Friday, December 14, 2012

Fire and Ice - 2012 Digital Scavenger Hunt

Its been a busy few months.  We found a steal of a deal on a short sale house and decided it was worth the efforts to purchase and move.  Luckily we were renting month to month, and had the time and patience to deal with a short sale.  What a slow and painful process!  Plus I would be using my VA loan eligibility which adds another layer of headaches.  But with some haggling with the bank on the 'deplorable' conditions of the house, and a lot of elbow grease to clean up those over exaggerated conditions... plus some cash, we were able to purchase our dream home, and walk into it with equity.  And it only took 4 months!!  We started the process in June, and finally after all the contracts were signed... the closing was set for Oct 18th, a little over 2 weeks from the 2012 Fire and Ice, Long Riders Digital Scavenger Hunt.  I had been signed up pretty much since they opened registration.  I knew I'd be neck deep in moving so I emailed Ray and told him the good news about moving, and the bad news that I'd be withdrawing from the rally.  But I still wanted the Fire and Ice T-shirt!  (the wife gives me crap about me always wearing one of my 3 Ed's Last Resort Shirts around the house so I figured a new one would be good)  So I continued with new house prep, and old house cleaning out.  The house had been vacant for 3 yrs, which means the yard and pool had been neglected for 3 yrs.  Luckily some of the neighbors had been cutting the front yard every few weeks to keep it in check, but the back yard was a jungle. Dad and I hauled 1500 lbs of weeds and bush/tree trimmings to the landfill.... no joke!   And that was not including what my brother in law and his dad took out of there to burn.
Here are some before and after shots:
But it was definitely worth all the headaches and backaches:

Then the last week in Sept we got a call from the bank, and they wanted to move up closing... which generally NEVER happens.  We said sure.... when?  They said Oct 5th!  Pretty much 2 weeks early.  Awesome!  We finished up the painting and other minor repairs on the 4th, signed the papers on the 5th and started moving that evening.  We have a great family and had a lot of help getting help with the move.  We planned on 2 weekends to get everything moved... We got 90% of it done in 1 day!  The houses were less than 1/2 mile apart, so we'd load up a trailer, take it down the street, and unload.   And with a team of 10 of us... we made pretty quick work of it.  We continued to deal with the little stuff for a few days, then moved my giant 90 gal saltwater fish tank the next weekend, and were pretty much done except moving our shed.  Then... like a miracle... the wife said... Since we are done with the move, are you going to still do the rally?  Hell Yeah!!  If a spot has opened up... So I emailed Ray again, and he said there was a spot open.  I'd be rider # 45.  Awesome.  Time to prep the bike!

Like many of the previous posts, I tend to not get the bike out enough between rallys.  And this one would be no different.  I probly put 200 miles on the bike from May to October. Luckily,  Ed's Last Resort 2012 would be the first rally that I didn't break anything during or immediately after the ride.  Yes the rear shock was toast, but I had already replaced that a few weeks back.  So all that was left to do was change the oil and try to find all my stuff after the move.  One other thing I decided to do along with the move, was sell my fish breeding business.  It was 30 something tanks I didn't want to have to move again!  So I found a buyer, and sold every piece of it.  This allowed me to finally purchase a motorcycle specific GPS and a wireless bluetooth headset to hear the turn by turn navigation. I went with the Zumo 665 and Sena SMH10 headset.  This will eliminate the ziplock bag over the GPS, and having to move the headphone wire from the GPS to the MP3 player and back.  That's what got me in trouble on Ed's Rally after loosing the headphone adapter for the GPS.  So I may have upgraded my status from 'Bubba Style' rallying to just 'Average Joe' rallying.  But his time I rode the bike to and from work, 5 or 6 times in the 3 weeks leading up to the rally to work on my stamina... and play with the GPS and headset.  I loaded up about 15 songs to a 4 GB microSD card for music, synced my phone w the Zumo to make calls, synced the headset with the Zumo, and got all the volumes sorted out for music, directions, and calls... I like this setup!  Works like a champ!!  Its nice to be able to listen to music on the long stretches of a ride, then still be able to get the alerts to turn.  This is going to make the rallies more enjoyable.

The weekend before the rally, we got the rally pack... minus the wild card information of what the "Fire and Ice" bonuses would be.  But most people figured Fire would be fire stations or eternal flames, and ICE would be roadside ice machines, or the Rallymaster's favorite, ice cream parlors.  Besides Fire and Ice, this year's side theme is "History on a Stick".
All bonuses are the very common plaques on the side of the road, and in parks, that gives a little bit of history of the area.  They gave us the names and locations of almost 400 of them.   And the point values per bonus would be the serial number of the marker.  Most markers in FL have an F number... F-123, F-35 etc.  If there is no number on the marker, then its worth 25 points.  But we would not be limited to the locations they gave us.  We could find ANY historical marker in FL or GA and claim the points.  So now there are only about 5000 to choose from.  Time to start searching online!  I found a site that had just about all the info I needed on many markers that were not on the list already... Exact GPS coordinates, maps, and most importantly... the serial number/point value.  This way I could skip over the lower point signs and go for the higher point signs.  There were huge clumps of signs in and around Tampa, Gainesville, and Cocoa, and the rest were scattered around.  But many of the point values were 200 or less, and most were just the standard 25 points.  But I was able to find on my secret site, most of the ones around Cocoa were 400-700 points each.  So I began my route planning to Brevard County and not looking anywhere else.  When it was done, I had 35 stops to make, all on the east coast, minus the 5 in Orlando, and one 5 miles from the start/finish.  That is a LOT of stops on a 10 hr rally.  Plus we had a 30 min mandatory lunch break.  So really we only had 9.5 hrs.  My route in Streets and Trips had me at 8.5 hrs with the lunch break included, so I had a buffer of 90 mins to do my 35 stops, plus whatever the Fire and Ice stops could be.  Its going to be close. But I have a couple of drop offs if I get behind.  I'm also using the latest version of Streets and Trips I just downloaded, and I tweaked the average speed settings a bit, so hopefully that will help with not getting too far behind.

I took Friday off to have a leisurely drive down to Dade City.  Since my planned route was all on the East Coast, there was no scoping out bonuses on the way down... although I did pass a few on HWY 98.  I'm just cruising and listening to music, taking my time.  I make a few stops since I'm not rushing for last minute stuff like drinks and snacks.  I made a stop at a Walmart to get some beef jerky to throw in my tank bag.  I was not about to leave the new Garmin on the bike as I shopped, so I unhooked it and took inside w me to be safe.  But when I was ready to leave, the GPS would not load the maps.  I could hear the music fine, but the maps would not load.  I turned it off and on a few times, and sometimes the maps would load, but no music.  And others, music but no maps. WTH!  I finally got them all working like they are supposed to and headed on down the road.  Then the same thing happened on the next stop.  No maps after I un-cradled and re-cradled the unit.  This time I couldn't get the maps to come back but the music still worked fine.  Well the music is on a micro-sd card that is NOT provided by Garmin.  I used one I had laying around in my office and is probably a few yrs old.  So I removed it just to see... Maps come right up.  Put it back in... NO MAPS!!  I did this a few times... back and forth.  I could never get the maps to come back up with the music card installed.  No brainer... I need the maps, not the music.  The card stayed out.  So much for riding with tunes.  I got to the hotel and checked in and talked to a few riders I had not met before, and a few others I knew.  We rode over to the riders meeting/dinner at Pappa Joes Italian Restaurant for some more trash talking and some good food.  I got to eat with Jim and Donna Phillips, Ron and Denise Guire, Phil Ward, and Cregg Crosby. And according to Phil, my High Speed Photo Taking Apparatus is beginning to be not so Top Secret, as he had a similar device.  And I heard a few others talking about trying one out.   There goes my 2 min per stop advantage.  But with this kind of rally, you need one due to all the stops.  Once everyone had a chance to eat, it was time to get the official rally packs with our flags, stickers, and finally explanation of the wild card bonuses.  "Fire" was to be any pre 1930s Firehouse, or pre 1950s firetruck,  as long as its being used as a memorial... not a junker in someones backyard.  And "Ice" fell true to Ray King's second love... Ice Cream.  We needed a photo of our flag at any non-chain ice cream shop.  So no Baskin Robins or DQ.  The kicker is we are REQUIRED to get a min of 2, with a max of 6.  I didn't like the required minimum, as last year I only found 2 of the wildcards.  But I like the max, since last year the winners found a little fishing town and got 50 nautical wild cards.    But hey... they lucked out and took full advantage.  Just like I would have.  I figured I would find a few ice cream shops out on the beach, so I didn't even bother searching for any prior to the start.  But again there would be one more voluntary task we could elect the next morning, but we won't find out until the morning meeting.  Last year I passed on that one, just because if you didn't complete the task you lost points.  So I'll probly pass again.  I headed off to the gas station to fill both tanks, and get some drinks, then back to the hotel for some sleep.   I did a last min check of my route, loaded it all in the Zumo and my backup GPS, and crashed for the night.

I woke up at 5:30 to shower and re-pack the bike before the 6:30 morning meeting.  The hotel has an OK continental breakfast, but I wish I would have gone to McDonalds instead.  At the meeting they told us the extra bonus would be getting a numbered golf ball and photographing it, our flag, and the sign of a golf course at 5 different golf courses.  Thats 5 more stops on top of the now mandatory 2 wildcards, and the 35 I had planned.... Nope.  Not gonna do it.  I think it was 5000 points to complete it, or loose 2000 if you don't.  Not worth the risk for me.  Plus I don't do well with last minute route changes, so I passed.  I got my license and registration bagged and tagged to get, hopefully this time, the no speeding bonus.  But my route was kinda conservative, so speeding shouldn't be required.  Around 6:50 I went out to warm up the bike, and wait for the start.  7:00 came and went and no one was out telling anyone to go, but a few riders started making their way out of the parking lot, so I just followed them out.  Here we go!

My first waypoint was 5 miles down the road, but since it was dark, I decided to make it my last stop on the way back, instead of trying to get a photo in the dark.  My first stop wasn't until Melbourne, 2 hrs later.  I was expecting to be dropping time on the GPS the whole ride over to increase my cushion since I would be making so many stops, but Streets and trips, and the Zumo both said 9:01 am when i left... and I got there at 8:59 am.  Hmmm. I may get way behind with all these stops.  But I had my drop dead time of when I had to leave the coast, so I would have to keep a close eye on that.  I started picking off the stops down on Melbourne Beach.  About 5 in, I checked my time and I was actually a few mins ahead of schedule.  And on my way off the beach, I spot an Ice Cream place... Wild Card 1 done.  I head north into Titusville to get a few more markers, and bam!  Another ice cream store.  WC 2 done.  Now I'm legal, so anything else is icing on the cake.  Then I spot a marker in a parking lot I just passed that was not on my list.  It was black like the other higher point markers I had been collecting, so I figured I'd stop.  It ended up being the highest point value I got all day.  Cool.  And since I was still ahead of schedule I decided not to drop the 2 markers out on Cape Canaveral and headed out there to get them.  The first one was quick and easy, but the 2nd on I couldn't find.  I drove all around the parking lot looking for it.  Nope.  Not there.  But as I was heading out, I noticed a pole in a flower bed.  That's where the sign USED to be.  So I took a photo of the pole and my flag and hoped for the best.  I picked up a few more signs on Merrit Island and around Titusville, then headed north to Cocoa.  I found one group of 3 signs, 100 feet apart... each almost 500 points.  That was a quick 1500 points.  And once I got my northern most marker... my 28th, I decided to take the lunch break.  This year it did not have to be a McDonalds, but that's what I found anyway.  I was still right on schedule.  Which means the 90 min buffer I worked in, was not needed, so If everything went as planned... I'd be 90 mins early.  IF.....  I got my start and finish receipts for the lunch bonus and started my trek south.  I decided to stop and  fill just my aux tank,  to be 100% sure I'd make it home on gas.  I got on 95 headed south to pick up one last marker right off the Interstate in Titusville, before I started West to Orlando.  Where the marker was located, was up on a slight hill, in the bend of a road, and no parking.  But grass everywhere, so I figured I run through the little ditch, and then up to the maker for the photo.  No water to be seen and the grass looked plenty dry so the tires shouldn't slip if it was damp.  Boy was I wrong.  As soon as the front tire hit the bottom of the ditch I knew I was in trouble.  It sank.  So I gunned it to try and power through it.  NOPE.  Buried to the frame.  I tried rocking it back n forth, and side to side... nothing.  Buried.  So like any good rally rider... I grabbed my flag and camera and got my photo.  Then started to figure what to do next.  A guy on a bicycle rode up and we tried pushing, but it wouldn't move an inch.  I saw a truck drive by slowly but didn't stop.  The cyclist said he'd go get his truck, but he was 3 miles from home.  He left, so I tried digging a bit with my hands, but only ended up with an exhaust pipe burn on my wrist.  The truck that passed slowly, came back with a friend of his who lived a block up the road.  We attached a thin strap around the forks, and to his hitch to pull it out.  The bike didn't move an inch before the little strap snapped.  They went back to the house and came back with a 'fire hose' strap, and some plywood.  I took the bags off the rear, and we were able to push the bike over far enough to get the wood under the rear tire, and then we built a road with the plywood strips.  With all that, it pulled right out with out any issues.  The front tire and brakes were clean as a whistle... the rear was nothing but mud.  The good samaritan told me to follow him to the house and hose it all off before I destroyed the rear brakes with all that mud and dirt.  It got a good wash down, and I tried to give him $20 bucks, but he refused.  Just a biker helping out a biker he said.  Bikers are the nicest people.  Total time wasted... 45 minutes.  Could have been a lot worse!  But I am still AHEAD of schedule!  I get back on the road, and as I'm passing by the mud pit, I see another rider there staring at the torn up ditch looking a little puzzled.  I'm sure he's glad he didn't do the same thing with his Gold Wing.  I wave as I drive by on the way back to the hwy.  Everything felt ok w the bike but I did a few hard braking sequences and bounced around to make sure the forks weren't binding and the brakes worked. Off to Orlando.  

My first stop in Orlando was right off the Expressway (SunPass is great) at the old Army Airbase, which is now an Executive airport. Grabbed that one and headed off to another site that was actually 2 identical markers on opposite sides of a pond.  I'm in old downtown either on Orange Blossom Trail or Colonial Dr, dealing w stop n go traffic.  Everyone in front of me stops hard, so I get on the brakes a little harder than normal as I'm passing through the intersection, and then I'm flying through the windshield and sliding on the road.  WTF.  It was over before I knew what was happening.  They have pretty brick paved cross walks, with 6 or 8 inches of concrete on each side of the bricks.  So braking hard on the asphalt with lots of grip was fine.  Then when the tire hit the concrete, it slipped and locked, then hit the bricks locked up... wheel turned hard right and threw me over the handle bars through the windscreen.  I wasn't doing more than 10 mph, so with all my gear on I just stood up, looked around to be sure I wasn't about to be hit, and started picking up what had been tossed from my tank bag.  A man and woman stopped to help me pick up the bike.  The woman was shocked I wasn't dead, let alone hurt.  She kept asking if I was sure I was OK.   I assured her I was OK.  We picked up the bike and I moved to the parking area on the side of the street, and we picked up the rest of what had fallen off the bike.   All in all, probly took 2 mins tops.  I thanked the people, and did a quick check on the bike.
Bag was attached, foot peg attached, mirror bent back but not broken, fairing cracked where it had been cracked before... but nothing to prevent me from riding it.  I pack it all up, and see it it starts.  It took about 10 secs of turning over, but it cranked up.    I walk around it to be sure nothing was leaking, which it wasn't.  So now its decision time.  2 incidents in 1 hour... I decided to cut my losses and just head straight back.  There were 3 markers in one park 5 or 10 miles away but I didn't want to press my luck any more.  But the 2 markers on opposite sides of the pond were on the road back to the expressway.  Fine.. I'll get those, then head back.  A quick 900 points and I got back to the expressway and headed back to Dade City.  I still had a big buffer so I took it easy all the way back.  I will tell you though.  After riding behind a windshield for 2 years, riding w/o one is a diff experience.  I may need to look into a quieter helmet.  The cheap Hawk helmet is pretty loud fully out in the elements. I got the last bonus 5 miles from the end, and eased on in the hotel parking lot.  David and Valerie Gillespie greeted me with a "Why are you back so early? You still have time to get more bonuses.  Go get some more points!"  So I pointed out my busted windshield with a brief explanation, and that I was done.  Mama Valerie was real concerned about me... so I had to reassure her too that I really was fine.  Bikers are the nicest people.  I got checked in as a finisher, and went back to the room for a shower and dry shirt, before I went to score out.  It took me a while to get all the locations transcribed into my riders log, and everything in order, but I scored out and ended up with 22,800 something points with the 31 markers, and 3 ICE wildcards.  Not too bad considering the extra adventures I had.  But I messed up the rider log, so they docked me 1000 points for that.  But they DID take the picture of the post that was missing the sign at full point value.  I figured it was a top 10 finish. We waited for everyone to score out, then ate, and finally got around to the scoring.  The top finishers were pretty close on points with about 500 points between each place. Each place was pretty much the difference of one sign.   But they kept counting higher with out saying my name.  I squeaked out a 2nd place finish and received a nice plaque.  Awesome!  And the winner... with 120,000 points!!!!  WTF!!!  Sal Terranova!  He did what no other rider did.  He went to GA.  I didn't look at a single marker in GA.  But apparently they number their signs differently than FL.  Each county gets a 2 digit number, then each sign gets a 2 or 3 digit number.  Sal found county # 95 and had to leave before he got all the signs so he could get back in time.  So when I thought I was doing good with 500 - 600 points each sign... he was getting 9500 points per sign.  Ouch!  Luckily he was the only one who went to GA, so he outsmarted everyone. And if you know Sal... He is not known for outsmarting others!  Good job Sal!  See you at the next Cape Fear!!  I thought loosing to Greg Rice in the Cape Fear by 20,000 points was bad... But 100,000!!!  Wow.  But again... I'd rather loose by a lot than a little.

I decided to head back to Tallahassee that night... and what a mistake.  About 30 miles up the road, the fog hit.  That was the worst fog I'd ever seen, let alone rode a motorcycle through.  Many times I had to slow down to 10 mph or less just to be able to see the lines in the road.  It would come and go, but probably half the trip home was less than 30 mph.  And it was a wet fog, so I was continually having to wipe the water off my face shield.  Luckily I didn't have to wipe off the windshield :)  I kept trying to fall in behind cars and follow their lights as best as I could A) just to have a reference to where the road was, and B) to take out any deer that may wander out.  Luckily the cars never ran off the road or into any deer.  But it was a long a crappy ride back.  I made it home in one piece, showered again, and climbed into and nice WARM and DRY bed.  Rally Complete!  That takes my average finish back to 5.25 from 7th.

It wasn't until a few days later that I noticed something didn't look right when viewing the bike from the rear. The bags looked droopy.  So I check the bag on the side the bike went down on, and sure enough, the 'antler' mounting bracket is broken.  Some how the bag made the 300 miles after the drop w/o falling off.  Then I looked the bike over even more, and found the left foot peg bracket was also broken.  Again... luckily it was the bottom part where the retaining pin mounted the peg to the bracket that broke, and not the top so the pin stayed in keeping the foot peg from falling off.  So add another $80 to the $200 or so for a new windshield... it was not a cheap fall.  But again... it could have been a lot worse.  The bike can be fixed. I ended up with a sore left wrist for a week or three, but nothing needing medical attention.  I'm still waiting on the parts to fix everything, so 5 weeks later... I still have not ridden it.   I think I need to upgrade/downgrade to an adventure bike with crash bars or something.  I need the "off the pavement" security... but do I want to give up the comfort and protection of the big fairing-ed bike.  Time will tell.

Miles

Thursday, June 21, 2012

Ed's Last Resort Rally 2012

We are back full circle to the start of my rally riding addiction.  After I got my bike last year, I pulled off a long ride and a close win last year in Ed's 2011 rally, completed a SS1000, finished 8th in the Long Riders Digital Scavenger Hunt in Nov, and a 2nd place in the 2012 Cape Fear 1000.  Not to shabby for a rookie.  But my rookie card has been pulled and I am now considered a rally veteran.  I did a lot of prep for the Cape Fear this year, and for the most part, the bike was ready for Ed's Last Resort (ELR) since it was only a month later.  I did replace the rest of the lower coolant hoses to be sure none of them popped like in the Cape Fear.  But the weekend before ELR, the wife had planned a 4 day Disney trip with our 2 kids, our 8 yr old nephew, and her mother and brother.  Needless to say... that was a stressful 4 days.  And the week before, I had a server crash at work, and spent the 3 days prior slaving over that to get everything back up and running.  I had planned on skipping the first day of the vaca to complete everything 100%, but our CEO found out that I had sent the rest of the group down to Disney with out me, and told me to finish what I was doing, and go meet them... that the rest of the stuff could wait.  That was nice.  So really all I missed was dinner with them that night.  Had to change a flat tire in the Down Town Disney parking lot.. but I was there. But with work issues for a week, the nightmare of an extended family vacation, and continued  work issues after my return... the last thing on my mind was riding.  Between the Cape Fear and ELR, I logged a total of 50 miles on the bike.  My rear shock started leaking air pressure during the Cape Fear, but I didn't think it was too bad.  I pumped it back up the night before I left before ELR, but it was 'flat' again the next morning.  And when its flat... it kinda feels like a flat rear tire.  But no time to do anything about it now, so I'll just have to deal with it.  My head was not in it, and my body was not ready, and the bike was squirrly...  so lets run a rally!!  I spent a total of 30 mins prepping for this one.  I like to wing it!

I met dad at his house the Fri morning before the rally.  We were supposed to meet for breakfast @ 8, so texted him to see if that was still on.  I didn't hear back, but where he lives cell reception is spotty.  So I left to head there anyway.  I was 5 mins from the Waffle House, and felt my phone vibrate.  I pulled off to read it in case the location had changed.  It had... He said he just woke up, and to head to his house.  I knew he was meeting his friend Wayne somewhere between Daytona and Tallahassee, to guide him back to dads house Thurs night.  Turns out, they didn't get back to the house till about 3 in the morning!  But they got their bikes packed and we started the trek to Surrency, GA.   We weren't in any rush and made a few stops for gas and snacks.  And along the way I noticed Dad's taillight was out.  The brake light worked, just not the tail lights.  This had happened on the way back from the Cape Fear too, and a swap of the bulbs fixed it that time.  This time it didn't.  So we made a stop for 2 new bulbs... that didn't work either.  But dad noticed it lit up every time I turned off the bike.  With some jiggling of the ignition switch, it would light up.  Of course no one had any electrical contact cleaner, so we had one more stop in Baxley, GA to find some.  It seemed to fix the issue, so I sprayed mine too as a preemptive measure.

When we arrived at  Ed's, Greg Rice and Roy Kellburg were already there and had caught some huge catfish from the pond.  So me, dad and Wayne dropped a few hooks too.  We pulled in another 4 fish in about 30 mins.  Wayne got out the fillet knife and started prepping them to have for dinner.  Talk about fresh fish!  We helped Ed set up while waiting for the rest of the riders to arrive. Joe Sunnutti showed up in a old tuck that he and Ed just finished putting together the week before.  It had a huge hot rod motor in it, and Joe was gonna drive it in the rally.  At least this year he would have windshield wipers and a roof if it rained!  All the other Hot Rod owners backed out again this year so Joe would compete against the bikes again.  Once most everyone arrived, we began the dinner feast.  Of course it was Ed's famous stew, with the added fresh fried catfish and a few other fixins.  After dinner is the riders meeting where they hand out the rally packs.  This year, Ed blasted out an email stating if a rider was course planning on a laptop, then they must bring it to the riders meeting.  He had joked before about doing a "back to basics rally" and not allow computers or GPS.  So a few people were concerned they were going to be w/o their coveted electronics for the rally.  And judging by some of the comments on the message boards... some were thinking about not showing up if they could not use computers and/or GPS.  But lucky for them, they came, and the reason we needed our computers was so they could give us the rally waypoints in digital format... THANK GOODNESS!!!  It takes a long time to type in 100 gps locations into the mapping program.  So now all I had to do was rename all the imported waypoints to add my naming system, point values, and description so I could plot some routes.  It still took some time, but it probably saved me an hour, and it prevented me from making any typos which I am known for doing.  I had just plotted my first route and I heard dad say a few expletives.   He was almost done with his renaming of everything and closed his program when he meant to just minimize it.  He lost everything he'd worked on for a hour.  So I asked the RallyMaster if it was OK for me to give him my edited file which he agreed to.  So dad had everything he needed, but we all have our own ways of classifying waypoints.  So I had to explain everything I did so he'd have a clue.  But we were both got back to plotting routes, and his night wasn't ruined.  This year all bonuses were with in the State of Ga which means there will be a lot of back roads vs the 90% of Interstates I drove last year.  Not good with a bad rear shock.  But that also meant everything was relatively evenly spaced out around the state.  But of course the farther away it was, the more points it was.  There were some big points was up near the GA/AL/TN border area, but not enough to make the mileage vs time work to finish high up.  So it was back to piecing together a bunch of smaller point bonuses and try and pick up a few larger ones when available.  My first route I planned, ended up being the one I would use.  There were 3 high point bonuses in and around Atlanta, so that's where I headed... with the one that was dead downtown off I-75 as a dropoff bounus depending on time and traffic that I could get or pass on if I needed to.  But it was mostly Interstate on the way there so I figured I could make some good time.  No other route came in at more points, so I started converting the track to upload into my GPS.  This is where my lack of planning prior to now slapped me in the face.  The free conversion program I had downloaded and used successfully in the past... now only allows you to convert a route with up to 10 waypoints.  I had 17!  The full version was $40. I figured typing 7 was better than 17, or spending another $40, so I uploaded what I could then manually edited the track on the GPS itself to add the rest.  I got them in there and started the route on the GPS.  It showed my route being 2 hours shorter on the GPS than on the computer.  So I rechecked the waypoints, and they all were in there correctly, so I just figured it was just not liking the manual additions to the uploaded track.  No biggie.  So I did the same thing for my backup GPS, and for good measure, uploaded just the waypoints to my backup backup car GPS.  I slept onsite in the cabin, so I didn't have to go anywhere, nor get up early to come back to the start.  Off to bed.

Rally morning was here and I heard some people stirring, so I got up and got ready.  Breakfast provided was coffee, donuts, and juice.  I had some of each.  I filled my camelback that was half full of Powerade, the rest of the way up with water and dropped in a bottle of 5 hour energy.  I won't try that cocktail again.  Nasty! It was cold that morning so I wore my rain suit jacket over my riding jacket, and wore my full fingered gloves so I wouldn't freeze the first part of the trip.  My first bonus would be 2 hours away in Macon, so it should warm up plenty by then to take off the rain suit.  It was getting close to start time so I went over and cranked up the bike to get it warmed up.  A few others followed my lead on that.  Took my last minute bio break, and got suited up.  When I pulled up my route on the primary GPS it still was way off on time, so I plugged in my car GPS so I could run waypoint to waypoint as a backup if needed.  No rain was forcasted, so I didn't bag it in a ziplock.  I had my headphones in so I could listen to the GPS, or plug it into my phone for tunes between bonuses.  I had a 2 hour ride to the first bonus, so I started with the tunes option.  They let us go one at a time and they started on my side of the line, which I was second out.  Awesome.  It was now I got slapped again...  Once I got out on Ed's road, My GPS was telling me to turn around.  I just thought it wanted me to go out the back way, so I ignored it and knew it'd recalculate when I got to the paved road.  Nope.  The route I uploaded, went in the GPS as the crow flies.  It was not giving me turn by turn directions!     Just a straight line from point to point.  No wonder it showed a much faster time.  This is not going to work!  So I plugged in the first waypoint in my car GPS and turned off the routing in my moto GPS.   Back to winging it!  I remembered Streets and Trips was going to take me a NW route to meet up w I-20, but the GPS is now taking me more north through Vidalia to get to the Hwy.  But my arrival time to Macon was the same.  So I decided in Vidalia to run into the Walmart for some wild card bonus items.  I figured I could get all the different items at one place and be done with it.  First WC was "a peach".  I was 11.5 hrs from the finish, and wasn't sure a real peach would make the trip, so I grabbed a can of peaches.  The 2nd WC was 3 parts.  1. A postcard. 2. Required postage for postcard.  3. Post card addressed to the address they gave us.  Did you know Walmart does not carry post cards?  ME EITHER!.  I wasted 5-10 minutes looking, then had to leave with just the peaches and my receipt.  As I'm headed out of Vidalia to get to I-20, the 4 lane road splits around the buildings downtown and is of course one way on each side.  I had just moved out of the left lane and into the right when here comes a Centenarian the wrong way on the one way.  Luckily traffic was light, and she was in the left lane.  I hope she figured it out sooner than later, as there may have been a head on collision behind me.  I make it to I-20 and on my way to Macon.  I'm probly 12 minutes behind at this point.  Not too hard to make up... I think.  I get into Macon, and we're looking for a cemetery.  The GPS shows the path all the way to the headstone, as there are roads throughout the cemetery.  Problem was when we got there, the gate was chained shut.  Richard Buber pulled in right behind me, so we went tromping through the cemetery looking for the historical marker in front of it, in full gear!  I grabbed the car GPS off the bike as it has a battery, and I tried to follow it.  But I think I was doing the blonde with a compass, by following the arrow and not the direction I was supposed to be going.  It took us about 15 minutes to find the stupid marker.  But we got it and headed back to the bikes.  Another rider was running towards us, since we made it obvious which way to go.  I stowed my rain jacket as I was plenty hot after running around the cemetery.  I got back on the bike and went to plug in my headphones to the moto GPS, but the adapter was missing.  When I unplugged it, the adapter came off w the head phones.  But it fell off sometime during the trip through the cemetery since I just left the cables to dangle. There goes my voice guidance system!   As we were leaving dad was pulling in.  He apparently took about 30 mins to find it, and only after finding another entrance that was not locked and driving around the place.  I followed Richard for a mile or 2 but my GPS of course wanted me on the interstate and we parted ways.  I was now about 25 mins behind schedule, so no 30 min rest bonus for me.  My next location was a confederate monument on the courthouse green in McDonough.  Traffic was light getting into town, but as soon as my GPS said 1/8 mile, I see a police car blocking the road ahead of me, and forcing a right turn when I needed to go straight.  As I round the corner, all I see are barricaded roads, cars parked everywhere,  and people walking everywhere.  Its a damn Spring Festival.  I ended up having to drive around for 10 minutes to find a spot to illegally park where the rent-a-cops wouldn't ticket me, then run 3 blocks in full gear, swim through the sea of people that were almost shoulder to shoulder, packed into one city block, find the monument, and repeat the process to get back to the bike.  Since all the roads were blocked off and made into one ways, getting out to the road I came in on was looking bleak.  But I noticed just enough room to squeeze through the barricades, so I took that route.  I was through it before the rent-a-cop realized what I did, so I didn't stop to chat.  Again as I was pulling back out on the road out of town, dad was pulling up to the first traffic cop.  He was smart and decided against trying to get the bonus and turned around.  I was now about 35 mins behind.  I was headed back to the hwy, but looking for I-75 at this point to get to Hotlanta.  I get stuck behind a semi, and passing areas are few and traffic coming the other way is not cooperating.  Its only about 3 more miles so I settle in instead of worrying about passing.  But the bike behind a semi is not settled.  It gets bounced around pretty good in their wake.  But I can handle it just in case a passing opportunity opens up.  I'm listening to my music trying to calm down knowing I'm so far behind schedule.  Not sure what song was playing, but I was listening... then I felt something hit my leg, then my foot (following a truck my instant thought was rock) then the music quit.  Shit!  That was my phone!  So I had to slam on the brakes and do a u-turn on a 2 lane rd, then go find a spot to park the bike so it wouldn't fall over and go find the phone.  Luckily, there was a driveway to a house to park on, and the phone landed in the middle of the road, so none of the passing cars rolled over it.  I picked it up and it was still playing music!  Glad I bought the $30 case for it.  What the hell else could go wrong!!  This is not my day.  As I'm headed to Atlanta, I'm still undecided on the bonus down town.  It looks real close to the hwy according to the GPS, and may be a short 3 minute grab, but I won't know till I get closer and can really zoom in.  One GPS was trying to send me around the bypass... the other right through town.  It was a 20 minute difference.  So being behind, I took the faster route.  About a mile past the exit to go around the city, the 4 lane hwy drops to 2 for repaving.  WTF!!  Now I'm definitely not stopping in ATL.  I was in stop and go traffic, crawling for about 10 mins, then it opened back up.  40 mins behind!  I was so frustrated I was real close to turning around and head back to Eds.  But I was pretty much at my furthest point away, so I figured I'd make a run for the next highest point bonus and the ones in between, then see how bad off I am at that point.  It can't get much worse right?  I blast through ATL around 80mph... and still getting passed by a lot of folks, and head to the next monument.  At this point I loose all sense of direction.  I wasn't sure in which general direction I was headed... I felt like I was running East for some reason.  If I blew up the route on the GPS, it was way to crowded with waypoints to see anything discernible.  I just knew I had to get to the high point bonuses to try and salvage anything from this ride.  I keep moving.  I ended up passing the next bonus in Roswell, because the GPS said I could turn right to get to the monument, but there was no road.  So I had to double back and turn on the road before the monument.  As soon as I turned, I saw all the tents and people at ANOTHER festival in the parking lot of the building I needed to park at.  Luckily, everything was in the rear parking lot, and I could use the side lot to get to where I needed to go.  Still had to get off the bike and run to find the monument.  That one was the first 'easy' bonus so far.  The next one was right on the main drag in Gainesville, and the sign I was looking for was right at the front gate. Finally... a few normal bonuses not taking me 20 mins a shot.  But I haven't made up any time.  I'm still 35- 40 mins behind.   I still think I'm heading East as I make my way to Cornelia. (I'm really headed North )  I initially pass the sign I'm looking for and had to ride through a neighborhood to double back, thinking the GPS was wrong by a few feet.  Nope.  It was right where it said it was.  I just wasn't looking in the ditch for a sign.  I got my info and made off for a cemetery in Elberton.  Finally making some progress on the GPS, although not fast enough... I get stuck behind a funeral procession. I am boiling mad now.  This is the worst ride ever!  I'm so mad I didn't see the GPS tell me to turn 1/10 of a mile into the procession!  I had to find another road to turn around on... This was one of about 6 missed turns for the day not having voice guidance in my headphones.  At this point I'm running on some serious Ga back roads following the contours of creeks and such.  It gets real twisty back there.  I lost some of my chicken strips today. But its real tough keeping the bike in a hard lean with the rear shock gone.  As I get close to the next location, the GPS turns me down a gravel road.  I hate non paved roads!  Oh look.. theres a real road up ahead.  I guess this was the shortcut.  NOPE!!  2 miles of loose gravel.  Me and Connie had a Come To Jesus meeting.  This was way to far off the beaten path to miss out on the huge point value.  So we braved it.  It took a while to ride 2 miles in gravel dragging my feet.  But I finally get to a parking lot.  More like a dirt turnaround point.  But there was a headstone, pointing to Dan Tucker's grave.  Problem was.. there was 2  possible trails to follow in the direction the arrow was pointing.  So I took the one that said no motorized vehicles.  I took off my helmet, but left everything else on.  I start running down the path.  Its downhill, so thats easy enough.  And I'm running.  And I'm running.  Annnnd I'm jogging... and jogging... annnnd I'm walking.  Its hard to hate a dead person.  But I really hate Dan Tucker right now.  Hate him!  His grave and about 4 others, were 1/4 mile down this dirt trail.  So it was a 1/2 mile hike to get this stupid bonus after a gut wrenching 2 mile ride down a gravel road, and now I have make the trip back up the gravel road... 100% exhausted.  Why didn't I go home after Atlanta!  As I'm foot dragging my way up the gravel road... here comes another rider on his adventure bike... an off road bike w street tires... standing up on his pegs and flying past me doing 30 or 40.  I'm doing 10 mph. Note to self.  Get one of those... or stay off the non-paved roads!  But we make it out of Dan Tucker Hell and start heading to the next bonus.  I'm now about an hour behind.  So I stop at a cross road and try to regroup.  I put the finish in one GPS and then skip the next bonus on the other.  Still behind.  Drop another... still behind.  Drop a third... behind.   Screw it.  I'm headed to the house.  So I take the left turn instead of the right and head due south.  I end up running back through Crawfordville, Ga where the dogs tried to eat me on the Cape Fear rally... And sure enough, they they were waiting to chase more cars and bikes.  They looked like Pit Bull/Collie mixes.  Glad I didn't have to tangle with them either time.  I had about 30 minutes to the good to make it back, and I had about a 3 hour ride ahead.  I may can pick up one more bonus near the end... but my ride is pretty much done.  Then it hits me... I skipped my rest bonus to make up time.  I have 30 mins to the good right now.  I can make it somewhere and take my rest bonus.  If I find a CVS I can get my beer bonus, and find the post card and stamp for that bonus.  OK.  I have a good plan!  I'm in a better mood now, and my riding pace picks up a bit.  Buy the time I found a place to take my rest bonus, I had made up 15 more mins.  So after a 30 min rest I was still 15 mins good.  I come across a Rite Aide, 2 miles from the bonus in Dublin.  I ran inside and bought a Coke to start the rest bonus.  I explained to the clerk I'd be hanging around for 30 mins because I needed 2 receipts 30 mins apart for a scavenger hunt.  Of course I got the deer in the headlights look.  So I explained it a bit more.  I didn't need a call to the cops because this smelly biker dude won't leave the store.  She understood most of it I think.  So I went looking for my beer bonus and post card.  GUESS WHAT!  Rite Aide doesn't sell beer.. or any alcohol for that matter.  At least not at this location.  Guess what else they don't have.  POST CARDS!! So I thought about it a min.  I found an Elvis greeting card.  Nothing was written on the inside at all.  I'll just cut the back flap off and make it a post card.  As for the beer bonus... the politically correct way its written in the rally pack, is bring your favorite 6-PACK to scoring.  Guess what else Rite Aide doesn't have?  6-Packs of anything.  4 packs... 8 packs.. 12 packs... NO 6 PACKS!  Fine.  I'll buy an 8 pack of Coke and cut 2 off.  I take my 8pack and greeting card to the counter.  I ask if the computer shows a time and luckily it does.  So 31 mins after my first receipt, I buy the other crap for my end receipt.  STAMPS!!  I forgot stamps!  "Maam.  Sorry I forgot.  I'll need a stamp too."  "Oh we aint got no stamps."  Well shit.  I grab my stuff and load it on the bike and head 2 miles up the road to a bonus.  Its right on the road, and I don't even have to get off the bike.  I'm good on time so I plug in the last possible bonus, and Eds.  I will be 1 minute late.  I think I can make up one minute.  I take off to the last bonus.  I'm back in rally mode.  I got some rest, something to drink, got my rest bonus, and now can pick up the last bonus.  My chicken strips shrank some more!  I made it to the last bonus ahead of schedule, and turned it to the house.  I was still making up some time, so I made one more stop to try and find some beer. I need a six pack after this day.  Oh look.  A BaitNTackle/Gas Station/Feed store.  They have to have beer, and maybe a stamp, right?  Nope.  WHAT KIND OF BAITNTACKLE/GAS STATION DOESNT SELL BEER!!!  Oh well.  There are 5 people in line buying cigarettes and night crawlers, so I left w/o even asking about stamps.  It was a nice leisurely ride back to the barn.  I expected to see a few more bikes on the road back, as I was getting in close to the DNF time I wrote on my cheat sheet of 7:15.  I showed up at 7:05. 7:15 passed , and still no sign or dad or a bunch of other riders... recheck of the rally pack... oh!  7:30 was the DNF time.  I wrote 7:15 to build my own 15 min cushion.  Another mental mistake for the day.  Sure enough... the mad rush commenced.  About half the riders came in the last 10 mins.  But noone was late.  Not a single DNF!  I was just glad I was done.  

I must have looked really mad because a few people asked me if I was Ok. So I tried to paraphrase all the crap I endured to a few folks.  Scoring wasn't too bad.  Coach (Ron Allan) scored me out.  He was dad's mentee in this years Cape Fear.  But he wasn't easy on me.  I got every bonus location I went for.  Good.  I got the postcard bonus minus the points for the stamp.  Ok.  They accepted the cut down 8 pack of Coke for the 6 pack bonus.  Good.  Now comes the peach.  I bought a can of peaches.  Not "a peach".  So I argued there was at least a whole peach in the can maybe 2.  Rallymaster squashed that. Bad.  Rest bonus... I took it around 4:00.  Slap in the face again... as the rest bonus window was only from 12 -2. Real bad!  But the good news is I didn't DNF, and I didn't finish last.  Bad news is... I was 19th of 27 starters.  That killed my average 4th place finish, and dumped me to a 7th place average.  But as stated earlier.  I was not mentally or physically prepared for this rally.  My head just was not in it and I made a lot of mistakes, on top of the difficult situations getting to some of the bonuses, and fighting an ill handling bike.  But hey... That's rallying.  This just happend to be a really frustrating one for me.  Good news is... nothing blew up, and I kept it upright the whole time. I'm ready for my next rally.  Too bad I don't have another scheduled until November. 

Miles

Monday, April 30, 2012

Cape Fear 1000 - 2012

Its been a long and expensive winter for the motorcycle.  After the DSH, the bike sat for a little while.  Thanksgiving, the wife went in for surgery and had a long recovery, then Christmas...   I just let the bike collect dust since I couldn't ride it with the coolant leak.  I finally ordered the parts to fix it after the holidays, and got to working on it.  I got the thermostat o-ring swapped out which was the reason for the leak, and since they were in the kit and the carbs were out, the coolant log o-rings also.  The first ride I did all year wasn't until March.  I rode up to Montezuma, GA to meet about 30 riders for lunch.  All the repairs worked fine.  No more coolant leaks!  Score!!  2 days later, I walk out into the garage, and there is coolant and oil all over the floor.  Crap!  Water pump internal seal gave out.  No way to repair that, so I had to order and replace a new water pump.  Ever since I bought the bike, there was a very minuscule oil leak I thought was coming from the bevel gear gasket.  Turned out it was the water pump the whole time, since there was no more leak after the swap.  2 weeks later, I pulled the carbs again, and sent them off to be tuned and fuel overflow tubes installed in the float bowls.  The rubber carb boots were hard as steel, so I ended up having to buy a new set of those too.  With the new pliable carb boots, the re-install took no time at all compared to the first time I tried it.  I was also able to find online an older Garmin 2720 to match the one Richard Buber gave me at the Montezuma ride, so now I have 2 waterproof motorcycle GPS.  I got the mount and hardwire cables installed a few weeks before this ride.  But I needed to rig up a way to listen to the GPS and my phone (music) through headphones while on the road.  I couldn't find anything cheap enough, so I found some plans online and built something that worked.  It allowed me to listen to the turn by turn directions when close to a location, and music when I'm on the long roads between bonuses.  Pretty cool for $20 in parts.  It tested out fine.  Now all I needed was some new tires.  Finances were tight, so I had to wait till the last minute to get those.  I finally tracked down a matched set for the Connie... Avon AR26's.  Not the canyon carving Avons, but they were the only things I could find that fit and weren't a mismatch of brands/compounds.  I had to call 3 places to find someone to install them the weekend before I left for the start.  But they got mounted, and all is well.  New tires, new (to me) GPS and a spare, tunes, cleaned carbs, and no leaks... Almost like a new bike!!  (Not really)

A week or so before the rally, we got our rally packs in the mail.  It had our rally flag,  an odometer check card, and our rally sticker... all with our rider numbers on them.  I was # 418.  The ODO check pretty much meant there would be a mileage cap this year.  I doubted I would push any mileage limits, but it would make everyone converge on the same place to do the ODO check.  I hoped it was near the end, and not stuck in the middle somewhere.  My starting location was Arcadia, FL, and the end is in Wilmington, NC.  Driving start to finish w/o any stops is right at 700 miles.  But I have to get to the start!  That's only 350 miles... Now we just have to wait for the bonus listings to be emailed to us Wed night.  I figured I get all the way points put in Streets and Trips, plan a few routes and go to bed at a normal hour.  Then have Thursday as the travel day, and final route planning.  Plenty of time on Wed and Thurs to not loose any sleep.  Well I was wrong!!
We got the bonus listing around 6pm Wed, and I started going through the listings.  As expected, there was a mileage cap of 1385 miles.  And the ODO check to verify your mileage was less than an hour from the end.  I started plotting way points into Streets and Trips and was able to skip a few pages entirely since the locations were in MS and OH and IN... By the time I was done, I only had 35 places to choose from.  That seemed low to me.  Sure enough... about that time we got an email via the message boards that we got a bad rally book.  We'd have to wait for Jim Bain to get home and sort it out.  So around 9pm the REAL rally book shows up in our email.  This time we had over 100 way points to enter.  I got finished inputting everything around midnight and planned one route before I went to bed.  I'll look at it more once we get to the motel in Arcadia.

I pretty much had the bike packed other than my computer bag the night before.  I needed to stop by the wife's office to pick up some printed copies of the rally book.  All I have at the house is an inkjet printer, and with rain in the forecast, I didn't want all the words to bleed.  As I was heading out, I connected up my homemade audio mixer to the GPS, and phone.  All I heard was loud static and noise.  So much for that idea.  I threw it out and and just connected up the GPS.  I went and picked up the paperwork, gassed up, and went to meet dad.  For the whole weekend, it was looking like nasty weather.  And the forecast for the ride down was severe thunderstorms the entire ride.  Dad and I met up and started the ride down south.  Somehow we rode in BEHIND every rain storm.  We rode through wet roads, but every rain cloud passed before we got there.  That was pretty lucky.  We made a stop for lunch, and another stop for gas on the way down, but for the most part it was just a boring ride down the super slab.  Right before the gas stop, I had noticed my SPOT gps tracker low battery light was flashing.  So I swapped them out after we filled up.  The batteries had been in there since early March, and only been used for about 6 hrs.  They should have been OK, but they died.  I pulled a pack of 4 out of my tank bag I had bought before the Nov DSH, and swapped the 2 out.  Those should last the rest of the weekend.

We pulled into Arcadia and drove straight to the restaurant most everyone was meeting at.  Reef and Beef...  One waitress for the whole place, and she was a lil busy with the 20 or so of us.  But the food was decent enough.  Once we got checked into the motel, I started trying to plan another route.  I was sitting around 35,000 points without the wild card bonuses.  I couldn't seem to find a way to pick up many more points w/o going over the mileage, or going over my time allowance.  I wanted to plan for the full 6 hrs rest bonus for 11,000 points, and 1 hour for stops.  So I needed to stay under 22 hours according to Streets and Trips.  My first route ended up what I decided to stay with.  So I uploaded the routes and way points into both 2720s and just in case... into my non waterproof Nuvi 3670 Garmin.  Then I started writing them all down on my cheat sheet.  To speed up my stops, I don't write anything into my rally pack on the road.  Everything goes into a tiny notepad.  But as I'm finishing up, I notice my big points bonus up near Macon is actually supposed to be way down in Pensacola.  I'm a few hundred miles off and 4000 points are now gone. There is no time to re plan everything so I just drop it and hope I can make a few points up on the road.  Like Eds Last Resort last year, I planned to get ALL my bonuses before I stop for the rest bonus.  Then I can plan backwards for the ODO check and time restricted bonuses to see how long I can rest.  If I'm behind, I can shorten the rest bonus to a min of 4 hrs.  So its a 2 hr built in window to play with.  I'm pissed at myself for the error but I need to get some sleep.  Its after midnight again.

Cell phone alarm wakes us up around 7am and we repack all the crap on the bikes.  We'd scouted out a few places for a good start receipt, and ended up using the CVS downtown.  Usually you try to find something as far outside of town that you can to be that much closer to the finish line.  But all the gas station receipts everyone found were crap.  So 7 of us were lined up inside the CVS at 10am ready to go.  I bought a pack of cashews, got my receipt, got on the bike and headed out.

My first stop was Solomon's Castle just up the road.  I got flashbacks of Eds rally when the GPS took me down a gravel road for 2 miles to get there.  Luckily I didn't drop the bike this time and made it there pretty quick.  There was another rider already there and off his bike.  I pulled in, did a Uturn and stopped to get a good view of the gate.  I got out my High Speed Photo Bonus Apparatus (HSPBA), took my picture, jotted down my info into my book, and was gone.  The other guy was still trying to get his picture.  The next stop was the sign in front of Alafia State Park a short ride up the road.  2 mins and gone. My next bonus was just a gas stop in Kissimmee, FL.  The gas station was about 1/2 a mile up on the left, and traffic was thick.  But I got in and out pretty quick.  I filled the main tank to the max, got my receipt, and got back on I-4 headed to Daytona.  My next stop was to get a photo of Stavros Pizza on Beach street in Daytona.  GPS took me almost right to it, but it wanted me in the alley behind the joint.  There were 2 bikes coming out of that alley :)  So I drove around the block till I saw it.  I stopped behind a parked car, got 2 photos, and wrote down my info.  I was leaving as the other 2 bikes were parking behind me and the riders dismounting.  I knew this next section was going to be the slow part of the trip.  I took US1 all the way back to 95, and then cut through Palm Coast to get to Ft Matanzas.  All slow roads except for the 95 part.  And I had to pay a toll in Palm Coast.  But I got my photos and drove north on A1A to get to St Augustine.  I found a park behind the Lighthouse to get a good photo of that.  Getting through St Augustine was very slow and it took me 15 mins to go about 3 miles.
 But once out of the tourist area, the traffic was light.  I stopped halfway between St Augustine and Jax to get a liter of water to drink, and a 32 oz gatorade to put in my camel back.  It was HOT!  I swapped my full fingered gloves to open fingers and what a difference.  Once I got moving again, I ate a pack of beef jerky out of my tank bag en route to Ft Caroline.  It was right off 9A/295E in Jax and fairly easy to get to.  I took my photo and left.  My next stop was not until Vienna,  in central GA.  It was right in line w my gas stop in Macon.  But when I got to the way point... it was a pine tree farm.  So I got out my car Garmin and my rally book.  I entered the coordinates in the 3760 and I was about 45 miles off!  Another way point I screwed up.  Luckily it was still in the same general direction.  I was hoping to make it to Macon on both fuel tanks, but I was going to be short.  So I stopped and filled up both tanks somewhere before Vienna.  I had run about 340 miles on the 2 tanks since Kissimmee.  Once I had the right coordinates for Vienna, it wasn't too hard to find.  GPS was a block off, but I was able to find it and get the photo.  I lost about 10 mins on the screw up, but I was still 15 mins ahead of where I was scheduled to be.  The gas stop in Macon was pretty quick, but I was in downtown Macon riding through a college campus.  Back off the major roads, I was riding to the Uncle Remus Museum in Eatonton to find Brair Rabbit. It was dark now, and temps dropped a ton, so I donned my rain suit pants and fingered gloves again to keep warm once I got my photos.  As I was pulling out another rider pulled in.  My GPS hadn't registered I was moving in the direction I was, and had me turn the wrong way.
So I did a Uturn and got moving the right way again.  The next stop wasn't too far away.  It was a Confederate Memorial in Sparta.  It was too far away and too dark for my HSPBA, so I had to get off the bike for this shot. Gettin a photo of a white flag and a white memorial in the dark is harder than you'd think. I drove back off the sidewalk and went to find a Church where former Ga Gov Raburn was buried in 1819.  The grave was on the opposite side of the church than the parking area so it took a few mins to locate with a flashlight.  Got my photo and ran back to the bike.  I could hear some dogs across the street barking and didn't want to spend more time on my feet in the dark than I had to.  This time I read the GPS wrong and took a left instead of a right leaving the church, and tried to attempt a Uturn next to the house w the dogs.  I heard the barking then saw the shadows racing toward me, so I gunned it and went to the next side street to turn around.  I had to dodge them again on the way past their house, but no missing limbs.  My next stop was in Crawfordville, GA, which is much smaller than where I live in Crawfordville, FL.
And we only have 3 stop lights!  Heavy's BBQ was shutting down, which was probably lucky since the owner was standing next to the pit bull guarding the door. One of the employees leaving asked a few questions about all the motorcycles taking pictures of their sign, but I was moving again after about 5 mins.  I needed to wash my windshield as my collection of GA insects was blocking most of my view, but again, I didn't want to spend much time fighting off pit bulls.  So far I had been really lucky and not seen a single wild animal.  I was sure I'd be dodging bambi through the backwoods of GA, but not tonight.  All I had to deal with was fog and mist in the many of the valleys.   I was finally back on Interstates and did a short jaunt on I-20 to get to The Laurel and Hardy Museum.  Right off the hwy I stopped at a gas station to clean my windshield.  Rony B. was there gassing up so I said hey and continued on.  What a difference a clean windshield makes riding in the dark.  Who would've thought!  I drove up on the sidewalk again for a photo,
but it was lit up enough to use my HSPBA.  Another 2 minute stop and I was headed back to I-20.  The next stop was another Confederate Memorial in Augusta, Ga.  It was pretty quiet getting in there, but all the kids were bar hopping downtown and I was dodging drunks to find the memorial and a good parking spot for the photo.  The memorial is 100 ft tall so I needed some distance to get it in the photos.  I found a good spot and pulled over.  Luckily it was also lit up enough to use the HSPBA to get the shots.  But I had to deal with a young drunk heckler shouting at me the whole time cause he couldn't see well enough with the beer goggles and spinning earth to figure out what I was doing.   I really didn't want to have to beat him with my camera to escape, but his nice
 friends led him away.  The next bonus required me to get a photo of Zimmy the Turkey at the National Wild
Turkey Federation.  I lit him up with my headlights and was able to get a good photo without getting off the bike.  Winding down to my last stop of the first leg of the ride, was the worlds largest Fire Hydrant in Columbia, SC.  It was finally after midnight, so I could find a place to start my rest bonus.
I headed back down I-20 to get a little farther down the road and to find a cheap roadside motel.  I passed one exit and there were a few nice hotels, so I continued on a bit.  I pulled up on the GPS a Best Western and a Sunshine Motel at the next exit, so I pulled off there and hunted for the Sunshine.  Apparently they've been bought by Econo Lodge, but for $50 and vacancy, I didn't care what they were called.  I checked in, got my start receipt for the rest bonus, and headed to the room.  There was a Waffle House next door and it was then I realized I hadn't eaten anything since the jerky in Jax 10 hrs ago.  I figured I'd wait and eat there on the way out after some sleep.  So I ate half of the little sleeve of cashews I bought for my start receipt in Arcadia, and started calculating the next leg of the trip.  I had only scheduled for the ODO check and one time restricted bonus after that for this leg.  But I was going to have plenty of time to do a full 6 hrs rest bonus, pick up 2 bonuses on the way to the ODO, and still get to the final location with time to spare.  So I set my alarm clock for 6 which I thought was enough time, and put my camel pack in the fridge to cool the water that was left in there for tomorrow.  Then I changed my mind and re-set it for 5:30 to ensure I had time to eat breakfast too.  Time for 4 hrs sleep!
Well for some reason I just woke up at 6:15.  Crap!!  My alarm didn't go off!!  I jumped out of bed, threw on my clothes, and re-packed the bike.  I drove past the Waffle house to get gas, and figured I didn't have enough time to sit and eat, so I grabbed a Diet Coke and a protein bar at the gas station, for breakfast, and a gatorade for the camel pack.  It was then I realized I left the camel pack still in the room fridge.  So I went back to the room, finished off b-fast, filled the camel pack and went to the front office to check out and finish the rest bonus.  I had to ask for the receipt, but luckily it had the exact check in and check out times listed.  I had 5:50 minutes for the bonus...  close enough for me!  4 hrs was the min, so anything over 4 was icing on the cake with 6 being the max.  I punched in the extra stop on the GPS and got back on the hwy.
Headed off the hwy to this stop, about a mile into town, an LEO clocked me on the 45mph side of the 35mph sign doing 50.  He was nice and only handed me a performance warning.  I pulled into the next bonus location behind another rider who was already taking pictures.  I pulled out the HSPBA, got my pics, wrote down my info and was gone before the other rider was even back on his bike.  Man that thing is fast! I took it slow back to the hwy as not to anger the locals anymore.  I then drove to a High School in Lumberton, NC to get a photo of their Pirate logo.  A quick in and out.  Once back on the road I saw another way point I might could pick up on the way to the ODO check but it was going to cost me an extra 30 mins.  I decided against it and continued on to find the ODO check in Warsaw.  Luckily the GPS was dead on to find the rest stop off the hwy, which was between the lanes of the interstate.  Weird location.  But I pulled in there, got off the bike so I could do the bonus associated w the ODO check, and put the description on how to do the check in the window of my tank bag so I wouldn't screw it up.  I turned in the card, they asked if I wanted to do the bonus, and said go to start the clock.  I donned my helmet then gloves, mounted and started the bike, and began the 20 mile course.  It was get on the hwy, obey all traffic laws, turn around at the next exit, and come right back.  Easy enough.  I quickly glanced at the instructions I pulled out, and it said "Turn left onto the entrance ramp of eastbound I-40 East"... so thats exactly what I did.  Headed to I-40 E.  But as I was tuning onto the ramp, I saw a bike pulling off the hwy behind me.  Hmmm.  So once up to speed headed east, I took a better look at the instructions.  That was the 2nd part of the instructions!! The first part was "proceed westbound on I-40..."  WTF!!  I had to ride a few miles to turn around at the next exit, and work my way back.  Once I got there, I informed the staff I needed to re-start the ODO check.  I guess I was the first one to screw it up so far, so they called HQ for a ruling.  Nowhere in the rally book did it say we only had one chance to do the check, but it did say it was REQUIRED.  So they let me restart but told me to expect some sort of penalty later on once they figure out what they would do.  That pissed me off... but a penalty is better than a DNF.  I restarted the ODO check and went the correct way this time.  The goal for the bonus associated with the ODO check was to do the entire course at the same average time as everyone else.  So I eased through the gears at a conservative pace until I hit the 70 mph speed limit.  Then kept the GPS speedometer locked on 70 as best as I could.  I did not go off the bike's speedometer, since this is what we were calculating to find out how incorrect it was.  I made it 10 miles down the road, and eased it off the ramp to make 2 lefts and get back on the hwy and come back.  Again riding as any 90 yr old would to try and be the same as everyone else.  I made it back to the rest stop, checked in, and got my 2 ODO check cards back, and headed right back to I-40 west to get to the last photo stop in Holly Springs.  The entire ODO check fiasco probly cost me 25 mins, but I had a good cushion to get to Holly Springs before the 12:00 time window opened.  Once I got to HS, I was still about 15 mins early, so I stopped to get gas to be sure I would not run out on the ride to Wilmington.  I probly had enough, but I wanted to be sure, and I had the time to kill.  I gassed up and made my way through some heavy traffic to get to the Veterans Park.  I still had about 5 mins to wait until my camera said 12pm.
There were about 8 other riders that had the same idea.  We all had our flags lined up on the wall, and started shooting pictures at 12:00 on the nose.  I made a quick pit stop on the way back to the bike, packed the tank bag, and  filled in my stop info.  And I still was the first one out!  But we had 3 hrs to make the 2 hr trip so I guess most folks sense of urgency was gone.  But you never know what traffic will be like, or possibly a wreck on the road to have to get around... so I kept up my rally mantra and kept the wheels moving.  It was a straight shot back down I-40 to get to Wilmington, and a pretty boring ride.  But 20 miles out, the road was ground up for repaving and the bike was real squirly on the groves and ridges.  So I slowed down to about 55 from the posted 70.  At one point I hit a small pot hole, and heard a pop under the bike so I quickly made it off to the emergency lane and checked the tires.  They were up and looked fine so I continued on.  I got off the Interstate and on to Market street... 1/4 mile from the end motel.  I was looking for a store to get a 6 pack of my favorite beverage for the last 1000 point wild card bonus.  I was at a stop light 500 yrds (according to the GPS) from the end, but I knew I'd have to find a store and double back... and then my heart stopped.  I was engulfed in a cloud of smoke and initially thought the bike was on fire!!  I was about to hit the kill switch and jump off when I realized what I smelled was anti freeze... and the smoke was pretty much gone.  Just a big flash of steam and it was over.  So I passed up on the beer bonus and drove it straight to the finish line.  I pulled in under the awning and finlly hit the kill switch.  I was checked for my rider #, mileage, rally sticker and beer.  I had all but the latter.  They gave me my check in card and told me to pull the bike off to the side parking lot and pickup my ending rally package with our Tshirts and name tags from inside.  I got all my paperwork together from my tank bag, and grabbed my laptop bag from the saddlebag and headed inside to start the scoring process.
First I pulled my camera card out of the camera, and opened it up on the computer.  We were limited to 3 pictures from each bonus, and any photos NOT of a bonus would be a penalty.  So I cleaned up all the bad shots and kept only the good ones I thought would be enough to prove I was there.  But I FORGOT to save a copy of all my photos to the computer!  About that time Dad shows up, and we had a quick chat and I told him about what happened to the bike.  He said he'd already scored out, and would try and diagnose it while I scored out.  I had all my receipts... I triple checked my transposition of info into the rally book, and got in line to score out.  I was pretty sure this time I would not leave any points on the table. Then I realized I didn't have my rally flag and ran back to get it.  That would have been huge points!!  But after about 30 mins of waiting I finally got to a very nice lady to score me out.  She went through everything I had and I got every bonus I attempted, but now it was down to the ODO check and associated bonus.  The guy running around helping the scorers reiterated he had to find out from Jim Bain what my penalty would be for doing the ODO check twice.  So I politely brought up the fact nowhere in the rally book does it say we only have one chance to attempt the ODO check, and since it was MANDATORY, there should not be a penalty. (If we screwed up any other bonus, we have the ability to re do it, with time being the only penalty.) He assured me there would be some kind of penalty and went to confer with Jim Bain.  After about 20 mins he came back.... NO PENALTY, and almost max points on the bonus!!  Awesome... I didn't have to even raise my voice :)  I was totaled out at 49,796 points.  I hoped for a top 10 after knowing I left a few thousand points out there due to my bad plotting of way points and not getting the beer bonus.  But for my first 24 hr rally... I thought I did pretty well, all things considered.  Now... whats the status of the bike.

I got out to the parking lot, and dad had all the fairings off, oil cooler unbolted and had managed to pull off the ruptured hose that was right behind the headers.  It wasn't a small hole or cut ... it split 270 degrees all the way around!  There was no repairing that in any way.  I was extremely lucky that didn't happen anywhere else than where it did.  I took dad's bike and headed to the auto parts place to see if they had any bulk hose since it was almost a straight pipe with maybe a 20 degree bend in it.  The girl came from the back of the counter with an almost exact copy of the pipe but was an inch too long.  I can cut that!  I grabbed some new clamps, high temp silicone, and a gallon of antifreeze and rode back to the operating table.  We got it cut and fit onto the pipes after some wrangling.  This pipe is between the headers and motor so the finger room is pretty tight.  But once we got it fitted in there, we realized the rubber pipe was touching the headers due to the pipe being a bit thicker than stock.  We tried just about everything to get some distance between the two, but nothing worked.  Dad took the trip back to the parts store to pick up some header tape.  There was no room to wrap the header, so we just rolled the tape up and stuffed it between the header and coolant hose.  Its a wet chemical activator, so we buttoned up all the body work, and let it sit and cure while we headed in for dinner and the awards ceremony.

We ended up near the tail end of the line but I got to talk shop with Jim and Donna Phillips, and Mike Nolan.  I sat at a table with Ed Tillman, 'Miss Kitty' Nancy Oswald and her hubby Walt, Mike Allen, the winner of the mini rally, and some others I just can't remember their names.  Of course Ed was throwing out his comedic zingers the whole time...  But Jim Bain finally got up on stage to start giving out the door prizes and the the winners plaques.  I didn't get any door prizes, of which there were only 2 I would have wanted.  A Cape Fear hat or the fuze block.  I could care less about a magic coyote sticker...  whatever the hell that is.  But he finally got to the finishing results.  He started with... not FL. The mini rally I think, then the other two start locations.  Congrats to the other winners!!! But all I wanted to hear was the FL results.  When Jim read the points for 5th I was surprised to realize I was in the top 4.  I gave dad a thumbs up, since I knew I had more points than 5th.   But he kept reading off names that weren't mine.  4th, 3rd, then 2nd... Miles Lee!!     I was really shocked with a 2nd place finish.  With what I thought was already a conservative route, and the 2 screw ups... a 2nd place finish on my first 24 hr rally was completely unexpected.  Then he read Greg Rice's points... 20,000 MORE than mine.  WOW!!   Greg rode a hell of a route, and came in only 5 miles under the mileage cap.  No margin for error on that ride.  I'd have blown that on my ODO check redo.  Or blown my coolant pipe 100 miles from the end.  But Greg did awesome... Congrats to us both!  After the awards were done, I shook a few hands and took a couple of photos.  But the bike was still under the awning in front of the building we were in, so I rode it to a normal spot over by the rooms.  When I parked it, it was dripping what appeared to be coolant.  Crap.  Too late, too dark, and too wet to deal with it right now.  It'd have to wait till morning.  Me and dad headed to the room to crash.  We did not set an alarm!

Even w/o the alarm, I was up about 7am.  Dad was still snoring, so I got dressed and went out to triage the bike again.  I cranked it up and rode back under the awning since it was raining and I didn;t feel like crawling around on the wet pavement. I pulled the tupperware off while it was heating up.  I guess what had leaked out last night was just what had spilled when we refilled the coolant system.  It was not leaking now that it was running and heated up.  But the header tape was cooking and smoking like crazy.  I'm glad I wasn't on the road while it was burning off.  It was a lot of really smelly smoke.   But it finally cooked off, and still no coolant leak.  All I can do now it road test it and hope the repair makes the 650 mile trip home to FL.  I put the plasctics back on, and went back to the room.  Dad was finally up and stirring.  I checked the weather and it looked fairly clear to the south and we should have a mostly dry ride home.  It finally stopped raining before we headed out, so I didn't put on any rain gear.  If you've read any  previous blogs... I do the Bubba version of rallying.  I don't have an Aerostitch all weather riding suit, heated gear, or anything fancy like that.  Just an armored jacket, blue jeans, and a separate rain suit.   But I had sprayed my jacket and boots with water proofer before the rally.  We met up with Otto Hoel, also from FL, and decided to ride home together after a stop for breakfast.  We made it to a mom n pop version of a Waffle House about a mile down the road.  I left the bike running as I got off and de-geared.  Still no leaks.  This was my first breakfast in 3 days that was not a protein bar!  We left there, gassed up, and headed towards the interstate.  Its a good ride to get to I-95, but we made it and headed south.  After a ways, we pulled off at a truck stop to check the bike again, and I picked up some more gatorade for the camel pak.  Still no leaks!  Dad and I have fuel cells, where as Otto does not so we were on his mileage for fuel stops.  2 more fuel stops and one rest stop on the way to FL.  Repair still holding.  Our last gas stop was Kings Bay, GA, then we headed to the house.  We only hit 2 spots of rain on the way south, but I didn't think it was worth the time to put on rain gear so we rode through it.  I finally made it home about 7:30 that night and went straight to the shower!  I'd been in the same clothes for 4 days, and only 1 shower!!!  I meant to shower and change clothes after the rest bonus sleep, but after the alarm not going off... there was no time.  Luckily the wife was not home when I got there otherwise she probly would have just burned my clothes before I stepped inside.   But most important... the bike made the trip without issue.  Other than a blown .1A fuse on the Garmin cable.  All told... it was a 2250 mile trip.  350 to the start, 1250 for the rally, and 650 for the ride home.  Now its time to prepare for battle to defend my Ed's Last Resort Rally title.  And wouldn't ya know... Greg Rice is signed up for it too.  Gonna be a fun one!

Miles