Soggy Rhinebeck Meet Worth The Trip

By Bud Wilkinson of RIDE-CT.com

We wimped out. Rather than ride to Rhinebeck on Saturday morning, friend Gary Randall and I drove. It rained off and on, heavily at times, so the decision was a wise one. The annual Rhinebeck Grand National Meet is always a treat. It’s part show and part bazaar, and filled with thousands of bikes in various states and colorful participants. If you can’t find an old bike to fill an empty space in the garage or that much-needed part, well, you didn’t look hard enough.

What’s always especially fun the Timeline of bikes, which was moved inside a building at Duchess County Fairgrounds because of the weather. While there were some expensive Hendersons, loads of Harleys and Indians, and a lot of Brit bikes  in the Timeline, for some reason one model caught my eye: a Suzuki RE5. It’s a mid-70s bike that employed a rotary engine and featured futuristic styling. “Motorcycle Classics” magazine has a write-up on it in the current issue and tells of how the bike flopped when brought out in 1975. Being resourceful, I found a way to locate the bike’s owner. A security guy helped me find a public address microphone and I went on the p.a. and asked that he report to his bike. A report on the RE5 will be in RIDE-CT in “The Republican-American” next Saturday, along with a better picture.

Part of the fun of Rhinebeck meet is the camaraderie. There are so many familiar faces and so much to see. While it was dry most of the day, it rained most of the way home, too. It was smart to wimp out.

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Suzuki’s new model reveal, which was expected to happen yesterday, didn’t come off. The manufacturer’s website now says “coming soon.” Most every motojournalist is predicting a replacement for the DL-650 V-Strom. We’ll see. Let’s hope Suzuki doesn’t drag out the mystery as long as Triumph did in unveiling the Tiger 800.