Hi all,
There have been some reports coming in that some participants are "ploughing" the grass with their motorcycle at the Thomas Ashe memorial in Kerry. Gerry went for a look over the weekend, and as can be seen in the photo below, there are indeed motorcycle ruts in the grass. If the grass is wet, please don't ride on it.
I'd like to ask all participants to show some consideration when visiting all the photo rally points. Riding one motorbike onto the grass, or along a cut stone path may not seem harmful, but when 400-500 motorbikes do it in a nine month period, significant damage could occur.
Whether they are ancient heritage sites or modern monuments, people have gone to the cost and effort of erecting and maintaining them. We are benefiting from their efforts as participants of Irish Photo Rally; the least we can do is be responsible enough not to damage these things, so that they will remain intact for others to benefit from in the future. If nothing else, I don't want Irish Photo Rally to get a reputation for damaging the places used as photo rally points.
In other news, I've been contacted to say a camera has been found, with loads of photos of a motorbike, on the road between points 8 and 22. It sounds like it's most likely belonging to an Irish Photo Rally participant. If you lost a camera, or know someone who did, contact me and I can let you know where the camera is being kept.
For anyone that might not have heard yet, we have a new website. The address is:
http://www.irishphotorally.ie. The old website is now defunct. I'm still getting the occasional person asking why the list for 2017 isn't on the website yet, so news of the new website is obviously still a little slow propagating.
A few people have told me that they are having trouble printing the map of the points on the new website. I'm aware of the issue and it's on the (long) list of things to do. In the meantime, I have a PDF file of the map. If anyone wants to print it, I can email the file to them.
Some people have had problems downloading the GPX file with the list of points on the map page. This is usually due to using an out-of-date browser. Update your browser and try again. If you're still having trouble, contact me and I'll try to help.
The clocks have gone forward and the weather is improving, so the photo rally can begin in earnest.
Enjoy and safe riding,
Tim.