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The 36th Riders Rally 2010 - Friday July 30th to Monday 2nd August
Sign-on & Start Checkpoint: The Clubhouse, Dundrum House Hotel, Dundrum, Co. Tipperary
Start Friday evening from 4pm to 9pm or Saturday morning 8am to 11am
MCUI Permit: 10 / 113
Sign-on and Start Checkpoint is in The Clubhouse Venue in Dundrum House Hotel, Golf & Leisure Resort. The Hotel is located off the M8 Dublin - Cork route, R661 south from Thurles and north of the N74 from Tipperary or N24 Limerick - Waterford; on the R505, 0.5 miles (1km) from the village of Dundrum and 8 miles (13km) from the heritage town of Cashel.
The Friday Overnight with camping and B&B is about 70 miles (120 kms) away.
2010 Riders Rally Start Dundrum House Hotel N 52 32.988 W 008 01.747
View in a larger mapEntry Fee remains at Riders (Drivers) €40-; Pillions €30-. The fee includes a Badge, Route Card, Access to the Rally Programme at each Stopover. Camping is included in fee. Breakfasts and other meals are extra. Traditionally the Riders Rally IS a camping rally; however we accept that some participants travel light and want to stay bed & breakfast. Therefore we try to locate overnights where campsite and hotel are beside one another. We have booked about 40 B&B bed spaces (not rooms) at each of the three overnight stops during the event. These are all good hotels with bars & food. We are not reserving evening food but recommend the carvery each evening. To guarantee a bed please book early, don’t rely on ‘last minute bookings’. Fully booked - Sorry, you'll now have to find your own B&B or camp. The Entry Form is here.
The Riders Rally is the original Irish 'Iron Butt', an all-Ireland long-distance point-to-point navigation rally. Now in its 36th year the distance is a bit reduced from the high-milage of yester-year, but it's still a challenge of map-reading to ride the complete route without taking a shortcut or overshooting a junction! Riders travel individually or in small groups at a comfortable pace. Run on public roads with full respect for road traffic rules it's not a race, but you need concentration to make safe progress on the rural roads we love. Many participants favour light bikes like the Kawasaki Versys 650cc motors or 2-strokes, though older riders prefer mid-sized/large enduros with the suspension travel to smooth the bumps and occasional pot-hole. Still others ride steady on vintage machines like a Kawasaki 1300-6, a Moto Guzzi V7 or a Triumph Twin.
For motorcyclists who like riding their motorcycles, covering distances, map-reading along back-roads, visiting historic & hidden places, meeting friends, getting away from your troubles for two or three days, leaving the city streets to discover new views and roads in Ireland. The Riders Rally is a traditional 600 mile (900 km) point-to-point motorcycle navigation rally. Ok, the national speed limit on these back roads may be 80kph/50mph, but if you can maintain that you're doing very well. The Rally is all about riding your motorcycle to last point. The Rally is not a race; our route uses many roads with a legal limit of 80kph/50mph; and the end result may be a serpentine route because the island is so small. Time management is the key to finishing - start early and keep your stops to a minimum. Overseas riders are very welcome; all road-legal motorcycles are suitable, mid-sized endurance tourers are probably best; right-side sidecars can have problems on tighter twisties!
In 2009 the GPS route was popular but felt too technical by non-GPS riders to follow on a route card. But we might do something downloadedat the Start. The 2009 route is downloadable our other website in a MapSource format (Riders Rally 09.gdb - 488kb) - [Click on the attachment, which will open Map source. Then connect your Zumo and send from MapSource to the Zumo. Disconnect the Zumo from the computer. It will ask you if you want to import new data. the answer is yes. The file should now be in the routes section of( where to?) the sections are 1 to 9 if you do not want to know where the rally end up do not scroll down in the routes section.]
Some photographs taken by Claudia are available for viewing at our Photo Centre web-page
The 2010 Route is designed by our hard-working Route-meister, Tony Doran supported by John Gallagher, Jim McGrath, Kay Dowling and the club committee.
The aim is not to cover mileage for the sake of mileage, since the pleasure is as much in the journey as the destination. Photo Rally subjects may be near, but that's their rally, only divert if you have time. Scenic locations, historic places are all around, photo them in your mind, visit them another time; your target is to get to the next checkpoint before it closes (if it closes we'll leave a map nearby), to get to the overnight before it gets dark. It’s not a race; sections are achievable at a legal speed.
The Entry Form with Special Regulations
