nicely at the fairgrounds with lots of room, bathrooms and hot showers. There were plenty of great vendors for shopping, and several kick’n bands too – not to mention all the cool people and their rides.

Oh, and did I mention, lots of BBQ!

Saturday was filled with biker games, a parade downtown, drawings for prizes, BBQ judging, and a lot of other biker happenings late into the night. I spent the whole day talking with folks, handing out business cards and flyers. After all, this was a business trip, right?

I did get in my share of rallying over the week-end though. Saturday night I took some time to chill out and wind down by the campfire, before hitting the road toward home early Sunday morning.

I usually take a different route on any return trips I make, but I enjoyed the ride down so much, I just decided to back-track home. I wasn’t disappointed at all because the ride back was equally as good as the ride going.

Bike rallies are great, with some better than others. And even though I had a good time at the rally, it’s still all about the ride to me.

Thanks for reading. Ride Safe & Ride-A-Lot!

Geno

Tagged as: nacogdoches, ott motorcycle rally