Nutmeg 400 is in the books!

This year was the inaugural running of the Nutmeg 400.   The Nutmeg is put on by the same people who put on the Minute Man 1000, one of the premier 24 hour rallies in the country.

This year, the Nutmeg was 10 hours, and no photo bonuses.  Files were put into the wild 2 days prior to the event.  After looking at the points, etc, I came up with several routes in the 400 mile, 10 hour area and all were in the 100K point range.  I knew that was not going to be enough, so I worked hard on coming up with something with more points.

After some work, I ended up with a route that was 126K points, which I was pretty sure would be good enough for a win.  Problem with my route was it came in at 10:45, 45 minutes over the limit.  Given that, I put in 3 go/no go decision points in the route.  I figured this would be good practice for future events, using my logic and historical knowledge of New England driving habits (read, NE drivers drive at or below the speed limit.  Usually well below, which drives an NJ rider NUTS)

Happy with my route (foolishly), I had everything ready to go by Thursday night, for a Saturday rally.  This is unusual for me, as I normally pound on routes until the last minute to try and eek out as many points as possible.  I had taken Friday off to go up to Max BMW and have them install some Alt Rider bars on my GS.  I had decided to do this rally on my GS since Captain USA does not get ridden enough, plus I have had the crash bars for several months.

First challenge was getting the bars up to CT from NJ on the bike.  So I turned my brand new GS into the Sanford and Son Truck.  Bwan na bwa na, bwa na na na na na na nahh.

 

 

Here are the results, I think they look great.  I am even more glad I had them put on by Max's guys, since apparently Alt Rider bars are a smidge difficult to get on.  A smidge being defined as 3 burly techs and 2 hours of work.  Had I attempted the work, it would have ended with thrown parts and a kicked over motorcycle.

I helped the rally staff set up, and introduced myself to some new riders.  Met a bunch of friends I had not see since last year and ate some pizza.  

Kate has a new job, so she had to work on Friday.  She got home, packed, got ready and rode up, arriving around 10 PM.  She put the finishing touches on her route plan and off to bed.

Get up at 600 to be able to shower, eat, get gas and go to Rally HQ by 700.  I, of course, had my Captain USA outfit on.  Red, White and Blue pants, jersey, boots and gloves.  The helmet stayed home, because I need a flip up for rallies.

Rider's meeting commenced at 730 and we were told we could leave as soon as we got checked out.  Wahoo!  Extra 20 minutes!  EXACTLY what I needed to possibly pull off my ride (I figured I could pick up a few minutes on the back roads and by making 1 gas stop instead of two, and making sure I had ULTRA fast bonus stops.

So Kate and I head off on our routes.  Hers was more conservative, but basically followed the same loop, with me taking about 5 more stops.

Here is the Spotwalla for the route

My (flawed) route was as follows:

PVT and BVH (same location, Wallace!)

 

TVW

LMA

MTC

BRC

BSC

SCC

TCB

BVR

This was my first go/no go point, if I left BVR before 11:05, I was going to BBG, it was, so I did.

BBG

USM

MAXN

MAXN was the rest bonus.  Free food, 30 minutes to chill out (yeah right) and get back out on the road again.  I used this time to fill out my route claim sheet.  For about 10 minutes, my camera went missing.  Not sure what happened, you know who you are, but it magically re-appeared.  This was a non photo rally, but I used my camera to capture answers, so I would be sure not to misspell, and could make very fast stops.

Back on the route and off to

MSM (Note 1967)

MSP

HTH

ASH

SEU

(Had a great plan for SEU.  I knew where the statue was and found a back entrance to get right up to it.  That was brilliant up to when I showed up and the police had that entrance closed off.  Grrrrrr.)

Here is my next go/no go.  This was a tough one.  If it was 3:55 or later, I had to drop NYD.  Since the police interfered with my brilliant plan, I left SEU at 3:57.  2 minutes, but this is a game of minutes.  I hated to do it, but I dropped NYD.

Continuing on to GRP.

Next go/no go involved my last 3 stops.  At a certain point, I had a time frame and had 3 choices of what to execute based on the time.  

If I got there at: 

4:44, I could grab FSC, TMX and WTR.  

4:59, TMX and WTR

5:05 Just WTR

5:14 Just TMX

Managed to get there at 5:00, and I knew I had 3 minutes slack, so I went for it and grabbed TMX and WTR.

Rode into rally HQ with 17 minutes to spare.  Could have grabbed one of the two bonuses I dropped, but wanted to be safe.

Did my paperwork, got into line and said to myself "check your answers one more time" and promptly got into a conversation with some people and forgot to double check.  Turns out that 1767 and 1967 are NOT the same year.  Who knew?  Apparently the Rally Master and staff.  That oopsie cost me MSM, which was 6200 points.  DUH.

So the award ceremony started and I ended up in 6th place with 114,150.  

Wallace French, a rider I very much look up to, managed to score 138,150!  My route was only good for a total of 127,250, without mistakes.  That is a stomping!  He, and several others, had clearly better routes for this one.  Will use it as a learning experience and get better.

Special congratulations to two of my favorite riders, Bruce who out-rode, out routed and outscored me, and of course Kate, who's bike fell of its kickstand at the first bonus location, broke off her shifter knob, and rode another 380 miles shifting with her toe on the nubbin of a shift lever on her bike!

Thanks to Max and all the rally staff for a great event!

See you at The Minute Man!

Cape Fear, April 19-20 2013 "A Tale of Twos"

Who are you?

As about 10 people know, I got into rallying last year with the Minute Man 1000.  I wrote it up here.

Since then, I have done two other rallies, The Team Lyle New England and The Void 7, and wrote up my Void ride here.

I also am the RM (rookie) for Team Lyle Garden State.

Needless to say, I am addicted to LD riding and Rallying.  I really love all aspects, the people, the rides, the challenges and of course the esteemed Rally Masters.

This is the bike I didn't Ride

This year, I plan on doing all the East Coast Rallies that I can.  Cape Fear, MD 20/20, Minute Man, Nutmeg 400, Hammy's Trouble with Triples, Rendezvous, The Void and maybe Minnesota.

Here is the Spotwalla for my ride:


It Begins!

This past weekend was the Cape Fear.  My start location was Batavia, NY, Rider #222.  I live in NJ.  When I signed up for the rally, I said to myself "Sweet!  A NY start!  How far could it be?"  400 miles, that's how far.  OOFA.

Rally packs were distributed Wednesday night.  And to my chagrin, there wasn't a data file in the pack.  Had to convert all the points over to a usable format.  That took about 2 hours, not so bad.  I read through the first pages of the Rally Book and looked at the Wild Card bonii.

I knew the Cape Fear sticker was going to be part of those, so I had not yet affixed it to my bike.  I was waiting on an RM declaration of "The sticker must be on your left front windscreen" or something of that nature.  Turns out I was just paranoid, and the sticker had to be on your bike.  No Problem.  Now, let me go get the sticker.  I had said to myself, several days earlier, that I needed to keep said sticker in an obvious place, where I would not forget it.  2 hours later, after literally tearing my condo apart and going through every saddle bag of the 4 bikes we have, I had no sticker.  DAMN IT!  WHERE IS THIS THING?  I then looked at the side of my bed, saw a book I had been reading, opened the book, and VIOLA!  Sticker.

I spent the rest of the evening, until 2AM, working on a route.  I came up with a workable solution, but nothing I was really happy with.  I had another day or so, so save everything and go to work in the AM.

Thursday

Thursday morning, bike packed, everything in hand, I head off to the grind.  I had planned on leaving at noon to head up to Batavia.  Guess when I left?  If you guessed 2PM, you were right!

The ride up to Batavia was 100 miles of rain, followed by 300 miles of serious side winds.  Nothing awful, but FLEH.

Once in Batavia, I met up with my rallying Buddy, Bruce Jansen.  Bruce and I both ride 2010 Concours 14s.  My bike looks like the before and his bike looks like the after picture.  My bike is filthy, lots of jury rigged stuff, and the windscreen is held on with zip ties.  Bruce's, on the other hand, has nothing but the best and is actually clean.  I don't know how he does it.

Had dinner with some other riders, and went back to the hotel, where I played with some last minute tidying up on my bike (read, zip ties, bubble gum, string and hope).  Went for a walk in the parking lot and looked at some of the plate backers on the bikes.  Out of the 10 or so bikes there, I saw 6 IBR backers.  Uh Oh.  What did I get myself into?  These guys have done the big one.  Not good, Mav.

I then went back into the hotel and worked on my route some more.  I knew what I had was not a winning route.  I played around some more, and come 2AM, I did have what I thought COULD be a winning route.  Of course my route had me headed towards some pretty damn snotty weather.  Looking at some futurecast type things, I figured I would be riding into the heart of the storm, but after I got on the western side, I would be OK.  Turns out this was true.

Rally Start!

Everything loaded, bike ready to go, at the gas station.  Get my starting receipt, send off my starting text and awaaaayyyyy we go.  My bike has stock fuel capacity.  So I am good for 190-210 miles, depending on riding speeds, winds, etc.  My first bonus, HCB was 185 miles away with a gas station right there.  PERFECT!  Except the 40 MPH headwinds had me nearly dry at 180 miles. RATS.

The rain was really pounding me, and the wind was whipping.  I, of course, had my rain gear.  Strapped to the back of the bike.  My route didn't have time in it for putting on rain gear, so I just lived with getting soaked and had the added bonus of fighting to keep the rain gear on the bike, as the cross winds whipped at me.  There I go, down the road, getting poured on, reaching behind me to hold my rain gear on the bike.  Picture of an idiot in action.

2 other bikes, one a Concours 14, followed me to the first bonus, and then I did not see another rider until the next day.

What is he doing here?

I was not really enjoying the ride so much, and really started to doubt myself once I hit Ohio.  Off to the west were BLACK clouds.  I pulled into the toll plaza and guess what the vehicle in front of me was?  A STORM CHASER van.  Blacked out, 50 antennae, wind-speed indicator, tire guards, the whole nine yards.  I thought to myself, "He and I should not be headed in the same direction, EVER.  Yet, there we went!

The storm actually, was north of my route and the rain eventually cut out, but the wind was with me for about 500 miles, really eating into my mileage.

Burned another tank of gas, and the next stop was CEN, the Center of Ohio.  Grabbed it, and on my way.

Burned another tank of gas and grabbed GVZ, a 10 year old who fought in the Civil War.

Grabbed another bonus, MTW, which is a statue of a child reading a book, which somehow memorializes another war.

Got to OKC and grabbed that one.  It was a 10 mile detour off the highway, but quick in and out.  There were two boulders there.  Had to take a minute and make sure I got the right one.  When I headed out from the bonus, I was to make a u turn 4 miles down the road.  Got there to a big "ROAD CLOSED" sign.  Luckily, that was not the road for the u-turn.  Back at it.

Next stop was FCG, William Floyd Collins head stone.  Very interesting story and the ride in was sweet.  1.5 lane road, twisting and turning, in the pitch black.  Did I mention all the downed limbs in the road, which was wet, and the locals who seemed to be coming at me non stop?  At least the coordinates were spot on, and the grave was easy to see with all the flowers, etc on it.

How am I supposed to do that?

My next stop was BOC, the Bank of Centerville.  Had to take a picture of the sign, so it could be read.  That was the key part of this bonus.  I have my bonus grabbing system down to about 2 minutes.  I knew this was right on the route and would be an easy grab, and it would have been, in the daylight.  I got there at around 11PM.  The sign is a concrete affair, with all the paint washed out of it.  So at night, there is no relief, and all I was getting were picture of my rally flag with a white blob in the background.  It took 10 minutes of repositioning my bike, re-aiming my aux lights, fiddling with exposure settings on the camera, etc, before I got a good photo.  YUCK.

Hey, a Break!

My route worked out to be quite fortunate for this next bit.  SBC was the bonus to be grabbed, a library (Libraries were worth 250 points each), a 24 hour gas station and my hotel were all right there, within spitting distance of each other.  Everything came together on this one.  I started my rest bonus at 1:02, 4 minutes off of then I expected to.  These are 4 VERY IMPORTANT minutes. (4 more minutes of rest was worth 200 points, keep reading for the fun results)

I knew my end route was quite aggressive and knew I would need to drop a few bonii to finish on time.  So I played with my route a bit, dropped 2 bonii and went to sleep at?  You guessed it, 2AM.

My alarm went off at 4:45.  I then snoozed it 2 times, before remembering I AM ON A RALLY. Holy crap, it's 5:40!  Jumped out of bed, grabbed some grub, got my rest end receipt and off I go!

That's a long way with no points

My next bonus was POT.  I had to cover a bunch of miles and it took 5 hours to get to it.  That is a long time to ride with no points getting gathered, but it worked out in my plan, so that is what I did.  On my second tank of this leg, I was coming down from the TN hills and had a tail wind.  Got nearly 200 miles out of that tank!

First Mistake

Got to POT.  The bonus required a picture of the store front and the Coke sign.  Got to the store, saw the sign, and could not find the Coke sign.  Then, way in the distance, I saw a Coke sign.  I thought to myself, "Those sneaky SOB Rally Bastards."  So I managed to take a picture of the sign with the Coke waaay in the background.  Did I mention this was the wrong store sign, and the Coke sign was on the correct storefront I was supposed to take a picture of?  Oops.  Those points down the drain.

Next stop was SNC, with a cool train and tender in a glass display.

Dumbest mistake EVER

I have 2 GPS on my bike.  I use one as my primary, pristine route.  It is never to be messed with unless I have made a permanent change to the route.  I use the 2nd GPS as my "test case scenario" GPS, where I play with dropping bonii, etc, to see if I pick up time.

I am on my way to RCK, Rockingham Speedway, and I PLAY WITH THE ROUTE ON MY PRIMARY GPS.  I repeat, I played with the "pristine" route.

So on my way to Rockingham, which has 2 rocks to be photographed, I am thinking to myself, "how does this town deal with race traffic?  There are way too many small roads."  That is when I end up at SLB, which is AFTER Rockingham.  Whiskey Tango Foxtrot?  I look on my GPS and see my path took me 2 Block south of RKC, parallel the whole way.  I said to myself "there went the rally", turns out I was right.

The end ride was easy enough, JBQ, quick in and out, and where I saw my first riders of the whole rally, since the first bonus location.

Then, SFD, 2 cute firedog statues with red hats.  Except on had a red hat and one had a brownish hat.  Hope I picked the correct one.

Got to Tar Heel, NC (real place) and grabbed the bonus.

Last stop, Whistler's Mother HHM and off to rally HQ.

Hey, let's make another mistake, just for fun!

I had a note to myself "Grab a 6 pack", for one of the wildcard bonii.  On my route was a liquor store.  Easy Peasy.  Grabbed my six pack, grabbed the receipt, and  

PUT. THE. RECEIPT. IN. THE. BAG.

 

Any experienced rally people will be smacking their foreheads right now.  For those not in the know, you must keep and turn in all receipts for scoring.  Oops.


Finish


Go to rally HQ with 7 minutes to spare!  Almost perfect.  And I handed over my bag containing the 6 pack.  And the receipt.  grrrrrr........

Went back to the room with Bruce, we were finishing our rally packs and I brought up how sneaky they were with POT (the Coke thing), that is when Bruce brought it to my attention that I was an idiot.  He had grabbed the bonus correctly.  Oops.

I calculated my score, both with POT and without.

Went to scoring, and everything went as expected, up until the 6 pack bonus, where I learned my mistake.  GRRRRRRRR.  Lost that bonus and lost POT (as I expected I would), for 2 dropped bonii at the scoring table (where it really matters).

Dinner was some amazing BBQ.  'nuff said.


Awards time!

I was not sure where I would finish.  I was confident I did well, but was sure that RCK and the other 2 mistakes were my undoing for finishing on the podium.

Many people told me I had done well, but I was not confident of that.  As the top 10 finishers were announced, I waited for my name.  Only names were announced for places 4-10.  Once the RM got the 4th place and it wasn't me, I knew I had done OK.  He announced the score for third place and that one was about 200 Points behind mine (if I remember correctly).  I knew I didn't win at that point, and sure enough, I came in 2nd!  And for the last 2 of this story, Bob Lilley, came in a well deserved first about 92 points ahead.  THAT is a close top 3!

I learned a lot, had a great time, and can't wait to ride again next year!

Hurricane Sandy LDR Relief

I had resisted putting up a report on this, but enough time has passed.

Firstly, I am not looking to "Attaboys" or "Way to go's".  This is a story of how good motorcycle riders are.  I am not looking to show how cool or helpful I am.  This is a story or ordinary people making things happen.

Sandy hit and hit us Hard, October 29.  My work was without power, as was my home.  Kate and I both spent the entire week at work.  At the time, she worked in a Hotel, so it was OK for her.  They had power and water.  My work and home were without.  I got home twice in the course of the week, just enough time to crash and then return.

There was no power in most of the state and therefore no gas.  I had people coming in from PA to work and they were bringing 5 gallon cans of gas for the generators.  I used one or two to put fuel in my car, so I could work.

By Saturday, work had power, but home had not.  I was cooked and went home, where Kate was waiting for me.  She had made me a bath by boiling water on the stove and pouring it into the bathtub.  This was the first warm shower/bath I had had sine Monday AM.  It is amazing how much better getting clean can make you feel.

Sunday AM, I woke up to power at the house.  It felt great.  About 30 minutes later, I was feeling guilty.  Why should I relax when so many others were having a hard time?  Tailgate Joe announced he was bringing his tailgate machine and TVs to the Staten Island Rescue center to provide free food.  I figured I would bring some deserts for the kids and anyone else who wanted to come.

I grabbed my GS and went to the store.  I picked up batteries and food, as much as I could carry, which is a lot with those piano case panniers I have.  I rode out to Coney Island, where my friend Anna was involved in recovery efforts.  Met her at her rescue location and dropped half of my supplies.  They were all very grateful, and the cops didn't mind that I parked my bike on the sidewalk, since I was delivering food and such.

Stopped by the Cyclone, and it was standing, but turns out there was a bunch of damage to it.

Continued my ride out to Staten Island.  The rescue center was at a huge HS field, which was great, but there was only 1 two lane road in and out.  Stupid choice of location, with people struggling to get in and out.  Given that I had my GS, I rode the sidewalk for a mile or so, to get to the delivery point.

A cop jumped out at me, as I got there, and started yelling about "WTF are you doing", "where do you think you are going", etc.  I opened my top case and showed him the stuff, and it was then "right this way, sir".  Dropped off a bunch of supplies to the Red Cross and then Tailgate Joe.

On my way back to NJ, I asked several cops what they needed.  D cell batteries.  Well, there were no D Cell batteries to be had, but using some dimes and tape, you can make C cells work good enough as D cells.  One more trip for me, and I delivered the batteries to any cop I could find.

At this point, I was out of money, fuel and time.  I had done my best, and made a little impact on some people's lives.

On Monday, a friend on Facebook put up a picture of a ruined house and tagged me in the photo.  I asked him why, and he told me this was a house I had lived in when I lived in Sayreville, NJ.  Unlike most people, I moved about 20 times when I was a kid, so I don't remember a lot of the houses I lived in.  I had no idea Sayreville was hit so hard.

I had to do something.  But I was out of money.  So I reached out to my friends in the Long Distance Rider community.  I asked for donations, so I could buy supplies for Sayreville.  Within hours, donations flowed in from all over the country in all denominations.  We managed to put together almost $750 in that time frame.

I went to Walmart, and bought a large amount of flashlights and clothes.  I asked the store manager if he could help out and he provided me with a $50 gift card, which we used right then and there.

 Paypal Donations from the LD community: $617.49

 Donations to Sayreville Sandy survivors:
208 Flashlights
77 Kids shirts

 $150 cash

Total: $646.12

Text I got from my friend, who was the final delivery point for the stuff and $:

Shirts and flashlights dropped off at OLV. I'm taking the check to the proper steward first thing in the AM. The sight of awe on the faces of the cop that had me drive right up on the sidewalk, and the volunteers who helped unload was a sight to behold! Wow! Oh my God! Whoahh!!! Was all I heard. You have done a fine thing today and it was my pleasure and honor to help you accomplish it. Ill talk to ya tomorrow Bro.

The Void 7 Rally Ride report

Background:

Since first doing a rally at The Minute Man this year, I have been hooked.  Rallies work for me on several levels.  They are a competition, they involve motorcycling and everyone I have met at a rally  so far is a fun person.  All those points make rallying a perfect activity for me.

The Void was my first "real" rally.  I did the Minute Man, which was 24 hours, but I was in the Saddle Sore portion of the event, which was on a set path and I just deviated and picked up points.  I am very proud of that accomplishment, tempering that pride against the above caveats.

I then did Team Lyle, New England and did quite poorly.  Fun rally and lots of riding, but not a result I was proud of.

The Void is a "Known" Rally.  People in the community know it and it draws a lot of riders.  This year there were 80+ people riding from multiple locations and my location, Allentown, PA had 35 participants.  If I was going to do well, I would need to plan well, perform well and have some luck.

The riders received their rally packs several days before the start of the rally.  In those packs were the Bonus locations with GPS coordinates and the Rally Book which describes the tasks to be performed at a bonus location and a list of combination bonuses.

It Begins:

This is the part of rallying I probably enjoy the most.  The planning.  I probably spent 20 hours working on my route to get the most points possible, in a distance and time that would fall under the rally limits (28 hours and 1400 miles).  Once I was happy with my route, I then went about researching each bonus location to see if there were any "gotchas", which there were.

One of the bonus locations was listed about 2 miles from where it was actually located.  Using the power of Google, I was able to find the real location and plot that into my route.

At another location, Streets and Trips instructed me to stop and I would be at my location.  Problem was, where it wanted me to stop was on a bridge.  Doing some more research I adjusted the coordinates to get me to the pier under the bridge correctly.

At two other locations, I had to do math or use reading comprehension.  I know that under stress, both can be difficult, so I planned on snapping pictures of the bonuses using my cell phone, so I could process the information at a later time, when I was stopped and purely in thinking mode.

Giving myself a clear plan for handling those locations gave me a leg up.  There was some consternation relating to two of these bonuses at scoring.  I was lucky enough to avoid that with research.

Night Before

A friend, Bruce, had arranged a dinner at an eatery for some of the Allentown starters.  I got to Allentown early enough to check into my room first.  I pulled up and there, in the parking lot, was this bad ass Orange Tiger 1050.  Coming out of the hotel was a woman in riding gear.  My guess was they belonged to each other and I was right!  I met the famous +Rachael Fuzzygalore , a.k.a. Rachel.  She is quite the pleasant person and her blog is not to be missed.  Tons of fun to read.

Fuzzy and I head over to dinner where we meet another 4 or 5 riders and Bruce joined us shortly thereafter.  Had a good meal and met some more great people.  Lots of BSing and then Bruce, Fuzzy and I headed back to the hotel.

Kate, my better third, had to work late and joined me at the hotel later that evening.  She would be riding to Lynchburg, VA the following day while I was riding my rally.  She was doing the 10 hour rally that would start the day after that.

Friday, Rally Start

I had prepped.  I was mentally ready.  My bike was ready.  It was go time.  Except I needed to go to Walmart and get a flashlight for one of my bonus locations, where I suspected I would need it.  No big deal, this rally kicked off at 8:50 AM, which is late by rally standards.  Perfect for me, since I am not a morning person.  At 8:00 AM I headed off to the Walmart which was 5 miles away.  1 Mile later BOTH of my GPS turned off abruptly.  No power problems, not "Shutting Down" message, just OFF.  The Rally Gods have announced their presence.

I then could not find the Walmart.  Obviously, working GPS are much more important than a flashlight, so I turned around and went back to the hotel to try and figure out my GPS problems.  And then both GPS turned on.  SOB.  Stupid technology.

A group of 5 or 6 of us gathered at a gas station where several of us had checked for good starting receipts.  Kate was there and I had a brilliant plan.  The first stop on my route was at a Cabellas a few miles down 78.  Kate was headed down 78.  I asked her to go ahead and get a flashlight for me, and when I pulled in to take my bonus picture, she could just hand it to me.  I am so smart, S-M-R-T.

8:51 and receipt secured, Start announced to Rally staff and off I go.  Head to Cabellas and pull into the parking lot.  I see my friend Chuck there, and we wave frantically at each other while going about our business.  I have a system for quickly getting in and out of bonus locations.  I am confident in it and it works well.  Too well.  I was on auto pilot and right after snapping my picture and gathering my data, I roared out of the parking lot.  Without the flashlight.  WOW.

Friday Riding

My route took me southwest on 78 and 81 towards several bonuses.  After grabbing those, I headed South East towards DC and the VA shore.  I never really hit traffic, per se, but once n town, it amazed me how long the lights in some of these towns took.  I mean, a red light was costing me 3 or 4 minutes.  UGH.

I was on time, or ahead for the first batch of stops.  As I got more in to the settled areas, I was losing a little time each stop.  Eventually, I was a bit behind, but nothing awful.  I was at one bonus and a nice older gentleman asked what I was doing.  I hate to be rude, so I took the time to try and explain this silly thing we do, while taking pictures and gathering data.  I then saw Bruce coming down the road towards us.  I quickly put my stuff away, and said to the gentleman "I am really a new guy at this stuff, but that guy (Bruce) coming down the road can explain the whole thing to you!" and with that, *poof*, I was gone.

Moved through my bonuses and go to the fishing pier discussed earlier.  Got through that with no problem.  When I arrived, I asked the nice park lady where the rules were.  She told me "I can't tell you."  I asked why not and she told me that someone dressed like me had come by earlier and instructed her to not tell anyone else.  Classy move.  She then sheepishly told me "it is over there, but don't tell him I told you."  Sweet lady.  She was legitimately concerned for having told me.  I assured here it was perfectly OK and others would be coming by.

The Orange County Airport Episode

By the time I got to OCA, I was a bit behind schedule.  I had allotted 10 minutes at OCA, which is a lot for me, as I suspected it would be a bear to find the bonus.  As luck would have it, another rider was there when I pulled up.  Sometimes it works out like that and you get a break.  This was not one of those times.

Turns out he had been scouring for the bonus and it was not there.  We saw a sign pointing us to another building on the other side of the airport and we headed out.  Spent more time there looking to no avail.  This rider called the RM and discussed it and the RM told us to just take a picture of the sign and move on.  Good enough, but I had eaten a bunch of time.  I was about 30 minutes behind at this point.

I headed out to the next location with a plan in mind.

You can't ride a Concours 14 in the woods

I ride a Concours 14.  It is a 650 lbs sport touring motorcycle.  With me and gear on it, we are well over 900 lbs.  Not a dirtbike.

The next bonus was a location "at the end of a half mile trail".  I knew I could not afford the walk and stay on time.  As I rode to the location, I made a decision.  If there was a sign there that said "No motor vehicles past this point" or anything like that, I would drop the bonus.  If no sign, I was going to ride Consuela to the bonus.  Got there, no sign, so away I went.  The C14 has traction control, and an indicator light showing when TC is in use.  That light almost burnt out from overuse.  But I got in and out quickly.  "HA-HA" I said, riding out of the parking lot, right before the Rail Road gates dropped and I sat there for 15 minutes waiting for a freight train to finish passing through.

Friday Ends and my Rest Bonus

The rest of the night involved riding up to Pittsburgh and gathering bonuses.  I had one bonus that was way off the beaten path and would take an hour to go get.  I was 45 minutes behind schedule, so I tossed that one away.  That had been my bail out plan when designing the route, so NBD.

I arrived at a location that had a gas station and hotel right around 2:45, which was when I planned my rest stop, so I was in good shape.  I got my receipt from gas station, went to the hotel and was told "No Vacancy".  Rats.  Iron Butt Hotel, here I come.

I put my bike on its center stand, dropped one of the side bags, pulled out my little stool and went to work on paperwork.  This is where I recorded all my bonuses and information into my rally book.  Took about an hour, in which 3 people came up and asked if I was working on my bike.  Very nice of them, as I assume an offer to help would have followed.  I counted the number of Last Names on a sign, 3 times, marked each down with a Tick mark, and wrote a total.  More at the scoring table.

Grabbed 2 hours sleep behind a KFC and off into the wild black yonder at 6:00 AM, right on time with an extra 10 minutes of rest thrown in to boot!

Saturday Morning

I head out and get on some twisty road section in WV.  This road would be AWESOME in the daylight.  For starters it was quite dark.  But I have pretty good lights, so was not that big of a deal.  Then the rain started.  So I dial it back a little.  Wet, unfamiliar roads in the dark are no good.  Especially when the leaves start falling from the trees and turn the wet, dark, unfamiliar roads into wet, dark, unfamiliar, leaf covered roads.  That then became off camber.  "What could be worse?" I said out loud.  And the Rally Gods responded "FOG!", which they promptly delivered.  I thought it was awful nice of them.

Once the sun came out, fog burnt off and the roads pretty much dried out, I was moving fairly well again and gathering bonuses.  I  came into several locations where it became clear that those following would have a crappy time.  A Parade was being set up and a College Homecoming was kicking off.  Luckily, I got through both before the real stop ups started.

Final Leg

It was becoming clear that finishing at 1:30 and allowing myself 30 minutes to fill in my rally book was not gonna happen.  All indicators pointed to 1:45.  I dropped a bonus, which only netted me 2 minutes.  I looked at my second GPS to see why, and it was because the bonus was right off the highway.  Bonus went back in.  Worst case scenario, I would lose 7 points for submitting late, but picked up 14 for the bonus, so a net of 7 positive.  Easy decision.

I ended up at DIN, which is a girl riding a dinosaur.  Don't ask, but it is not unusual in Rallies to see these things.  Briefly spoke to another rider re: OCA and he indicated he had found the stamp.  Rally rules state that if you take an alternate picture of a location, but then someone does the location correctly, you lose that location.  I was MAD.  I mean riding down the road, screaming obscenities mad.  Now, have I mentioned I had my helmet flipped up so it was effectively an open faced helmet?  And that I have a particularly loud voice that projects very well?  All I can say is "you're welcome" to the children of that town I rode through for giving them some creative new curse words involving donkeys, goats and mother fornication.

My next concern was getting to rally HQ.  I still had a hope of getting there in time to complete my rally book and submit before 2:00.  But only if I did not stop for fuel or any other reason.  My GPS showed 60 miles to go.  My fuel gauge showed no bars.  From that point, the next step is for my "Low Fuel" light to come on.  From there I have 40 miles of range.

So there I am, hyper miling a 650 lb motorcycle.  Doing all I can to keep up a decent speed, but save as much gas as possible.  I just needed the computer to show me less than 40 miles before my Low Fuel light came on.  AS the miles ticked away, I became more and more optimistic.  Once I crossed to 40 mile barrier, I felt pretty good.  Low Fuel light came on at 37 miles to go.  Gonna be close.  When I filled up my tank the next day, it took 5.65 gallons.  Publish capacity is 5.8.

As I rode into the hotel parking lot and got my scoring sheet, I told myself "accept the 7 point penalty and make sure your book is filled in correctly."  I am glad I did.  I caught an error that would have cost me 21 points and the rally.  Corrected that, went over all my answers one more time, dropped the memory card, rally book, etc into the envelope and submitted at 2:10. 

Scoring

I sat down to score and was all ready.  I was as nervous as I could be.  I had planned an aggressive route and made it.  I only had to drop one bonus.  I was sure I had filled in all my bonuses correctly.  Here we go.  The scorer went through my book and kept making positive notes.  Check mark after check mark appeared, then when he got to the bonus of the last names (LIN) he had a confused look on his face.  He checked and said "you have the wrong answer".  How could that be?  I asked for the correct answer.  43.  I had written 23.  I then called up the piece of paper I had written the tick marks down on  in my minds eye, and counted again.  43.  How did I do that?  Stupid mistake and 21 points gone.

Got done with my scoring and I had 693.  No idea if that was good or not.  Got on the next line for "final" scoring and there stood Wallace French.  Wallace is an EXCELLENT rally rider.  As a matter of fact, he would earn the "Rally Rider of the Year" award at dinner that night, as given by all the east coast rally masters.  Yeah, he is that good.  He is the guy, who when I saw he was starting in Allentown, I basically said to myself "well, hope I can come in second."  I asked his score.  616.  I was floored.  Maybe I have a chance after all.

I sat down for final scoring and the man behind the screen said "looks like you had a good ride", I replied I thought and hoped so.  He said, "well you can go, I have a lot of people to get to."  I took that as a positive, since there was an announcement that top scorers would be reviewed before final results.

End of days

I then went to my room, stripped down to something reasonable, and went downstairs for a beer.  Waited for Kate to finish her ride, and in she came, safe and sound. (whew).  She is a good rider, but I worry about the idiots on the road.  It is the Mom in me, which is a frightening thought given my dimensions and amount of hair on my person.

Kate got scored, we napped a bit, and went down to the awards.

Lots of hilarity ensued and Scores were announced.  I was very nervous and not sure where I stood.  I was confident I was either 1st or 2nd.  Wallace came in third with 616.  Second place was announced with a score of 679.  It then hit me like a wave that I had won.  I had entered a established rally, rode against real competition and had managed to come out on top.  I was elated.  I can not wait for my next rally.

Misc Notes

Great meeting all of the riders.

THANK YOU to C-Dog for finding and bringing my heated gear cord back to Rally HQ.  The ride home would have been miserable without it.

Kate and I left the hotel at 10:00 AM.  We rode into Newark, NJ and the NJ Performing Arts Center at 7:20.  In our seats for a Jethro Tull concert at 7:30.  Music started as we sat down.

Both of us were a bit dragged down the next day, but managed to get to work.