Some Stats & Factoids for the 2009 DamTour Season

We have had a great 2009 year and it looks to be only the beginning. This was our second year of taking things on-line and we have grown to unexpected proportions, and we had a mind blowing ‘183’ registered riders and pillions sign-up, compared to last years ‘106’. And we had riders in more states then ever. BC and Alberta, Canada, Washington, Idaho, Oregon, California and Texas were all represented. New this year, we decided to allow pillion riders to register as well. We had three official pillions doing DamTour and one, Stacy Stewart, managed to co-pilot to all twenty. While it isn't the same as riding your own bike and the double gas of two bike couples, the butt endures the same pressure and deserves some recognition. With so many signed-up, it was no wonder we had ‘49’ riders and one tenacious pillion reach the goal of all twenty dams compared to last years ‘30’.

This year brought a lot of variation in riders, bikes and locations. Damtour has riders of about every kind, but the one thing they all have in common is.... "They Ride". And, when I say ride, I mean these bikers really ride, as you will see from some of our stats below. These are not "the little old lady from Pasadena" type of riders. For some, DamTour is a piece of cake, for others the challenge was at times a bit daunting, but I think they all had fun. From competitive long distance riders, to those who just live and breathe to be riding a bike even for groceries, we all have to say ... DamTour truly gives you . . .

        "20 Dam Good Places to Ride".

While last year we had two Canadian Finishers(our first not from OR or WA), this year we had our first California finisher. Brian Casey made the distance saving the closest for last. And this rider wouldn't even except a near miss for Scooteney. After getting back home from a northwest swoop of several dams, Brian noticed he had the wrong dam for Scooteney, so repeated this dam to get the right one on his own, even after I said he could have credit for it. So this rider really put in some extra miles.One other California rider almost finished , but to due to schedule and some bike tire problems along the way, he had to call it quits at 18 missing out on a trip to Montana.

In this, our sixth season, the ‘Bike King’ finally changed. This is the first year that Yamaha didn't lead in most bikes registered with. Honda took the lead with a whopping 49 bikes with 24 of those being Gold Wings(one a trike) of various ages. Yamaha (the fallen king), follows with 41 and it's major player was the FJR at 26. Of course we know a lot of our riders have the dreaded(LOL) "MBS" disease."Multi-Bike Syndrome" :-) So this only shows what bike was the preferred to sign up with. And this didn't mean that was the only bike they rode during the season. See the table    — — — — — >

So here are a few more interesting comparisons.

We have always had what had been termed, ‘goose eggs’ in the riders table. You know, the rider that hasn't turned in a single dam. And we know that it doesn't mean they didn't ride, it just means they didn't turn any in. But it is interesting to note that even though the number of riders increases as does the ‘goose eggs’, the percentage at "0", is decreasing over the years.

In 2007 we had 37% of the registered riders sit on the unranked side of the line, with "zero" dams. In 2008, that number changed to 32% while we only increased our number of riders by 11%. In 2009 we increased our number of riders by a whopping 42%, and yet decreased our number of "zeros" to 28% of the total riders.

Along with the increased number of riders this year, we had a big increase in the number of dam visits as well. Enough to get a few of these "dam" locations wondering what all these bikes were about. One of these was Deschutes Dam, sitting in the middle of Olympia, WA., and one lucky rider got a persosnal tour of the inside of the wheelhouse. Rider Tim Macy was invited in to look around and get his picture taken from inside after the very curious worker came out to inquire what all the bikes were about.

A few more stats about the number of riders this year. As you can see, the riders have racked up a lot of miles. I did the mileage stats different this year to show two base departures instead of the terribly obsolete one of PDX. While this is still not exact, it does make up for the miles missed for Oregon riders getting Washington dams, and Washington riders getting Oregon dams.

The RT(round trip) mileages come from the number of riders getting that dam from their respective home state of the total dam visits. This does however leave out our other state riders... but my brain can only wrap around a few things at a time ...LOL.

Wow. . . over "One Million Miles".
Wonder how many tires and oil changes that adds up to. Wanna guess? Like I said... DamTour riders . . . Ride!

Some fun State to State Figures:

From the numbers to the right, you will notice that while Washington is 61% of the total 2009 riders, to Oregon's 33%, when you look at the finishers list, you will see that Oregon takes the lead with 52% of the finishers being from Oregon, to Washington's 46%. Maybe we need to make some sport like banners. "OR" versus "WA" Rah... rah... rah... ...

Here's a couple "First's" for the 2009 Season. . .

Our first to finish by a blow-away date of May 2nd, was Roger VanSanten of Salem, Oregon, riding his FJR. Our first WA pin earner was Bart Romple, and first to earn the OR pin was Roger Van Santen, who was also the first rider to have earned both pins. And now to finish off the DamTour firsts, I'll show the first of the first to visit the dams. Opening weekend was a tough one as lots of riders were out and several were there the first day.

I think that is about it. I imagine that I have missed some fun or important stat, but I am not sure my brain can take any more figures and words. So... until next years. . .

Cheers and happy trails... DT Rider - "C"