New Rider to Record holder in 3 years flat

Kate pulls off a record ride.  As many of you know, Kate pulled off the Ultimate Coast to Coast to Coast ride in July of 2014.

She rode from Key West, FL to Deadhorse Alaska (300 miles north of the arctic circle) and back, solo, in 24 days.

Bad ass doesn't cover it.

She has had some press and Rider Magazine did a nice article on her.

This is my tribute video to her bad assery.

Rally Riding Lessons Learned, it's all about the minutes, man. Part 2

To continue my gripping tale of riding in a rally, that literally tens of people read and two learned something, we move on to (fanfare of trumpets)

PART 2

In the first installment, we covered many areas, including planning, time management, strategy and other amazingly insightful points.  We then moved on to an imaginary rally and how time is lost while out on your route.  We will now move on to more pressing and interesting matters.


I am behind.  Now What?

As you go through the rally, if you are the anal Type A persona, you will know when and where you are supposed to be.  There will most likely come a time when you realize you are behind and won't make your planned route in the time allotted.  Something has to change.

There are several ways to deal with this situation.

1. If there is a penalty window, determine if you will still finish, without dropping anything off your plan.  If so, I say, go for it!
2. Riding faster is not an option.  Many people ride a little over posted limits.  In order to determine if you can gain back time, you really have to look at percentages.  For example, if a rider rides 10 MPH over in a 50 MPH zone, he is gaining 20%.  If you ride 10 MPH over in a 25 MPH zone, you are gaining 40%.  So as you can see, riding a little over in the lower speed zones gains you a lot more time, than doing so in a faster speed zone.  If the balance of your ride is made of slower zones, then maybe you can pick up a little, but if you are staring at a lot of highway, you are up a creek and that creek doesn't smell so good.
3. Drop some bonii.  No one likes doing this, but sometimes you have to do it.  Now, there is a science or art to dropping bonii.  It takes careful up front planning to figure out which to drop.  Let's explore this.

Dropping a Bonus

In designing your route, you should know how much each bonus costs, relative to time.  The points per minute value of each bonus should be known.  For instance, if there is a bonus that takes you 10 minute to gather and it is worth 2,000 points, the value is 200 Points Per Minute.  Now lets assume there is a bonus that will take 30 minutes, but is worth 9,000 points.  The value of that bonus is  300 Points per minute.

Clearly it is cheaper to drop the first bonus rather than the latter.  BUT, you only gain 10 minutes vs 30.  How much time do you need to make up?  As an added quandary, WHEN can you give up a bonus?  Does it make sense to drop a bonus early in the rally to get back on track, time wise, or continue the rally behind the whole way and drop a bonus later in the rally?  What if you have time constrained bonii?

All of these factors must enter into your calculations.

In my case, I know which bonii I MIGHT drop and how much time I will pick up and how many points the drop will cost me.  I also have them scattered throughout my route.  If there are time constraint bonii, I pay very careful attention to my drops and exactly how much time I can pick up.  To make it even more complex, I may have two, three or four separate routes for each segment that might only be different by a few points, but several minutes, and as we have found minutes matter.

For example, let's say I have a bonus that can't be missed because it is so valuable, but it is time constrained.  I will put this bonus as 25% of my total plan, but it must happen between midnight and 1:00 AM, in our hypothetical rally.  If our rally started at 6:00 AM, that bonus is 18 hours away. 

Time to do some work.

While on the route, I may find myself 30 minutes behind.  I will know which bonus I need to drop to get that 30 minutes back.  That is easy.  But what I probably will also have is a different route that may drop a bonus that gives me 45 minutes and picks up another that takes another 10 away for a net of 5 minutes.  Now the most important part here is WHEN I find myself behind.

If I am behind very early in the rally, I will not panic.  I will not start dropping bonni.  I WILL keep a close eye on my times.  If I am falling further behind with the passage of time, my planning will change.  If I stay 30 minutes behind, and don't lose any more time as the day goes on, I have my plan, and it was ready to go since before the start of the rally.

Is some of this over the top?  Yes.  But it is how I have managed to win.  It may not work for you, and it may not be the best system, but it is what has worked for me so far.

You can easily participate and enjoy rallies without going to these extremes.  You may even do well and get into the top 5-10.  But if you want to win, against the serious competition that is out there, you will need a system, plan and tenacity to get there.

Rally Riding Lessons Learned, it's all about the minutes, man. Part 1

Part 1

If you are reading this, I assume you are interested in Rally Riding, or are an active participant in said events.  For those that fit into neither category, a little background:

So who do you think you are?

Some personal background on me, I started riding these rallies in June of 2012.  I have had some success and some failures, with my fair share of each, and each earned by yours truly.  I am far from an expert, having not yet done any multiday rallies, and being new to the sport (pastime, adventure, stupid way to waste a day, whatever).  I am the Rally Master (he who puts together a rally), for the Team Lyle Garden State Rally.

What is a Rally?

Many people think of a Rally as a gathering where like minded riders get together at a location, lie about their lives, riding and bikes, drink and eat, then leave after the weekend to talk crap about the people they were at the Rally with.  These are NOT those types of rallies, except for the crap talking.

Motorcycle Rally Riding events are scavenger hunts, on motorcycles.  There are mini rallies, usually 8-10 hours long, covering 300-500 miles, single day rallies, somewhere between 24 and 36 hours, covering upwards of 1000-1700 miles, and multi day rallies, ranging from 2 or 3 days up to the big daddy of them all, the Iron Butt, which is 11 days and 10,000 - 15,000 miles of riding.

Many, if not most, are photograph based, and others are information based.  In a photo based rally, you will be given some sort of identifier, usually a towel with the rally Name and Logo and your rider number.  The identifier usually has to be in all photographs in these types of rallies.

In an information based rally, you will have to gather information from a location.  You might be directed to a location and asked to write down the year a road was named from an Historical Road Marker, for instance.

In either type of rally, you will be given bonus location, or bonii, since Bonus and Octopus are in the same phylum.  In some rallies, the bonii will be given days before, some rallies will give you the bonii an hour before.  Some will be given to you in various electronic formats, easily or not so easily imported into a GPS, and some will be given in paper form.  It is really up to the Rally Master (Mistress), affectionately referred to as "Rally Bastards", named so for their penchant for being evil.

Each bonus location will be given a point value.  There will be many more bonus locations than can be visited in the time allotted for the rally.  The challenge is to figure out which locations you can ride to, gaining maximum points, and getting back to the rally end point before the end of the rally to win.  There is no standard for points, some rallies a bonus location might be worth 1-3 points, and in some rallies, points can range from 2,500 - 50,000 per bonus, although it really is irrelevant.

Many times, there will be Wild Card bonii.  These are usually an item to purchase and bring back to Rally HQ, or a set of bonii, that if gotten in a certain order will result in extra points, or something silly like eating at a Taco Bell.  It is really up the the Rally Bastard's imagination.

Getting Ready

There are two key parts to rallies.  One is reading comprehension.  Rally books will have a set of instructions for each bonus.  In the Nutmeg 400, for instance, one of the bonus locations was a statue of Molly Pitcher in VT, on the Molly Pitcher Highway.  On that statue, there is a plaque.  The Rally master wanted to know "What date was Route 9 officially named the Molly Pitcher Highway?"  On that plaque, there were 3 dates.  Molly Pitcher helped fight in 1777.  The road was established in 1937.  It was officially named the Molly Pitcher Highway in 1967.  So the right answer is 1967.  NOT 1777, 1937 and certainly not 1767, which is what I wrote down. 

The second key part to a rally is good documentation.  This includes your photographs.  In almost all cases, every bonus, gas fill up, hotel stay, purchase, etc, must be documented.  Bonus locations normally require the date and time, your odometer reading, plus the answer or photograph, or both.  Gas receipts must include all of the above, plus have the City, State, Date and Time, on the receipt.  Even a tiny mess up can result in lots of lost points and a tumble in your standings.

There are three distinct portions of any rally ride.

1. The plan.  This is where you develop your route and design your ride.  This is also where you lie to yourself about your abilities and the likelihood of traffic or construction being on your route.  
2. The ride.  This is where you actually do the ride.  You will also discover your lies to yourself, and this is normally where the Rally Gods come in and poop on your plans.  This poop can be a small baby sized poo of "I gotta put a quart of oil in my bike" to a mammoth, elephantine sized poo of "after I fixed the flat, the cops arrested me for peeing in public.  How else was I gonna put the fire out?"
3. The Scoring Table.  I affectionately refer to this as my nemesis.  I have had some good success.  I have yet to have a sitting at the scoring table that went perfectly, which is what you need to happen to win or do well.  This is where every T must be dotted and I must be crossed.  Your paperwork needs to be flawless and all notes, answers, receipts, pictures, etc are put to the test.  More rallies have been lost at the scoring table than in any other phase of rallying.

As someone once said of golf "it is a good walk, spoiled", I say this of Rally Riding, "it is a good ride, rushed".


So that all out there, here is the main point of this blog.  Rallying, while it may cover hundreds or thousands or tens of thousands of miles, and 8hours to 11 days, is a game of minutes.  For the people who do well and win, minutes matter.  From here on out, I will refer to those people as "we", since I count myself in that group, with all humbleness and modesty.

Theoretical Rally

I am going to use a fictitious example of a rally, for demonstration purposes.  Our theoretical rally will be a 24 hour affair, photo based, with a mandatory 2 hour rest period.

Planning

When we plan our routes, we spend hours or days working on the perfect route.  The one that gathers the most points, allows us the least time off the bike, and will result in a chance of winning.  For a typical rally, I will spend 50-150% of the allotted riding time on my route planning.  So for our 24 hour rally, I will route plan for 12-36 hours, maybe more.

I use Streets and Trips for my rally planning.  Many riders use other tools, but I will concentrate this writing on S&T.  In streets and trips you can play with average speed, automatic rest times (I use this to schedule fuel stops), traffic allowances, etc.  You can also play with start and end times, must arrive or depart times for each location, etc.  I normally plan very aggressively.  For a rally, I normally plan a route that should NOT be doable.  It will either be too many miles, or take too long to be attainable.  In this case, I will plan for 24.5 hours of rally time.

This puts me in rally mode.  I have now invested time and effort into just getting ready for the ride.

I will then spend a few hours getting my equipment ready.  Updating firmware and maps on my 3 GPS, phone, tablet, netbook and MiFi.  Put new batteries in everything that uses them, have at least one spare set of each type.  Set camera to acceptable format size.  Put in new memory card.  I will also go over the bike and remove anything not needed for the rally.  Add all the ancillary items, pens, pencils, markers, tape, clips, plastic bags, highlighters, multiple copies of rally book in multiple locations, load the roadbook, test all equations and math to make sure everything matches up and load the routes onto the GPS devices.

Now I have another 2-5 hours into the rally, total tally, 14-41 hours so far.

Rallies can either start and end at the same location, or may start from one location and end at another.  Either way, most times, you will be at the start location the night before, and spend time in a hotel room.  That time will NOT be fun.  If you have spoken with other riders and have talked about your plans, you will immediately start second guessing yourself.  You will revisit your plans and double check your success.  For the really over the top Type A riders, you will start trying to guess your competition's plans and seeing if their routes add up to yours.

Throw another 4-6 hours on your prep time.  Total tally, 18-47 hours.  And you haven't ridden mile 1 in the rally yet.  You may have ridden several hundred miles to get to rally start, however.

Rally Start

This is where the rubber meets the road.  All your planning HAS to be complete at this time.  If you plan on winning, or placing towards the top, you should be making NO DECISIONS once your rally starts.  By that, I mean you do not have time to think out there.  All your thinking should have been done beforehand.  I always know my exact arrival times and departure times for every bonus point, to the minute.  I also know which bonus location I can drop off my route, and when, to make up x number of minutes.

One truth to all successful rallying is this:  Plan your ride and Ride your plan.  If you deviate from that, you are toast, at least from a winning point of view.  I speak from experience.  I have won by riding my plan, and lost by not.

Many newer rally riders, myself included, think you can make up time by speeding and going "really fast".  There is nothing that could be further from the truth.  Not only is it unsafe, but it is a recipe for meeting a LEO and getting delayed with a warning, ticket, or jail.  Going fast is not an option.  In a 1,000 mile day, doing 10 over the limit or 20 over the limit does not gain you much.

Going SLOW, QUICKLY, is one of the keys to winning a rally, and I will say one of the most important keys.  By this, I am speaking of reducing your stop times to absolute minimums.  Stopping includes fuel, bonus gathering, bio breaks, food, drink and a rest period (hotel or the Iron Butt Hotel, if applicable).  If you can mange these stops and get them down to the bare minimum, you can be successful in a rally.

Lets use a fuel stop as an example.  In a 24 hour rally, I may ride somewhere around 1400 miles.  On my bike, that is 7 tanks of fuel.  Not counting the first tank, nor running out the last tank, that is 6 fill ups.  My bike has a 210 mile range.  Getting fuel every 200 miles requires that I stretch each and every tank to the limit.  I need to KNOW that I can get fuel at the 200 mile mark, or I am in trouble.  Many people are not willing to make that commitment and will fuel up at 175 miles or so.  That results in 7 or 8 fill ups.

My fuel stop system has my total stop time down to under 2 minutes.  That is total time from entering the gas station to leaving the gas station with a full tank of gas.  I allow a little slack in there when planning, and would allot 15 minutes for my 1400 mile ride.  Even if the hypothetical person above had the same speed, they would have to allot nearly 20 minutes for fuel stops, putting them 5 minutes behind.  Most people, however, take closer to 5 minutes for a fuel stop.  They stretch their legs, have one key, keep the credit card in their pocket, etc.  So lets allow 5 minutes for a regular stop, and the 175 range for fill ups.  That person is going to be 35 minutes fueling, where I will be at 12-15 minutes.  That is a 20 minute difference.  That is another bonus location, or a few more miles of riding, or more time to make sure I finish on time and don't DNF (Did Not Finish) by getting time barred (exceeding maximum time limit for rally)

So you can see by having a super efficient fuel stop procedure, I can easily pick up 20 minutes during a one day rally.

Now we move on to bonus gathering.  This is another area where minutes are won or lost.  I will be using a typical photo bonus as the example here.  This is a hypothetical bonus.  The bonus is to ride to mile marker 12.5 on route 999.  There you will find a set of statues.  Take a photo of the middle statue.

Now, as well know, you must include your mileage and the time in the rally book.  The photo also must have your rally flag, as well as the object, in the picture.

A new rally rider's stop would probably go like this:  They have their GPS set to mile 12.5 on route 999 and arrive.  Put the kickstand down, and get the rally book out from their tail-pack, tank bag or backpack.  Read the bonus and make sure they understand it.  They then fish out their camera and rally flag.  Walk over to the middle statue, figure out a way to drape the towel on the statue so it will stay in place, then take the photo.  They then gather the flag, go back to their bike, write down their mileage and the time, put rally flag, rally book and camera back into the proper storage locations.  They get on the bike, turn the key, start the bike and are off on their merry way.

Most people would be happy to pull that off in about 5 minutes.  Many will take up to 10.

Using this hypothetical situation, I would be happy with 30 seconds and expect to be gone in less than 60 seconds.  (No, not the crappy movie).  If capturing this bonus, and gathering all the info, took me more than 1 minute I would be very disappointed in myself.  If this bonus took 5 minutes, it would be a disaster (in rally terms).

I can do this stop in less than 1 minute because I have a system.  I know what I am going to do well before I arrive.  All my equipment is at hand and readily retrieved and stored.  I gather all my information electronically and will write in the rally book later in the day.  Every successful rally rider has their own system, and all rely on the repeatability of that system.

So now we have established that an experienced rally rider with a system can gather a photo bonus in one minute and a new rider, or one without an efficient system, will take a minimum of 5 minutes.  That is 4 minutes difference per bonus.  In a 24 hour rally, you might visit 20 bonii, or MORE.  Multiply that by 4 minutes and you will see that not having an efficient system can cost you 80+ minutes.

Add the inefficient fuel stops to that total and you are at 100 minutes of time.  That is an hour and 40 minutes to those of you who are math challenged.  Even if two people have the exact same abilities, equipment, plan and training, if you give one an extra 100 minutes to perform the same task, he will finish before the other.  In the case of rallying, the person with a solid plan and system will have an extra 100 minutes to go and gather more bonii and will outscore you.

Now add in Food, Water and Bio breaks.  Each of these takes time, but it depends on how much time.  In our 24 hour rally, I will have all my food on the bike.  That food will consist of energy bars of some sort.  That's it.  All eating is done between bonii while riding.  There is no stopping for food.

Water.  Again, all my water is on my bike.  I wear a Camel Pack, and many riders have water systems mounted to the bike.  All drinking happens on the bike.  I drink only water on rides.  I also drink on a regular basis, even if not thirsty.  Everyone is different.  I get by on about a cup an hour.

Bio breaks.  This is way too personal, but lets just say there are no scheduled bio breaks for me.  I fit them in elsewhere.  But there is no lost time, let's leave it at that.

Those are my food, water and bio times.  I lose zero time to all three functions.  Unless you are willing to do these things, you will lose even more minutes.  How many in our 24 hour rally?  30 minutes, is my guess.  Maybe even an hour, but lets be optimistic and say 30 minutes.

So an efficient, hardcore Type A rally rider has a 130 minute advantage on the new or ill prepared rally rider.  Taking riding and routing ability out of it, we are over a 2 hour advantage.  That is unfair.

To put it into even more perspective, in a 24 hour rally there are 1440 minutes.  If an inefficient system costs you 130 minutes, you only get 1310 minutes.  That is 91% of the time allowed.  So an efficient rally rider will use all 24 hours and you have 21 hours and 50 minutes.  Doesn't seem fair, does it? 

So as you can see, minutes matter.  Each minute you can shave off of a fuel stop, will give you that minute to get to another bonus.  For each minute you can shave off a bonus stop, you get another minute to go for another bonus.

With most competitive rally riders, the plan will be to arrive at rally HQ with less than 5 minutes to spare.  Any more than that, and you most likely could have grabbed another, or different bonus.  In some rallies, the end of the rally begins a penalty phase.  i.e. you will lose x points for each minute past 24 hours, with a limit of 30 minutes, at which point in time you will be time barred and marked DNF.  For the competitive guys, we take that 30 minutes, and the associated penalty, into account when route planning.

In our hypothetical rally, lets say that you lose 100 points for each minute over the time limit, with a DNF at 30 minutes.  I would look at my route and see if there is a bonus worth more than 3000 points, that could be picked up in less than 30 minutes.  If the answer is yes, even if the bonus is 3100 points, and I could lose 3000, I would build that into my plan, because the net return would be a positive 100 points, and that could be the difference in winning or losing.  This is real stuff.  I came in second in a rally by less than 100 out of 45,000 points.  So yeah, it matters.

But let's take that out of the equation for now.  Let's assume we have designed a route that gets us to the Rally HQ with 5 minutes to spare.  Let's also assume we plan on 2 minutes per stop, instead of 1.  Lets further assume, we plan on 5 minutes per gas stop instead of 2.  Again, using Streets and Trips, I can do all that.

So I have a route with 20 bonii locations, and 6 fuel stops.  I should pick up 20 minutes if I can grab each bonus in 1 minute.  I should also pick up 12-18 minutes at the fuel stops.  That is 30-40 minutes of extra time I should get.  That should be PLENTY, or, rather, not.

What you have to allow, and is almost impossible to plan, for is traffic, light signals, slow drivers and other situations beyond your control that will eat at your time.  Ever sit at a traffic light and wonder why it is taking so long?  Try doing that, when you have a rally plan that is 24 hours long and has 5 minutes of slack time in it.  The light that takes 2 minutes, rather than 1 minute, just ate up 20% of your slack time and you will be at a lot more than 4 more lights in the next 24 hours.

How about when you are on a country road, posted at 55 MPH and the line of cars in front of you thinks it is parade time and are traveling along at 45?  You can't pass them all.  You have to sit there and follow the parade.  You are losing approximately 1 minute every 6 you are riding at that point.  You only had 5 to begin with, well 4 after that traffic light.


Part 2

Minute Man 1K in the Books

Update, Star Date -309560.2840

Well, the 2013 MM1K is in the books.  It was quite the event, I can tell you that.

Riders got the bonus locations Wednesday.  That gave us 2 days to go over plans, routes, etc, with the hope that our routes would not be blown out of the water when the rally packs were distributed.

Looking at the weather, it was not good Mav.  Tropical Storm Andrea was going to be on us Friday and most of Saturday.

I spent a bunch of time planning my route, as is the norm.  I designed several routes that included what I expected to be combo bonuses, of which I was only right on one of them, but that one was a solid route.

Wednesday night, Kate had a work problem I helped her with and we were up until 3 AM.  Then regular work day on Thursday, and some final route planning, etc Thursday night.  Our plan was to leave mid day Friday, to get up to Rally HQ for check in, etc, around 3PM.

We woke up around 7:30 on Friday AM and looked at the weather.  I said to Kate "we really should leave now, before the worst of it gets here."  She agreed and we hopped into hyper drive to get rolling.

3 hours later, we managed to get out of the garage, right in the middle of the worst of the rain.


Right before we headed out, the Rally Master sent an email indicating that there would be an alternate odometer check method available.  All you had to do was stop at a specific gas station on the way to HQ, zero out your trip meter, write your starting odo on the receipt and get to HQ.  That was nice, as it could save you an extra 30 minutes in the rain.

Kate and I decided to do this, and right at the exit for the gas stop was a good Italian Joint, Rinaldi's Italian Specialties, where we had some tasty lunch.  Lunch over, we went and grabbed our start receipts and rode up to rally HQ.

Got to HQ, started the check in process and guess what we forgot to do?  If you guess WRITE THE ODO on the receipt, you are RIGHT!  Ding Ding Ding!

So the RM, feeling badly for us was about to let us slide, when, unbeknownst to me, my sweet, dear Kate, gave him a sign to make me go back out and ride the odo check, thinking it would be funny.  And it was.  Especially considering he made her do it too.  hahahahahaaaaaa.

After going for the Odo check ride, we got in and finished registration, checked into our rooms, and pulled off all the wet gear.  We were pretty darn wet.  My tank bag rain cover didn't do anything, except seal in the juices.  Not a good sign for the start of what looked to be a wet rally.

I think every rider did what we did at that point.  The process was as follows:

Turn room heat to 90 degrees.
Turn on heat lamp in bathroom.
Turn on hair dryer in bathroom.
Wring out what you could into the sink/tub.
Take turns using the hair dryer to attempt to dry out each piece of clothing/equipment.

I am confident of this, because outside of every other room you could hear a hair dryer blowing.


The fun really starts.

Dinner was great, as it was last year.  Rally towels and rally packs were distributed.  When the RM gave the OK to open your rally packs, I had a rude surprise.  My rally book was 2 pages thick.  I looked around the table, and noticed that everyone else had 25 pages or so.  WTF?

I asked and the RM told me that it was correct, and that I should look at my pack in better detail.

I guess I have a reputation of riding a lot of miles in rallies.  So I got special bonus locations.  Like Prudhoe Bay, Alaska and Key West Florida in my rally pack.  It was really very funny and the staff and other riders got a good laugh at my expense (one of many opportunities this weekend).

I was eventually given the real rally book, and there was a little Q&A with the RM.

Went back to the room and looked at the rally book in detail.  Seemed to be straight forward with no huge surprises.  The wild card bonus was to get a picture of the farmer signs you see around, the yellow signs with a farmer on a tractor.  You could grab up to 3 of those.  The only combo bonuses were for the Diners, or WD bonuses.  I had seen that there were 8 location prefaced with WD, so I had made a route that included them all.  Good thing for me, as it was worth 10,000 extra points to grab all 8.  They were all in and around Boston, so my planned route had me grabbing these bonuses around midnight or later, when traffic would be light.

So given all that, I really did not have to work so hard at final routing and was in bed by midnight.

And then I fell asleep.

At 3AM.

Alarm goes off at 4:30 to get ready for the 5:30 rider's meeting.

Typical rider's meeting and one more bonus is distributed.  Grab something Cumberland Farms branded from a Cumberland Farms store.  You could grab 3 of these.











The rain was still coming down, although less so, and we all lined up for our epic rides.

I left the starting gate at 6:02 (even though the RM wrote 6:01).

My first bonus was right near HQ.  Grabbed that, and on my way.









My route had me riding south into CT, then North West into NY, up into Burlington VT, across to Maine, down into Boston and then home to HQ.

Here is the link for my Spotwalla.

On my way down to SS4, getting gas in Milford, CT, my satellite radio stopped receiving.  Not sure what was up, I looked and my antenna puck was flopping around behind me instead of sitting on my top case  What a PITA.  I fiddled with it as best as I could, but it ended up flopping down by my tire and rubbing, and probably pulling an internal wire loose.

So I had to ride the whole ride without music, weather or traffic.  It has been 5 years since I rode without music.


Next stop was a birthing center.  I had a lovely conversation with a male nurse that lasted about 3 years.  He was intent on talking to me about the differences and similarities between my C14 and his 90 CC scooter.  I know we are ambassadors when we are out there, so I was as polite as possible, but when my next birthday rolled around on the calendar, I had to extricate myself from this conversation, and off to my next stop.




That next stop was MAX BMW in CT.  I saw my favorite sales guy, Zac Wiley, for about 30 seconds.  I pulled in, snapped my photo, gathered my data, and rolled out.  Zac was at the front door of the dealer.  "Hi Zac, Bye Zac" was all I got out as I pulled out of the parking lot.

Went about the business of gathering bonii.  Saw some cool stuff.  Here is some farm junk.

 This photo shows some stuff.

Here we have 3 cows, resting serenely by the side of the road.  Luckily, they are made of bronze and did now try to mate with my Kaw.











Speaking of mating with Kaws, what are these guys doing with this bull?  That was one of the rally questions.  I knew what my initial answer was, but it could not be right, could it?










Ever wish you had a giant, green outdoor chair?  So did the people at this library.  They have one, do you?











A barn.  Try to contain your enthusiasm.  If you look closely, right under my muffler, you can see my ZUMO antenna hanging down.  Not great for reception or longevity.

 A sign.  I know.  The thrill a minute life of a rally rider is in full effect.












OK, now this was something I had not planned on.  There was an added bonus for being at a MAX BMW dealer between noon and 1 PM and having a burger.  You had to sit there for 20 minutes.  My route had me showing up 12 minutes before noon.  I could then gather the bonus for going to MAX2, do a little paperwork, then start the MEAT bonus at noon exactly.  The PROBLEM was, and this is unusual, I was waaaay ahead of schedule.  I got there at 11:30.

I had a bonus in Maine that you had to grab during daylight.  In my planned route, I was going to get there with about 5 minutes to spare, and knowing that my plans are usually aggressive, I decide to pass on the 6500 Points for MEAT, so I could be sure to grab the 9000 bonus in Maine.

I also had a very odd experience at this bonus.  I pulled up, started my photo gathering, etc., and a random customer started heckling me.  "Why would you ride a Kawi to a BMW dealer?"  I told him I was riding my Kawi to win the rally.  "So you want to race?"  Talk to me another day, I am on a rally.  Seeing that I was moving briskly getting, my picture, etc, he starts yelling "Come on!  Move faster Hurry! Hurry!"  My next comments to him were less than pleasant, but not overly rude, however, I made my displeasure at his lack of tact known.

I have run into this brand love hate BS at HD gatherings, dealers, classes, etc., but never with a BMW dealer.  Gross.


This poor bear was in prison, and now he is serving time holding up a sign for a bar.  Not sure which is worse.










 Ever wonder what an 18,500 piece of marble looks like?  Now you know and have a C14 as reference.  And for the record, the C14 is a few pounds less than 18,500 until I sit on it.











Another sign.  Calm down, it just keeps getting better and better.












As I mentioned, there was a wild card bonus for Farmer Signs.  I was several hundred miles into the ride and had not seen one.  I was starting to get concerned I might not get the three of these we were allowed, but in the course of about 10 miles, I grabbed three.  All on my route, all quick snap and go.







This one was fun.  There were two dog sculptures made of hay bales.  Not something you see every day, nor something you would want your neighbor to put up, but here they sit.











There is some irony with visiting a solar array on a rainy day.












You HAD to know this was coming.  Yes, another sign.  I try to temper my excitement with photographing signs with doses of boredom, so I don't have a heart attack from the overwhelming thrill of the event.  It helps to think of baseball.......








Here is a barn.  "So what?" you may ask.  So this one is round, says I.

 Up until this point, except for my antenna coming loose, this rally was going well.  The Rally Gods had not made their appearance yet, and I was way ahead of schedule and really having a great rally.  Most of my boni were within 30 miles of each other, and some were barely a few miles apart.

This next stretch was the longest of my route, without a bonus.  85 miles.  So I sat back, relaxed and twisted the throttle for a bit.  Made good time, and got to this bonus location.  I dismounted, went to my top case, AND IT WAS UNLATCHED.  And the rally flag was GONE! 

In the rally world, this is pretty bad.  You can't claim boni without your rally flag.  You can't score without your rally flag.  The rally flag is pretty damn important.  And I just discovered I had lost mine somewhere over the last 85 miles.



At this point, I knew I had to go back and get my flag, and I knew my route and rally were shot.  I was mad for a minute or two, but then I just resigned myself to what reality was.  I turned around and started to backtrack.  I knew I would have to keep an eye on the other side of the road for the whole trip back.  1 mile later, I saw it!  Right there in the middle of the highway.  The most beautiful sight of the rally (except when I got to HQ and saw Herbert safely parked), was a pile of green and white towel, sitting in the middle of two lanes of traffic.

I could not believe how lucky I was.  That towel had sat flopping from the back of my case for 84 miles, and let go one mile from my next stop.  I only lost about 5 minutes.  So lucky.

Now that we are through that bit of excitement, here is another sign.












And if that wasn't enough to get your blood flowing, here is another one.

 This can get a bit repetitive, no?















I made the bonus in Maine with time to spare, right around 8:00 PM, sunset was 8:25 or so.

Here I met up with my buddy Bruce. 
We always end up seeing each other on our routes.  This was a fun moment, and I had an emotional recharge seeing him.  









This bonus was for an HHM and a two level bridge.  The coordinates brought you to the top level of the bridge.  Having done some of this stuff before I KNEW the HHM had to be down near the lower level.  Took a look at the map on my GPS, and made a stab at getting down there.  It was pretty easy.  I did not spot the HHM right away, but experience has taught me to STOP RIDING and look around.  Once I did that, I spotted the HHM, grabbed the photo and rode away.

 Hey!  Look!  A sign!

My final boni were all diners.   There were 8 in all.  I purposely routed these so I would be visiting them in the middle of the night.  I knew I would start my rest bonus in the middle of gathering these.  Your rest bonus had to start before 2:00 AM.  I mean, first off, these are diners, and diners are open 24/7, and besides that, I would be in the middle of Boston.  Something would be open around 2:00 AM, right?  I mean, its a major city.











NONE of these were open.  So instead of getting to get my rest bonus in a nice comfortable diner, I resigned myself to working at a gas station.  At 1:30, I started looking for real.  At 1:40, I was sweating.  At 1:45, I was getting concerned.  I finally managed to find an open gas station at 1:50.  That was closer than I planned.

I have a nice comfortable system for working on paperwork on the bike.  I have a cool little stool that fits nicely on the bike, my side bag holds my laptop, I have a notebook holder with a light, so I am good.  I start filling in my paperwork and realize I needed some guidance on the proper way to fill in the log.  Uh oh.  I had teased the Rally Master about calling him in the middle of the night and now I needed to.  I sent him a text.  No answer.  Crap.  So I called him.  He was tired.  I legitimately felt bad, but I could not afford to mess up the paperwork.  To his credit he gave me my answers very graciously.

I looked at my route again and realized I would be coming in about 15 minutes early.  I then looked and saw a nice juicy 5200 point bonus on the way back to HQ, not directly, but close enough.  Putting that into my route had me getting back to HQ 10 minutes late.  That would be a negative 1500 points, as a penalty, but a net of 3700 points, so on the route it went.

On the final stretch of my route, between Worcester and the final bonus, Streets and Trips showed me running along the highway, and then getting off to go grab the bonus.  Garmin, in its infinite wisdom, took me along a local road.  One with 25 MPH limits and constantly switching speed limits, you know, a speed trap paradise.



I thought about jumping over to the highway, but Ms Garmin showed me on time.  I fought the urge and followed instructions.

I had to keep a close eye on the constantly changing speed limits.  It was 5 AM, I am riding a bike with enough lights to make it look like a UFO, in an area where the police probably take their speed limits seriously.  It was not worth going a little fast, to try and make up a minute of two, and risk getting pulled over for something stupid like 38 in a 35.  So I rode very cautiously and conservatively.

Grabbed the last bonus and headed home to rally HQ.  The entire time I was riding to that last bonus, Garmin was showing a 6:17 arrival time.  As I got closer, the time started going down and I pulled in at 6:11!  Sweet, only a 9 minute penalty!  Except the RM had me down as leaving at 6:01, so it became a 10 minute penalty.  More on this, later.

As a note for those who don't read my blog (shame on you), I have had good success in rallying, but I have also NEVER scored cleanly.  I have left points on the table at scoring EVERY. SINGLE. TIME.  This rally was going to change that.  My goal was to plan, ride and score, exactly as I intended.  I WAS NOT going to leave points on the table.

To that end, I was doing my paperwork for 2 hours.  At one point, I was in the hallway outside of scoring with a laptop, scroll paper, notebook, phone, and two cameras.  The RM took a very flattering picture of me, which would become part of the fun at awards.

Long story short, I got scored and it was completely clean.  WHEW.  I had done what I set out to do.  I then had to wait for awards to see where I would end up placing.  I was confident it was a good score, just not sure it would be the top score.  I made a note to the RM that he had me leaving at 6:01, but I knew I left at 6:02.  It was only 150 points, so I told him if it was that close, I wanted a review, but if not, then don't worry about it.

At breakfast before the awards banquet, Long Haul Paul got me good.  Paul is a member of the rally staff.  I was sitting at my table and he came in looking around the room like he was searching for someone.  His eyes met mine, and he gave me this "sorry man" look.  He then came over and asked me if I had eaten already.  He then patted me on the back and said "sorry" before walking away.

S.O.B. what I had I messed up?  I went over all the paperwork in my head.  I KNOW I had read every question and provided every answer.  I could not have gone to a wrong location.  I was solid.  I was dejected.  I knew any points lost would blow me out of the water.

Rob came up to the podium and started to go over the finishers.  He made the announcement that the difference between first and second was less than 150 points.  I should have known something was up at that point, but I was oblivious.

After many more jokes at my expense, the results were announced.  I had won and by a decent margin, not 150 points.  This was the sweetest win of my career so far.  I had come full circle in one year and won the rally that started me on this adventure.

I also was called a "big dog" by the RM.  That is not a term thrown around in the LD community and that might be more rewarding than the win.

On another note, I am THRILLED to report that Kate took 3rd place in the Saddle Sore division and there were two other women in the top 10.  Girls rule!

2013 Minute Man 1K

Here we go again.  This is the rally that started it all last year, The Minute Man 1000, or MM1K as those in the know know it, ya know?

I am competing in the full rally this year, whereas I did the Saddle Sore rally last year.

Kate is going to do the Saddle Sore Rally this year, with an eye on the podium, as she came in 4th last year.

I am super pumped and files are supposed to be in the wild today, Wednesday June 5.

Can't Wait!

The Farkle 500 (725) is in the books!

OK, so this one is made up.

Kate and I had a rare weekend, which had nothing planned.  No rallies, no shooting, no boat, no work, nada.

Twisted Throttle was having their open house scheduled for Saturday.  Cool.  Less than 200 miles from home and good opportunity to go look at some gear.  Looking into this further, it appeared that White Horse Gear was having their open house the same day.  Some people lamented this, so TT offered some free swag to anyone who went to both Open Houses.  The Farkle 500 is born!

White Horse is 350 miles from our home.  It is also about 210 miles from Twisted Throttle.  Open house started at 8:30 at WH and ran until 4PM at TT.  So we had to get to WH in time to do some shopping, and leave ourselves time to get to TT.

WH is about a 6 hour ride.  From there to TT is about another 4.  So we decided on an arrival time at WH of 10AM, spend 30 minutes and then off to TT for a 2:30 arrival.  To do this, we planned on leaving home at 4AM.  Key word here is "planned".


We left at 4:30 and took a leisurely pace up to WH.  Typical New England drivers had us going 5 under the limit for the last 70 miles or so.  End result was us showing up at WH around 11:30.

We spent about 30 minutes shopping and met with some friends.  We then got on our bikes and headed down to Twisted Throttle.

Got to TT at 3:40, with 20 minutes to spare.  550 Miles of riding.  We won the long distance riders awards and got interviewed and earned $25 gift cards, which was cool.

Spent some money at TT and then headed home.  got home around 8, having covered 725 miles.

MD 20/20 The Battle for Lexington

Next on the Rally Menu is The MD 20/20.  This is another 24 hour rally (actually 32 hours), hosted by RM Rick Miller.  The MD 20/20 is a premier rally.  Rick is known to have fun with his riders.  This year is no exception.

The Bonii have been distributed, a week ahead of the rally, but the rally book will be distributed 1 hour before rally start.  AAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!!!!!!

Rick has been toying with the riders for the past few days, with vague answers, cryptic responses, and general innuendo.  That being said, I have designed a route.  It has one tight window, but beyond that is very doable.  There are questions, however.  What will the mileage cap be?  There is one, but no answer from RM until 1 hour before the ride.  What does "have you met your match?" (sub title of this year's rally) mean?  Will there be paired bonii that are not on my route?

Nobody knows, except the Shadow.

So with some consternation, I am ready to head out and make an effort.  We shall see what I can pull off.  I have my goals.  We shall see if I can meet them.

Before I get back, you can watch my progress here.

The rally starts at 6 AM Saturday and ends 2 PM Sunday.

Will post up Monday or so.

Wish me luck.


Update 5/28/2013

Well, I came in 8th.  My worst showing so far.  My route was solid, but I made a few bad choices and there you have it.

All the hand wringing related to mileage caps, and what does "Have you met your match?" were for naught.  There was no mileage cap, so no need to change my route.

The match thing was interesting, however.  In this rally, we were given both the questions AND the answers.  The catch was, that when you got to a location, you had to figure out which question went with that location, and obviously you had to get the answer after that.  With 48 locations, that was a lot of options.

The beginning of my route went well.  It was very cold, but about 300 miles in I was 30 minutes ahead of schedule.  Then I got to one location that sucked 45 minutes out of my time.  I could not figure out the question.  The bonus was worth big points, so I stayed there until I came up with the question and answer, but I was well behind at that point.

I then had a dueling GPS situation and ended up dropping an 800 point bonus, that I was all of 5 minutes from.  Rats.

After that, I made good time, and managed to pull off a personal goal, which was to grab all 3 daylight bonii in the counter clockwise route.  I got the last one with about 5 minutes to spare.

I then entered South East West Virginia.  This was mistake #2.  I could have ridden about an extra 50 miles, but all highway, but instead my route took me through the mountains, where I was behind a never ending string of slow cars.  What should have taken 90 minutes too over 3 hours.  I was well behind at this point.

I then headed up 81 and started grabbing bonii.  My plan called for me to rest outside of DC around 3, then get into DC around 6 and Baltimore at 7.  I was comfortable going into the cities at those hours, but no later.

Well, my plan had not worked and I had to make a decision.  That decision led to me dropping DC, getting to western Baltimore at 5:30, and Inner Harbor Baltimore at 5:50.  I had to start my documented rest bonus by 6AM, or be a DNF.

I managed to pull it off and started my rest at 5:54 AM.  Pulled over, pulled out the roll mattress, and the dump trucks started rolling at 6:05.  Right next to a construction facility.  Awesome.  SO I did paperwork and did not get any sleep.

At 8:57, I ended my rest and started the end of my ride.  It was all of 200 miles.  And it was the hardest 200 miles I have ever ridden.

The end went as planned and I got in with 30 minutes to spare.

Did my paperwork and got scored.  I made an error at one bonus which cost me, the 800 point dropped bonus cost me, and I made a faux paux error.  All told, about 1800 points.  Not good.  I ended up at 15,186 or so.  Well short of a win.

Long Haul Paul presented me with my trophy for the MS5000 ride, where I had come in second.

Dinner was great.

I went to bed at 10PM on Sunday and had been up since 4:30 AM on Saturday.  Rode about 1600 miles.

Monday, Bruce, Kate and I went to Centralia PA and witnessed how badly humans can mess up the earth.  We also stopped at a religious grotto off St Anthony's Way.

Got home and went straight to bed.

The End.

5,000 miles and $2,000 for a Cure

So Long Haul Paul Pelland challenged we, the LD riders, to go out there and ride 5,000 miles in 50 days. As an added bonus, we were challenged to help raise money for a cure for MS. Being the giving and competitive guy I am, I jumped right on it. I set a personal goal of raising $2,000 and riding 6,000 miles. I have accomplished one of those, having ridden 6,150 6200 miles so far and looking to break 7,000 in the next 5 4 days. As of right this second, I am at $1705 $1915 $2,037 (I really want to get over $2,500) raised for the Cure.

Here is a map of my riding over the past 40 days:

 That big loop going west, then south, then back to NJ was accomplished in 3 days and accounted for ~2,600 miles.

So I am asking, as a friend, acquaintance, enemy, or indifferent observer, can you help me break my $2,000 goal?

Here is where you can donate, and any amount is appreciated.


Here are the bike miles.

Consuela Miles                                                                               Captain USA Miles

Start                                                        

 So far

 Consuella is actually at 36,635 right now.

The Evolution of Herbert

UPDATE

Kate rode Herbert 13,000 miles in 30 days this past July and set a record doing it!

Read more here

Kate, my wonderful and adventurous girlfriend, took up motorcycle riding 2 years ago.

She took the MSF BRC.

I bought her a Rebel 250, which she rode for a week.

She then jumped up to a BMW F800ST, affectionately named "Snotrag".  She put a bunch of miles on the ST and loves it.  Great bike.









Last year, I bought Captain USA.  I had sold my glider, and wanted another toy.


Bad move.  Kate decided she needed an adventure bike as well.





So after much research and hemming and hawing, she bought Herbert, a 2013 F700GS, in silver.  Herbert has a standard height suspension, but a low seat, perfect combination for Kate, who is fairly petite at 5'3".

Of course, one does not simply buy a new bike.  One must obtain and install farkles.  Certainly one does not merely pick up a stock bike and ride.

So when we got Herbert, he had the following installed, from Max BMW.  (Best.  Dealer.  Ever.)

Touratech Panniers and Top case, in brushed aluminum
BMW Skidplate
BMW Engine Crash Bars
Touratech Radiator Guard
BMW Large Hand Guards
Touratech Quick Release Headlight Guard




























We picked up Herbert and I got the privilege of riding him home.  Here are my impressions of the F700GS.

The bike has ample power and a linear power curve, on acceleration.  On deceleration, I did notice an odd behavior.  When rolling off the throttle, there is a smooth, linear deceleration directly proportional to throttle input, up until the very end of throttle let off.  At that point, somewhere around 5-10% of throttle, there is an abrupt cut off and engine braking engages very aggressively.  This effect is a dramatic one, to the point of giving the impression the brakes have been applied.

Speaking of brakes, the front brakes are amazing.  Very strong, if a bit grabby.  The rear leaves a lot to be desired.  The rear is excellent for control during low speed maneuvers, but almost ineffective for slowing the bike from speed.

First gear is tall and any maneuvers less than 15 MPH will require clutch fanning.  It interferes with attempts to observe the sky without looking up.

The ESA has a noticeable effect on the ride.  I could feel a distinct difference between each of the three modes and they each served their purpose well.  As I was highway droning, Comfort was excellent at absorbing bumps and smoothing the ride.  Normal was used when I was on the Taconic, where there are road imperfections, and curves.  Again, well suited.  I used Sport mode when doing some off ramps and a few twistier roads.  Very effective and well sorted.

The overall ride of the bike is well sorted.  It is very nimble, even with the bags, etc.  It tracked well on the highway and held its line in turns.  No long leggedness or squirrelishness noted.  On bridge grates, I did notice the skinnier tires wandered a bit more than I am used to.  Nothing terrible, just a little more movement.

Overall, great machine.  Kate is going to enjoy it and I would recommend it to other smaller stature riders.  The only caveat being, with a tall first gear, grabby front brakes and that throttle drop off, anyone who purchases this bike should spend some time in a parking lot practicing slow speed maneuvers.  Those three things, in a tight turning or parking lot scenario, could very easily end up in an oopsie.  Those concerns disappear after 15 MPH.

 

 One thing of note is the complete lack of wind protection.  This may be a great thing if you are back woods bashing, but Kate and I do a lot of Long Distance rallies and riding, which includes highway riding, and a windscreen was definitely needed. Windscreen was delivered on a Friday.  We had a rally coming up that Saturday, Hammy's Trouble With Triples, and Kate wanted to ride Herbert.  We live in a condo, so all my MC work happens in the abandoned lot across the street.   You can't ride a rally without a GPS, and no bike is complete without some RAM Mounts.  Of course, the secret rally weapon needed to be installed as well.

The rally and the install are captured in words and pictures here.

The rally was a success, the windscreen works like a champ.

But damn, poor Herbert is nearly blind.  How do people ride at night with just one measly headlight?  And a non HID headlight at that?  Time for some auxiliary lights!

 

ADV Monster sells a set of lights that I am a HUGE fan of.  Here is a link.  Those lights turn the night into day.  I LOVE them.  Of course, I can't leave well enough alone and I have played with several controllers trying to get the most fun out of the lights as possible.  And of course, those experiments have ended up with success and failure.

Herbert and Kate do not like experiments.  So I went with a tried and true LED controller solution, the Skene 175.  This controller allows for individual low and high beam settings for the lights.  You can also put one or two other settings in place with the use of a switch, which we have not done, and I am not sure we will.  Additionally, the controller has a flashing sequence for those times when an extra special idiot cuts you off, looks like they may turn left in front of you, etc.

In a stroke of pack rat brilliance, I found a set of handle bar mirror clamps that I had lying around.  Those worked perfectly for mounting the lights to the crash bars in a very solid fashion.

Also threw on another necessity, a hard wired USB connector for phone charging, etc.  I have 2 of these on Consuela and one on Captain USA.  Snotrag has 2.  I have seen these go for up to $30, but I bought a 10 pack from a Canadian company for $6 each.  They work great for keeping the phone charged, running an automobile GPS or charging our SENA headsets.  This is a must have, for long distance riding.

So Herbert is growing up.  Gotta get some more crap, I mean farkles.  He only has 1 ball (Ram Mount), and needs a couple more to make him feel like a real boy.  And where would we be if we couldn't mount a waterproof phone case?


Herbert has more RAM mounts now, one under each mirror.

Additionally, he has gotten Touratech Uppers attached to his BMW lowers and they look and work great (been tested with no damage)

He also has a fresh set of knobbies on him and they worked very well too!