NOC members will have read in Roadholder that the Norton Owners Club and the International Norton Owners Association (INOA) had agreed provisionally to hold a joint 2011 rally in the USA. This has now been confirmed.
For those of you who are not too familiar with the Norton organisation across the Atlantic, here is a short introduction. Like the NOC, the INOA is made up from a mixture of individual members and local groups which they call Chapters. The INOA is strictly speaking a mix of the USNOA (American) and the CNOA (Canadian) associations. A big difference between the INOA and the NOC is that the Chapters are far more autonomous than the NOC Branches and operate as separate clubs in their own right. That is to a great extent a function of the huge distances separating them. Each year the INOA has its rally and unlike the NOC they keep to around the same dates in mid-July. To give their members a chance of going at least every other year, the rally location alternates between East and West with an odd excursion to Canada thrown in every few years.
INOA rallies are very popular, typically achieving attendances of over 300 people which represents a considerably higher percentage of their membership than at an NOC International. Again because of the distances involved, many more people will transport their machine(s) to the site in anything from a pick-up truck and trailer to full blown RVs with all mod cons. including one or more kitchen sinks, lounge areas and even bike workshops. Remember, some of them are travelling across the USA or down from Canada and doing many more miles than most people going to the NOC rally. Once there however, there are runs out over quite long distances, the ever popular technical talks and discussion groups and in common with any rally, the chance to meet people not seen for the past year or more and to catch up with the news.
Ideas of a joint effort to bring together the two Norton clubs had been running around for a few years but until recently, nothing had been progressed. So it was that about a year ago, the Tri-State Norton Riders put forward a suggestion to combine the two clubs' main rallies. The NOC said 'yes' to this a while ago and following the annual Chapter meeting at their July 2009 rally the INOA has also put its seal of approval on the idea. The rally is to be held in New York State in Brookside Campground near a town called Woodstock (yes, for those of you old enough to remember – that Woodstock). The location is around 100 miles due North of New York City and about 70 miles South of Albany, in an area with mountains, lakes, streams and forests.
We will be shipping bikes out there by container, offering a package that will share the costs and take care of the paperwork required. We are also looking into obtaining insurance cover for the trip rather than each one of us having to do this separately. Hopefully, we can include the option for people to use their machines for touring around before and after the rally itself. In particular, we would like to send out Nortons that our American and Canadian counterparts would see less often or not at all. As you will understand, Norton's export history means that a good proportion of machines over there tend to be Atlas and Commando.
