your anemometer is broken…we were camping in the forest and had 35mph sustained and gusts over 60mph. the lake bed had to be a lot worse and no way that there was 8000 people there, 5k tops
It was fucking lame…sorry for being brutal, but it's really turned into a "bike" event and caters to the people dropping sick cash for classes to watch Camel trophy guy's rig a 8 to 1 pull with 1000' feet of rope or some numbnutz with a full exo-caged Four-runner roll it over and struggle to right it. Oh, sure, you can go drive new LR on a cool muddy course, or watch "vendors" (Garrett you are 100% correct about this) try and teach recovery, all the wrong way after dropping said sick cash.
We had a group of 10 or 12 "yota" guy's camping near us and we had a ball listening to them rip it to shreds (not because of the fucking wind). One guy spent 3 hours arguing to get his money back because he had to tell the "instructor" where to lash a strap on his truck and have absolutely no clue about vehicle recovery.
It's seems to have turned into a "special" event were unless you wear 3k worth of bike clothes and drive a Earthroamer it really is a waste of time…
Most of the vendors had the same crap that can be bolted onto everything under the sun except LR's…the same shit that's been displayed for the last 4 years with really nothing new. The best is listening to the cheap bastards trying to negotiate a lower price and beg for a "show" discount. One dude at the Sierra booth "thought" he got a "smoking deal" on a set of lockers. Turns out that if you went to the website, the price was less, including shipping (yes, there was cell coverage) and had more fun watching him go back and try and get his money back…
This is why the VT events are important to me. Peter Vollers has done a great job of keeping the numbers low while at the same time keeping it a very "local" event - from the great class IV "roads", stopping to talk about the history of specific points along the way, the food, the drink.....and people actually get out and drive on some nice trails. Crazy huh!?
The location is going to change this year, so we'll see how it goes. But I've been there for all of them since he started doing the event and it's pretty damn ideal. The only negative I see is that it's becoming a LITTLE less diverse than it has in the past - Land Rover, Toyota and Jeep with Jeep now appearing to being dominate. I just don't want to see the "light bar" crowd take over, but I can't see that happening.
The Expo event is like going to see Kenny Chesney in the largest Wal Mart parking lot vs. Willie Nelson at Roberts in Nashville. It's more "show" than anything else. But then again the VT events are non-profit/club run events, so the intentions are for it to remain "local" with net proceeds to go to small start up companies in Vermont each year.
The VT event is a good mix though mostly dominated by 4x4s, but a decent number (20-30) bikes. I even see a handful of Subaru's on some trails doing a LOT more than the what you Range Rover crowd will ever be caught doing.
I love going and then taking off on the last day to spend a good 5+ days riding around the class IV roads and back roads around VT on my motorcycle. Crazy pretty parts of New England you can bomb around - from NH, VT and NY. Fall is the perfect time to be up there too - hit up some sugar shacks up north.
PS: Maybe it's time I get a RTT and Trasharoo for the Tahoe.