tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-54688657645549526962024-02-19T09:46:54.657-05:00My New Old ObsessionAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17949710209610441126noreply@blogger.comBlogger18125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468865764554952696.post-5467244317949272952017-01-31T14:40:00.003-05:002017-03-09T09:27:24.469-05:002016 Season??<br />
<br />
Still rebuilding.<br />
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I did one RTE in Tallahassee, and the Toys For Toys ride in Tallahassee this year. <br />
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My poor bike I'm sure thinks I have abandoned her. I probably put more miles on my bicycle than my motorcycle. <br />
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I've signed up for the 2017 IBA Pizza Party SS1000 so hopefully that will force me to get out more.<br />
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Miles<br />
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But I did get to do some other stuff...<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17949710209610441126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468865764554952696.post-56133464194739795652016-02-02T10:32:00.001-05:002016-02-02T10:33:58.615-05:002015 Rally Season<br />
Danny and I made the cut for the last Cape Fear rally ever.<br />
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Ed Tillman handed over the planning of the 2015 Ed's Last resrt Rally over to Danny and Miles due to a few medical issues.<br />
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Danny broke his leg in a serious roller skating accident a few weeks before the Cape Fear rally. <br />
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Danny and Miles withdrew from the Cape Fear, and had to cancel Ed's rally. <br />
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I did not ride the bike at all but for a few hours in April, so I decided it was not a good idea to try to run the Digital Scavenger Hunt in Nov.<br />
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We'll call it a rebuilding year. Yeah. Thats it. <br />
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We'll see what 2016 has to offer.<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17949710209610441126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468865764554952696.post-28482202599962469242016-02-02T10:19:00.002-05:002016-02-02T10:19:54.181-05:002014 Rally SeasonDec 24th, 2013 my company's VP called to tell me the great news that we had been sold, and they are moving the office to Atlanta!! For some reason he was shocked that I was not jumping up and down cheering on this wonderful news. Merry F'in Christmas! No I am not moving to ATL! No my wife is not giving up 20 yrs w the State. No I am not going to sell my house we just bought a year ago. No No No. So as I am looking for a job, Cape Fear signups come and go. A few interviews. Ed's Last Resort registration opens... Still looking. Cape Fear Rally comes and goes... No new job. My replacement has been hired and already moved to ATL to start the transition up there... One good prospect comes along with a consulting co, but I would be an independent contractor with no guarantee on billable hours. May be 20 hrs a week, may be 100. But its a job. A few more interviews and calls, but nothing good. I had made up my mind on a Fri that I was going to work for the consulting firm and would call them on Monday to 'accept' the position. Something came up at work on Monday, and I never got around to calling. Mon night I got an email about a job opening for a State funded non profit, sent in my resume as normal but this time with a cover letter which I usually don't do. I got a call from them on Tues, an interview on Wed, 2nd interview the following Wed, and a job offer on Fri. I put in my 2 weeks w the current company on Monday. Only issue now... Eds Rally was the weekend after my first week on the new job. I did not want to ask for a day off my first week so I decided not to run Ed's rally either. Instead, I brought my 8 yr old son and our dirt bikes, and help out as a volunteer and scorer for the rally. I figured not riding in the rally would save a bit of cash too. But one broken chain on my bike, and a sheared off valve stem on my son's and I probably would've come out ahead running the rally! But it was good boys weekend. Bent a few hooks and broke a few lines trying to reel in some of the catfish in Ed's pond, but no one was able to get a fish on land. I will be bringing some saltwater tackle next time. <br />
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Matt Hube took home the win, and Nike Nolan was a bridesmaid again... and Jesse Lucas came in as top rookie.</div>
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Finally settled into the new job, and some leave accrued, I signed up for the Long Riders Digital Scavenger Hunt in Nov. This rally has always been a weird one for me. I finish good, but the gremlins come out in full force to challenge me on the ride. 2011, somehow I got an hour behind schedule and had to drop a bunch of stops, finished 8th. 2012, I got stuck in the mud in Cocoa, then dumped the bike in Orlando, finished 2nd. 2013, I drop my camera on the hwy and got my first DNF instead of a podium. So being this is my only rally of 2014, I need to at least finish, and hopefully without incident.</div>
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Dad took the year off of rallies, so I was on my own. We got the rally books a week early, and this years theme was General Delivery. Generals being Army Generals, and Delivery being Post Offices. And like the 2012 rally, most of the locations were 'choose your own adventure' with the last 3 digits in the zip code of the PO being the amount of points you get. The rest of the way points given were historical post offices, and the Generals. Catcher was, we had to get a minimum of 3 each off of their list. I was able to locate the highest point value POs and hand pick a route around the 6 required stops fairly easily. Problem was, there were way more possibilities than time. I had narrowed it down to one route into the Tampa/St Pete area, and then down to Lakeland/Ft Mead, Or I could make the run to Melbourne again like in 2012. Both were the areas w the highest zip codes. I have always avoided urban areas in rallies mainly due to traffic concerns. But I figured that is exactly what everyone else would do, so I opted for the big city to be different. I dropped the avg speed way down in S&T, and started whittling down the stops around Tampa. I gave myself 5 mins per bonus and optimized the route. Still too many stops. It had to be a lot of points if it was off the main drag or required any turn arounds, or it got the boot. I played with a few different variances, but finally came up with a plan. I had a hand full of stops that could get dropped if I was behind, and none to add since I assumed I get behind in the traffic, not ahead. Looks doable on paper. We'll see tomorrow. </div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaO3VRu-U3qLajAk7nwFbIvg56_bhe-5pkXXz78IJXr94QHFsS949HhsGLIHMZdK5FaiAjDWC7anGATWT7iRoalbNeh8RO6RTYz4F14XWurs91EgkXBNG5cUdhcTEEHIqVHoI0tU-zb5Y/s1600/100_0244.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; display: inline !important; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: center;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjaO3VRu-U3qLajAk7nwFbIvg56_bhe-5pkXXz78IJXr94QHFsS949HhsGLIHMZdK5FaiAjDWC7anGATWT7iRoalbNeh8RO6RTYz4F14XWurs91EgkXBNG5cUdhcTEEHIqVHoI0tU-zb5Y/s1600/100_0244.JPG" width="320" /> </a>We gathered for the Sat morn breakfast/riders meeting and were given two last minute WC bonus options. We could get photos of up to 4 Dollar General stores, and up to 4 photos of leftover Halloween displays with a numbered pumpkin to be carried with us. I opted out of the pumpkin challenge, and would consider the Dollar General pics if time allowed. As soon as they said go, I was out the door. I think I was #2 or 3 out of the gate, at about 6:50. Always good to have to extra time. I purposely left the closest bonus for last since it was dark and could be hard to photograph, although it was still dark an hour later when I did get to the first stop. Long story, short... I hit a handful of stops in Clearwater/St Pete, and double dipped a required stop, and a zipcode since the old Clearwater Post Office was still in operation. I circled back north and crossed over the bay in to Ybor City. This was the scariest bridge crossing I've ever made. The wind was gusting to 30 mph that day, and going over the bridge, I was getting blasted from lane to lane. I slowed down enough to get beside a Suburban to help block the gusts and keep me in my lane. I was just hoping the Suburban wasnt going to get blasted into me! I was in the far right lane, and there was nowhere else to go but into the water if that happened. I was also getting hit by spray from the breaking waves, 10 lanes over. It was NOT fun. But I made the crossing and got my photo of Ybor City PO. I got a few more on the way out of Tampa and then started to Lakeland, to make the turn South to Ft Mead for a required stop and post offices. There were some big points south, but with all the traffic, I was about 25 mins behind schedule, not including the 10 min head start, so I opted to drop the farthest bonus down there. That put me about 20 mins to the good again. Piece of cake now. No more big city traffic, and a good cushion on time... lets start looking for Dollar Generals. Its about 1pm. As per Murphy's Law... traffic in the Lakeland area was 10 times worse than all around Tampa. That pretty much ate up most of my time buffer, so I had to pick up the pace a bit when I could on the way south to Ft Mead. There was a monument and a historical marker in Ft Mead. I didn't write down which one I needed, so I got a photo of both just in case. I make the turn north and headed to the house. A couple of close in, required stops near Dade City and I was done. I follow the GPS to my last required stop south west of Dade City. As I get close, Ma Garmin says "Turn right cautiously off road." Nothing but a cow pasture. Crap. I pull out the rally pack and my phone to Google Map the coordinates. No signal. I ride 10 miles back into town to get a signal. The acutal coordinates are north of Rally HQ, and I was way south. I have to get there or be considered a non finisher. I skip all the rest of my stops and make the run. I wave as I pass HQ on my way up. I knoew I was going to be late, but not time barred late if I could keep a spirited pace. I was able to to get there since luckily a trooper pulled over the car in front of me I was chasing. Got my last photo and high tailed it back to HQ. I think I was 7 mins late. But late was better than DNF. I took my time to be sure all my paperwork and photos were in order and turned in my pack. I had expected a tough ride, and since I dropped so many locations, I was not expecting a top 5 finish. So to my surprise, I eeked out a 4th overall, 3 place single rider finsh.! Sweet. Jesse Lucas claimed the win. He pulled out his bonus list/rally plan and I have no idea how much time and effort goes into it. It looks (to me) very complicated but detailed. I have a 5x8 sheet of paper with time of arrival, name, and what to do written in pencil. Bubba style... I finally finshed a DSH with no incidents, other than my own mistyped coordinate. It was a successful rally. Somewhere around 40 stops...</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17949710209610441126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468865764554952696.post-53393194952125846302014-02-18T13:56:00.003-05:002014-03-11T13:27:57.885-04:002013 Long Riders Digital Scavenger Hunt<div abp="1090">
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The theme of the 2013 DSH was Angels and Demons. There is a long break from Ed's Last Resort Rally and this one... almost 6 months. Plenty of time for the Demons to poke their heads out. It was an uneventful summer, with only one short RTE an hour away. So come October, I knew I needed to get some seat time before the DSH. Prior to Cape Fear, dad and I signed up for the Grand Tour of Georgia (GTG) to use a warmup ride. We had only done one day of riding in the beginning and bagged 8 of the locations. So we decide to finish the GTG as a warmup to the DSH. We figured we could start in Thomasville, GA and collect the final 12 stops all in one ride, 1060 ish miles, in 24hrs for a SS1000. Hey why not. Since my shock was bad, I decided to try a different approach this time and not go for a used OEM shock and 'upgrade' to a used shock off a ZZR1200. With a bit of modification to the mounting brackets on the shock, its pretty much plug and play. No more Connie shock woes! Or so I thought. It ended up being bad also, as I think all the nitrogen had leaked out. But it was a tad better than the bad stock shock so it was going to have to do for the GTG ride. DON'T DO A SS1000 ON GA BACK ROADS! We were not in a huge rush, as the computer had us finishing in 20 hrs. With only 40 or so miles on Interstates, our finish time was 22:40 mins, and 1070 miles. Not including my 50 miles to get the start location and the 50 miles to get home. I was up for 26hrs that day. But we got our needed seat time, finished the GTG, and I burned off my rear brake pads. I ordered a brand new Progressive rear shock and got it installed the weekend before the DSH and went to grab the rear brake pads I've had for almost 2 years to install. Nowhere to be found. I called one stealer who could have them to me in 9 days. Nope. Called another, and they could get them in on Wed before the rally. Luckily they showed up and I was able to get them swapped out. Lets see how this new shock and brake combo works! Off to Dade City.</div>
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Dad ended up in bed w the flu for a week, so he smartly bowed out of the rally. It was an uneventful ride down. The shock worked great and I kept randomly riding the rear brake to try and get the pads seated in good. We had been given the bonus locations a week early, and the point values on Wed. There weren't a ton of locations this time, and some were way out by themselves. Most were in Central FL, and good cluster in Jacksonville. So I made 3 preliminary routes to build off of when we got the final bonus list with clarification on the Wildcard bonuses. During the drivers meeting, I sat with Jesse Lucas and Bruce McCrary. This was Jesse's 2nd rally ever and he made all the rookie mistakes. He poked the bear when the bonus locations were emailed out, he came in on a brand spanking new bike, and bought a brand new helmet. But he has done his homework and has studied the art of rallying. I think he got the rally bug worse than me! He should do well. And when I introduced myself to Bruce, he replied "So you are the Infamous Miles Lee." Man... Infamous? Already?!?! Not too sure thats a good thing. But we talked shop and I found out more and more people are well aware of my HSPBA (high speed photo bonus apparatus) But do they know how to make and use one? I'm still not making it public knowledge on the construction and operation of it, so people can improvise one. (I did see one good attempt, but it left much to be desired) Once we recieved our rally packs, we were informed of the Angels&Demons wildcard bonuses. Basically anything that was or said "Angel" and/or some variant of an angel, like the name of a famous one... or anything of or like the devil or a demon. Pretty broad, but also very specific. Then we got the bad news. To be considered a finisher, we had 6 mandatory stops. I generally do 20 or so stops, so 6 should not be an issue... depending on where they are. We all finish chatting and asking questions and head off to our rooms to plan our new routes. </div>
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Just as a baseline I added the 6 mandatory stops into S&T. Just that route was 7 hours!! That only leaves 2.5 hours for other bonuses and stops, and .5 hrs for a high point lunch bonus. Not a lot of wiggle room. The good thing is 4 of the 6 were already on or near my original route. But two were wayyy off. An the rally masters ordered up a monsoon to hit just as we are starting and lasting most of the day, so that will slow us all down even more. The mandatory stops pretty much will make everyone ride 2 different routes. The easy one around all the stops in central FL, and the hard one which is running up into Jacksonville. I had already planned on doing the Jax route, but I had to tweak it to get the 2 far off mandatory stops. But somehow I'll have to pull in a few extra stops no one else will do AND get the max of 4 wildcard bonuses to win. This is going to put all the top riders very close in points since the routes will be so close. But thats why they are called Rally Bastards. S&T has me running North to Ocala and Gainsville, then NE to Jax, then South to Daytona, then back across to Dade City. But with a storm front moving in around just after the scheduled start, I reverse that route hoping I can dodge some of the rain early, ride wet for a few hrs, then come home in clear skys. I get my route set to Jax and back, and get it uploaded to the GPS units and pray its enough points. I called it a night around 11pm. </div>
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5am came quick, but I showered and got all my stuff loaded on the bike. I packed everything just in case I broke down and needed a ride back to the house, since my route took me closer to home than rally HQ. I parked the bike at the front of the hotel, that way I have a staight shot out of the parking lot as soon as they say GO. Weather looks like it will hold off till 7:30 or so I left all my gear on the bike and headed into the morning meeting and breakfast. As I was walking in, I saw David and Ray in a serious looking discussion out front, so I politley said Good Morning and kept walking. But they stopped me and asked me how the routing went. So I told them flat out that the mandatory stops have created only two possible routes and that just the 6 stops will take 7 hours to get. So they will have a lot of non finishers, finishers that just get the required stops, and the top riders all going to Jax. That it made it real tough to plan a winning route. They agreed, and asked if I had made a route prior to arrival, and if it was still in my GPS. I told them I did have a prior route, but I only upload the final route in the GPS. They were toying with the idea of scrapping the mandatory stop rule and letting people go back to their original routes. I let them know that was a terrible idea. Everyone was already a bit mad they had to totally re-route with the stops, and if you tell them now, 30 mins before the start that they can go re-route AGAIN, it would not be pretty. Stick with thier plan, and deal with the grumbles. But next time you have mandatory stops, maybe say 4 of 6 required to be a finisher. That will allow more creativity in people's routes. But not this morning. I went in and got a quick bite to eat and heard some of the grumbling, but hey... it is what it is. We just have to adapt. And during the pre-start meeting, Ray and Dave appologized for what appeared to be a bad decision on the mandatory stops. But they were not going to change it last second, and it will not ever be an option again either. But as they were about to let us out across the state, we could hear the rain hitting the building. Crap! All my gear is on the bike. Gloves, helmet, jacket... everything getting soaked. So when they finally released us to the Rally Gods, I ran out and grabbed my gear, and ran back in to donn it all while soaking wet. To me, nothing is worse than the feeling of putting on wet clothes. I can handle getting wet, but being dry and putting on wet clothes... hate it. So I throw on the wet jacket, wet helmet, and wet gloves. Ughhh. I hope my plan to run the reverse route was the right one. No way to change it now. I run out, bring up the first stop, and hit the road. 9:55 to get back. </div>
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The longest 2 lights in America are right in front of the hotel. I think it took 8 mins to get one block away... but after that it was finally time to ride. I ended up behind Jesse at the second light, and followed him for a short bit. But after watching my GPS lose 10 mins, I politely passed him and picked up the pace a bit. All the other bikes seemed to take the Northern route and us two took the Eastern route. It was raining, but the further I drove, the lighter it got. My first stop wasn't until Cassadaga on the Eastern side of Orlando, so I had a good 1.5 hours to get there. S&T wanted me to go through downtown Orlando, but Ms Garmin wanted me the shorter route around the northern outskirts of Otown. I chose to follow the Garmin in hopes of seeing an Angel or Demon wild card bonus. Luck would have it, about 45 mins into the ride, I spotted an Angel's Nail Salon in a strip mall and turned in to get my first points of the rally. In and out quick, since the rain was real light, </div>
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and the sun was up enough for a good photo. By the time I got to Cassadaga, I drove out of the rain. This bonus was a graveyard and I had to walk a bit to get the required photo, but a pretty easy stop. Ma Garmin finally got me on the Interstate so I could work on drying off as much as possible before I find the rain. I had hoped to make it to Jax, but I hit the cold front again just as I was getting to the Ormond beach exit for the Sugar Mill bonus, and I got soaked. But I was able to ride out of the rain again to a dry spot and got the photo. About 2 mins later I was back in the rain. I made the trek north to Matanzas for a photo of a sign, then back tracked a bit West for a ghost town sign, then the Angel's Diner sign. When I got to the ghost town sign, there was a marker right on the hwy. I was just about to snap and go when I saw another rider in the back of the park with a flag, so I rode back there. Jesse was done getting his photo, so I asked if he was sure which sign we needed. He reminded me the description said "In the back of the park" so I got out my HSPBA, got the photo, and headed out. (Insert Photo Here)</div>
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I told him I'd see him at the next stop. It was only 5 mins away. When I got there, there was another rider pulling in at the same time. I got my photo and left. I was a few mins down the road when I passed Jessee coming in. I love my HSPBA!! It makes stops super quick. I got back on 95 and the rain was in and out. But by the time I got to Jax, it was over, and I never saw another drop. There was a diner on the East side, a school and a statue right downtown, and the Blue Angels jet at NAS Jax on the SW side. I was able to find another Angel's thrift store in all that somewhere, and started my route south. I had two good ideas on the Devil WC bonuses, I just needed to pass the right store on the right side of the road. I crossed paths with Roger and Kathy Allen leaving downtown, as I was coming in. And I saw Tony Hudson just as I got the the Angel statue, so I was right on this being the better route.</div>
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Getting in and out of Jax, I knew was going to make or break the ride. I was able to actually be right on time after leaving NAS, so I figured now was a good time to stop and take the lunch bonus. I picked a Krystals just because it was the only place on the right side of the road, and didn't look crowded. 30 mins seems like forever when you are in a hurry! I got my start receipt, took my photos, got my end receipt and was off. I am about 10 mins behind schedule, but that means I am still 20 mins good on my built in buffer. The next stop is just outside of Jax. Its actually 2 bonuses right next to each other in a cemetery. Couldn't pass that up. But again, I had to park and walk to find the cherubs. But I was in a sand lot parking lot, after a lot of rain. I finally found a tree root to put the side stand on, and hoped it wouldn't slip off. I got my photos and prayed the dogs barking at me could not jump the fence they were behind before I got out of the lot. The next stop was a street sign of a ghost town out in BFE. I remember the route on the computer and it was a fairly straight road. For some reason on the Garmin, it was a very windy road coming up. So to be safe, I stopped in Starke and filled both tanks since I was about 315 miles on the trip meter. Getting closer to said windy road, when it told me to turn, all that was there was a young pine tree forrest. So I continued on hoping the 2 roads would converge on the sign... which luckily it did. I had to park in a driveway to get the photo, and was greeted up close and personal this time with the guard dog. Luckily the Golden was a nice guard dog and just wanted a pat on the head. I completed the 3 point u turn in the road and did not follow Garmin again through the woods, and started listening to her when she had me back on the paved road. I got back on 301 South and was just cruising. I saw a peanut vendor on the side of the hwy and remembered that WC bonus in Ed's rally. And right about that time I felt something hit my leg then foot. I did a quick glance and it wasn't the GPS or SPOT, so it had to be out of my tank bag. NO CAMERA!! I pulled off on the next turn lane, not 1/8 of a mile after I felt the thump. I parked and went for a hike to grab the camera. Hopefully it will still work. Other wise I can use my iPhone for the rest of the photos and be OK.... I'm thinking. I walked all the way back to, and past, the peanut vendor. No camera. Its bright orange! How can I not see it. I walk back the other side of the road. NO camera. I get on the bike and do circles back and forth on the hwy. NO CAMERA!!! I used my whole 30 minute buffer looking, and never found anything. I was sweating my butt off, so I rode up to the next gas station, got a cold drink, and made the call to David. I told him I lost my camera, and since I was just as close to my house as I was rally HQ, I was just headed back home. My first DNF. As I was cooling off, Jesse rode on by and honked his horn. I waved and thought he was cutitng it pretty close on time, but he should do well if he doesn;t get time barred. So our routes must have been almost identical. But I made the disappointing ride of shame back to the house. </div>
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Once home and showered, and adult beverage in hand... I added up what my points would have been had I finished. I only had 3 more easy stops to make and I still had a 20-30 min buffer on time, so assuming I finished those and did not even get the other two WC's... I would have had a bit over 21000 points. When the final results came out... The winners, Roger and Kathy Allen came in first with 19,200. Jesse Lucas pulled out a second place w 18,945 points. And third was Rick Baily with 18,878 points. All routes were the Jax routes, so it WAS the winning route. So shoulda, coulda, woulda... had I not lost my camera, I would have taken home the win. But instead... I got to congratulate Roger and Kathy on their win, and Jesse on his 2nd place finish in his 2nd rally ever. Great job guys! All of the riders that went North first, stayed in the rain most of the day, and some threw in the towel. My idea of running East first to avoid the rain ended up being the drier route. And I am glad I decided to pack all my stuff and not leave anything at the HQ hotel. Oh well... at least I know my routing and riding was good. Just a random mistake on my part foiled it all. Now I have to buy a new camera, and remember to zip up my tank bag all the way from now on. Every ride is an adventure, and every ride is a learning experience. </div>
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My results for 2013:</div>
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Ed's Last Resort= 1st</div>
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GTG/In State GA SS1000 = 1070 miles in 22:40</div>
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Digital Scavenger Hunt = DNF</div>
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17949710209610441126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468865764554952696.post-67980927651009416742013-11-14T11:32:00.001-05:002014-03-11T13:45:45.487-04:00Ed's Last Resort Rally - 2013Coming off a semi disappointing Cape Fear 2013, and a very disappointing Ed's Last Resort 2012, I felt I really needed a good performance this year to lighten my mood. This last Cape Fear was my first rally with lots of rain to deal with. And after being wet for 8 hours, I was really questioning why I do these rallys. (Of course better gear would help) This rally would prove no different. I look forward to this rally more than any other as it was my very first rally, my first rally win, and I also have a stake in its success, as I do the website, manage the registration and funds, and the Facebook page. But I was unsure going into it how I would feel if I had another bad performance. But I won't know till I try. Lets prep for Ed's! <br />
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Ok done. <br />
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I literally did nothing to the bike other than check tire and shock pressure and load all my crap in the tool and tank bags. Thats one good thing about back to back rallys. If nothing breaks, ready for the next one! But the rear shock was flat again. I have no luck with these used ebay shocks. I guess I need to pony up the $400 for a Progressive shock that is repair/rebuildable. But so far I'm only out $150 for the 3 used ones off eBay. I was able to get a few days of riding in before this rally, so that was a plus. About a week before the rally we got a notice to bring a digital camera if we wanted. It was not mandatory, but some of the bonuses we would be able to photograph if we felt it would help document our location. I brought my waterproof camera and my iPhone w/ a waterproof case as a backup. I took Friday off and headed out about 8:30 in the morning to help Ed get things set up. At 8:45 I got a call from the office that 2 of our servers went down when the power flickered. Great! But luckily I wasn't 200 miles away. It ended up being a quick fix to get them back up and running. Plus I moved some power cables around to better load balance them on different battery backups to prevent it from happening again. It was a pretty uneventful ride there. I stopped to fill my tanks 10 miles from the campground and cruised on in. Of course ELR is on a GA clay road, that gets a bit sandy if it doesn't rain. It hadn't rained in about 3 weeks. The trick is to turn left onto the driveway at Ed's house, then take the grass down the hill to the cabin. I hit the sand right when I got to the house. I was able to keep it upright and limped it onto the grass for a safe arrival. Dad and Wayne had gotten there on Thurs so they were there already working. We loaded coolers, built tables, moved a bunch of stuff, and fished a little. I was going for another 10 lb catfish like last year. I was able to finally hook one, but the hook broke as I dragged him ashore. I'm pretty sure he was about 50 pounds! People started trickling in around 4 or so. Not too many early arrivals this year. The only casualties on the way in were David and Valerie Gillespie. David hit the sand and laid his bike down. And Valerie's kickstand sank in the dirt and her bike fell over in the parking area. Luckily neither was hurt and the bikes just got a few new scuffs. Eventually most everyone showed up and it was time to eat and get some rally packs! <br />
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This years theme was "Here comes the Judge". I had an idea that courthouses would come into play. When they handed out the packs I mentioned to Matt Hube next to me that it felt REALLY light, and was very thin. Normal packs are 20-30 pages of bonuses and info. And when opened this one turned out to be about 5 pages. It was just a list of every County Courthouse in GA. The rules state you must get a photo of as many courthouses as possible, as long as the courthouse photo has the name of the county on it. OR just get a receipt in the city of the courthouse. That leaves only 159 places to choose from. And one of the Wild Cards was to get all 5 of the past State Capitals in the order they were founded. That one was actually was easy as you could make a loop to get them. But it also involves a trip in and out of Atlanta. I quickly decided against that. Plus it was over 600 miles and not a lot of points in between the 5 required stops. I plotted a loop that would take me a county north, head straight west to two high point courthouses on the Alabama border, then follow the counties on the FL border most of the way back. I finished a route of 25 locations, with 2 maybes if I am ahead, and 3 drops if I'm behind. It shows a scheduled ride time of 10.5 hours. That gives me 1 hour to make my stops, and 30 mins for the rest bonus. I set my S&T average speed presets down a bit, so hopefully I can keep on schedule. I'm sure it will be tight. Dad has somewhat the same idea but his loop takes him a bit more north. Points wise, they are all low. The lowest being 50, the highest being 450 IIRC. And their values are dependent on distance. So everyone will be very close on points which makes it impossible to plan a guaranteed winning route. So mine was just based on getting the 2 high point bonuses and everything in between. I didn't even add up my expected points. I just laid out the ride, uploaded it to my GPS and was done. I was a little frustrated because there was no obvious route, but that's why we call them rally bastards. I would just ride my ride and see how I stack up. At least I can go get some sleep.<br />
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Rally morning was painless. But over bfast I got to thinking about what I needed to do to win this thing. My win here two years ago involved riding really hard for a long way. But it was all on Interstates. On my 2nd place Cape Fear ride last year, I actually took it pretty easy and came out good. And my 2nd in the DSH I rode moderately. So what do I do now? After talking w dad previously about his Cape Fear win this year, he kept mentioning how hard he had to ride for the win. So there's 2 wins with riding hard. Time to go for broke and see how hard I can push the ole girl with a bad shock and stay on schedule. My plan is to make it to the courthouse and if there is no name on it, go get a receipt. If there is a name, just snap a photo and go. But that means lots of little purchases, and I have little cash, so stop one needs to be ATM instead of the courthouse photo.<br />
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Somehow I lucked into getting out of the gate first this year. I survived the wet grass and the sandy road on the way out and it was off to the races. Receipts had to show the city of the county seat, so I was watching for city limit signs prior to each stop. Stop one was the ATM in Reidsville for a receipt and cash. As I passed the courthouse, I did not see the county name on the building so good thing for the receipt. Stop two was Lyons, GA. No name on the courthouse, got another receipt. In case this is what I will see all day, the process will be just to run in a store and buy whatever was on the counter. Gum, lighters, candy... whatever<br />
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was $1 or less. I started stashing them in the little glove box and just left the door open so I didn't have to unlock it every time w the key. Stop three, Mt Vernon... Still on schedule. Alamo, McRae, Abbeville, Cordele, Vienna... Still. On. Schedule. Once I get to Americus, it starts raining. Nothing bad, but I don't have ANY rain gear at all. But being that I am dead on schedule, that means I have not used up any of my allotted stop time. So I start looking for places to add to the route. I have never added to a route. Only taken away. I add Ellaville and eat up some of my buffer. I hit Preston, Lumpkin, Cuthbert, still ahead of schedule so I add <br />
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Georgetown before Ft Gaines, and still able to make up a bit of the buffer I lost. The rain finally stops and makes the ride a little more bearable. I make the run to Blakely and then added Colquitt, and continue on the Donalsonville, Bainbridge, Cairo, and Thomasville. I make up some more on my buffer. I continue East to Quitman, Valdosta, and Homerville. Somewhere on the way to Waycross, I get passed by a car that is in a bigger hurry than me, so I gave him a little room and let him run rabbit for about 25 miles and gained some more time so I added Blackshear. I picked up beer in Waycross just to be safe, as I had a hard time finding beer close to Ed's <br />
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last year. I headed to Alma which was my last scheduled stop, but I was about 40 mins good on time, so I threw Hazelhurst into the mix which had me coming in 10 mins to the good. Generally that is too close for my comfort, but so far everything all day had pretty much fallen into place better than expected. I found a store on the outskirts of Hazlehurst and was able to shave about 5 mins off the ride to the courthouse, and headed back to Baxley. On the way I see a rider stopped in the median of the road. I pulled up and asked if he was OK, which he said he just making a phone call, so I <br />
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continued on. It was Steve Eubanks, and he chased me down and followed me into Baxley. Just before we got to Baxley, I felt something hit my foot. I did a quick check and my 2 GPS were still there as well as my SPOT tracker. Everything seemed to be in my tank bag.... so I assumed it was a rock or bug or something. Then Steve pulled up next to me and pointed to my back seat... where my 6 pack of beer was bungee corded. I felt back there and realized I now only had a 5 pack of beer. Luckily the bomb I dropped on Steve hit the ground and exploded away from him and he missed it. So I used my last stop to get even more beer. The rest of the ride in was short and sweet. I survived the sandy road again and made it in with about 10 mins to spare. Done.<br />
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Now the fun part. I have 30 or so receipts to organize to get scored out which I put in the order that I got them. And of course while scoring out they ask for them in alphabetical order... ughhh. But we got through it. With all the WildCard and actual bonuses I ended up w right at 5500 points. Not too bad I figured. Again, all the point values of the courthouses were very small and close together so I turn my packet into Jim Phillips who acted shocked at the amount of points. I asked if it was good, and he said it was the best he'd seen yet. But there were plenty of people still needing to score out and too soon to get excited, but I figured a top 5 was an easy possibility. Time for a beer and a snack. One of the Wild Cards was bring back some boiled peanuts. A can of peanuts was allowed, so I bought one of the cajun kind since that was all the store I found them in had. But WTH! Last year I brought in a can of peaches instead of "a peach" and that wasn't allowed, but a can of boiled peanuts are??? Whatever. This year I got the points, and I got to try canned boiled peanuts for the first time. I LOVE boiled peanuts. I stop for them at the road side stands all the time. But anyone that tries to tell you that the canned ones are just a good... slap them. Maybe it was the fact they were cajun, but those things were horrible!!! We all milled around for a while before diner and got to talk of our woes of the day. Come to find out I was the ONLY person that got rained on all day. How did that happen! But after a giant spread of BBQ and fixins, it was time for the awards. There were only 18 finishers, so they read from the bottom to the top. I had 5500 and dad had 5000, so as they were calling them out along with their points scored, our chances of a podium kept creeping up. Once they got to third, Ron Allen, we knew we finished 1st and 2nd! There are not too many events a father and son can compete at the same level, so it was pretty neat for me and pops to finish one - two. It was a special moment. I hope we can do it a few more times! Maybe I'll let him win the next one.<br />
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Miles<br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17949710209610441126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468865764554952696.post-22302256830686076542013-05-03T16:31:00.001-04:002013-05-07T14:49:52.888-04:00Cape Fear 1000 - 2013The Cape Fear 1000 is one of the largest rallys on the east coast. The 28 hour rally starts in 3 different locations from Florida, Tennessee, and New York and ends in Wilmington, NC. And they have a 12 hour mini rally that starts and ends in Wilmington. Registration generally opens at midnight, and is full in 10 mins. This year they changed up the registration process to give everyone a chance to get in no matter what their sleep habits are. They instituted an application process which required a 'riders resume' to be submitted to even be considered for a spot. Just some basic questions on your history as a rider, history as a rally rider, as well as a "Why the hell should we let YOU in the rally" question. I listed a few of my rally finishes, my SS 1000 time, and a PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE let me in the rally answer. I guess it worked since I got a registration request a few weeks later. And Dad got his too for his 6th consecutive year. Awesome! Someone to split 2 of the 3 nights hotel room bills!!!<br />
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As always, I don't ride enough between rallys. I needed something to do to prep for the 4 days on the bike for this Cape Fear. Dad and I talked about just making up a faux rally and riding around FL and GA a bit. Then I saw the link to The Grand Tour of Georgia and all that is documented in the previous blog post. But on the GToGA ride, I noticed my front forks were leaking pretty substantially after I changed the seals and the oil a few weeks back. But they were leaking from the top, not from the seals. I ordered some more fork oil and did the repair again. But this time I remembered to tighten down the top bolts that the oil was leaking from. I also was going to attempt to replace the front wheel bearings, but one of the jesus clips that held one of them in was broken, so I could not get it out without further destroying it. They looked and felt OK so I'll do that at another time when I can order new retaining clips. The rear shock I replaced last year after Ed's rally was already bad again, so I had to find yet another replacement. This time I found one off a 2005, replaced the shock oil in it, and installed it. The fork redo and the newer rear shock tested fine on a short RTE to Moultrie, 2 weeks prior to Cape Fear so I hope the issues are gone. That's all the repairs/maintenance I'm doing. I checked all the air pressures in the tires and rear shock and they were all fine so its time to rally. <br />
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I was getting a bit worried when I still had not received my rally pack in the mail with my sticker and rally flag two weeks after most everyone else got theirs. It finally showed up a week before the start, and it had been sent to my old address. Luckily this year there was no mix up with the bonus lists. We got the right one the first time on Wed evening. I use Microsoft Street&Trips to plan my routes on the computer. But the coordinates in the pack are not compatible with S&T, so I had to copy and past them into Google Maps, name and describe them, convert that .kml file to a .gpx file, upload that to S&T, then color code them all in S&T. That was a 3 hour process. But when done, it gives a birds eye view of everything to start the route planning and makes it fairly easy to pick a route. And also by using Google Maps, I was able to get down to Street View and verify that there was actually something there to photograph. That prevents screw ups like last year where I mis-typed a location and instead of a post office, I was looking at a pine tree farm 30 miles away. Or when the coordinates are mis-typed by the rally master, and instead of pulling into a restaurant, you are in someones driveway. They all looked good. Plus I was able to move the markers dead on the object, instead of the parking spot the person who got the coordinates was parked in. This can save some time hunting if there are multiple monuments or objects that can mistaken for the bonus in the same general area. Time to pick a route.<br />
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This year, there were a lot of bonuses in Florida. In the past, there were only a hand full to get in FL. But I think there were 25 this year. And there were a lot of points in the Keys. But the Keys are tough to get in and out of on a Fri/Sat. But for 20,000 points it was worth a look since there were no other big points in FL. One other thing we had to factor in was the weather. A nasty cold front was moving in from the north West and headed at an angle to the South East. It wasn't too wide, but from the way it was headed, you could spend 2 straight days in the rain depending on your route. I chose a route that would cause me to ride through the rain Friday afternoon, pop out of it, then spend Sat nice and dry and scooping up the bonuses. Numbers wise, I was weighted heavier on Sat for number of bonuses, but they were more tightly packed together. I was done planning by 9:30 Wed night. I called dad to see how he was doing. Come to find out, we had the exact same route planned for Friday all the way up to Atlanta. Then our routes were completely different, but the total point values were within a few hundred points. We decided to ride the first leg together, then part ways. Little did we know, 10 other riders had the same route planned!<br />
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On Thursday, I met dad at a truck stop near his place, and we started the boring ride south on the interstates to get to Wachula FL. I-10 West to I-75 South, to whatever road West to Wachula. It was about 315 miles and we were able to make it with out having to stop for gas. Actually, I don't think we stopped all the way there. We got checked into the hotel which was actually pretty nice considering the area. We chatted with a few other rider that were making their way in. We rode into Wachula to scout out some good starting locations and check their receipts to be sure they had the information we needed printed on them.... correct time, city, and gallons purchased. We found a few, so that won't be an issue. Last year we had to use a CVS because all the gas stations had bad receipts. We still had plenty of time to burn, so we just milled around the hotel meeting everyone. Finally we headed out to dinner at a small place inside an old house. Greg Rice said he scoped it out earlier, so everyone followed him with blind abandon. Then he started doing circles downtown looking for it. Here are 15 people, probly 25 GPS units, all bonus hunters ready for a rally, and no one had the restaurant in their GPS. Not even Greg. We looked like a bunch of Harley riders looking for a dive bar on a poker run. But we finally made it to Paul's Place. If you are ever in Wachula, and VERY hungry... go to Pauls. For $12.99 I got a 12 oz steak, salad, soup, bread, rice, fries, beans... and probly some other stuff... enough food for 3 people. You won't leave there hungry, or broke. But since I'm lo carbing it... all I was able to eat was the salad and steak. And I didn't finish all that. As we were leaving, I was following dad and when we got to the stop sign, dad's bike died. Just shut off. No lights, motor, nothin! He pushed it across the intersection to an empty lot so we could take a look. Red battery terminal was a tad loose, but not falling off. But after jiggling it a bit, and tightening it down, luckily everything was fine. I needed some bungee cords to hold my beer bonus, and figured some Heet water remover/gas treatment may be good to have for the ride, so we stopped off at the Walmart. Dad hit the electrical connections on the battery with a wire brush to prevent anymore issues, while I went inside. Apparently our bikes and all the gear attached to them, piqued the interest of some of the "local" migrant workers, and a pair did a few drive bys hoping they would be left alone. That of course never happened and we made it out of there without loosing any equipment, or having to stab anyone with my tire plug kit or box cutter. The rest of the evening was just final planning and getting the GPS's all loaded up with way points and routes. I learned from the last rally that if I upload the entire route into my Zumo 665, that any deviation from that route, and the GPS will recalculate to get you back to where you got off track, not recalculate a diff route. So I chose to build the route in my GPS from the uploaded way points. Only takes a few more minutes, and can keep the Garmin from freaking out if you get off track. Did the same thing to my backup GPS and called it a night. So far pretty stress free. <br />
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The next morning we ate breakfast and had to go back out to find somewhere to buy some money orders for a bonus. We were supposed to be able to Paypal the money to a charity, but something wasn't working right, so they needed a check or money order. Why would anyone bring a checkbook? We lucked into a money store that did money orders for free. Easy 1000 points. Then we decided to look for one of the other Wildcard bonuses. Public Librarys would be worth 250 points each, and we could get up to 4. We found one right next door to a gas station, so that would definitely be our starting location. We went back to the hotel and packed everything back up and prepared for the rally to begin. <br />
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Most everyone left out of the hotel around 9:30 to get to a gas station. And most everyone ended up at the same gas station. Me and dad just pulled up to the pumps and sorta-kinda blocked anyone from using them before us. No cars were there when we got there, but there was a long line when we left :) Start time was 10am, but you could get start receipt from 9:50 to 10:10am. Mine was for 9:52. Got my splash of gas, stowed the receipt, and drove 500 ft to the first Library bonus. I document the start there instead of the gas pumps since there were plenty of people waiting. I texted in my starting information, took my photo of the library, wrote it all in my log book, and we left to get out of town. Our first real bonus stop wasn't until Ocala, FL for a gas receipt. It was back roads for a while to get to the highway, so I did another library search on the GPS and there was one on the way. We stopped there along with 5 or so other bikes. We got our photos and got back on the road. We decided not to take the back roads north all the way to Ocala like my GPS wanted, so we followed dad's which took us a toll road and expressway west then north on 75. Dad and I had our Sena bluetooth headsets on intercomm mode and were in constant comms the whole time. But once we were on I-75, I turned mine off to conserve the battery since my plan was to ride until<br />
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around 1 am. I would turn it on and off on the long stretches of interstate. Back on the boring hwy, we made it to Ocala and did a gas n go at the Hwy-40 exit. In and out in 5 mins. Then another long boring stretch to Perry, FL for the Ray Charles house bonus. We stopped at the first rest area on I-10 to put on our rain gear. It want raining yet but we were headed right into it. I chose not to put on the rain gloves at it was still about 90 degrees and I was hot and sweating. As we were approaching the front, the wind was slapping us hard from the side. A few times I was blasted into the other lane by the strong gusts. I was not looking forward to the actual storm. We made it Perry and ran into 3 other riders there. We got back on 10 and headed to Banbridge GA, via Tallahassee. Once we got off 10 and headed toward GA, that's when the clouds got VERY dark. We pulled over one last time to get all the gear on, which for me was just the gloves. But after riding all day in the heat, my hands were sweaty. Trying to get them in the new gloves wet didn't work out so well. I could not get the pinky finger or thumb to go all the way in. I fought for about 5 mins, then gave up and hoped I didn't have to grab the front brakes too hard since I could barley reach them with the ill fitted glove. Off to Bainbridge via Havannah. We got there a bit wet, but nothing too bad. Got my gas, and pulled off from the pumps to go in and get some water. I'd already finish off my 2 litre camel pack on the ride in. I drank a 16 oz water in line, and then purchased that and a 32 oz water for the camel pak. It was then dad realized the gas pumps were running 30 mins fast on time. I checked the water receipt and the same thing. Not a big deal normally, but they were threatening to check all times between gas stops to prevent people from running 100mph between stops. I figured we were in the clear with stopping twice for rain gear and a bonus stop and we were not running fast anyway. But I HAD to get the problem glove on or go back to non-waterproof gloves. I tried this on the last stop, but it didn't work... I ran the fingers of the glove over the clutch handle until it bottomed out in the fingers. It took a few tries to get it right, After that my fingers went in fine, and I had no other issues. I was glad to have the waterproof gloves since the next 4 hrs were all in the rain. But the non-motorcycle, waterproof boots I bought... not so much. They were full of water in about 10 mins. That would not have much of a problem<br />
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except once the rain started. temps dropped from 90 to 45 degrees. My other rain gear kept the rain out, but I was so wet from sweat, I was soaked under my rain gear. Lets just say it was a bit chilly on the ride north. We made it to Cuthbert, GA in the rain for yet another gas stop. We ran into 4 more riders there. It was apparent that we all had the same basic router to get to Atlanta. Which was the right route for points and for weather. Our next stop was a plaque in Pine Mountain, GA, near Callaway. This is where my exact marker placement and street view came in handy. It took us a different<br />
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route than most, but it made for a better parking situation on the side of the hill we were on. That was a bit of a bad place to be on a motorcycle in the rain. But we got our photos and left. We saw 2 riders on the way in there, and 2 were at the location when we got there. On the way out, we ran back into the 2 we saw riding out, and tried to run with them to the next location but curvy roads and lack of passing zones and they lost us. Plus it was Ed Tillman and Richard Buber, and its almost impossible to ride with them. But we caught them and 3 other riders at the next location. There were 7<br />
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of us there trying to get a photo. Its weird you don't see them on the road, then we all end up at the same place. Goes to show you the different routes each person/gps chooses. Dad and I almost got split up in Columbus because my GPS said go one way and his said another. But we continued on to a grave yard just east of Atlanta, and there were 2 riders there already, and by the time we left 2 more coming in behind us. I was freezing so I took some extra time to get my jacket liner in. Which entailed taking off the gloves, rain jacket, riding jacket, zipping in the liner, and getting both jackets and gloves back<br />
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on again. Took way too much time, but worth the extra layer of insulation. We were about 30 mins behind. We made it to our last common stop north of Atlanta, and as soon as we pulled in, Ed and Richard pulled up behind us. We got our photos and parted ways. We were officially 45 mins behind. But I heard Richard tell Ed they were an hour and a half behind. So I didn't feel too bad about it. I followed those two for a while to get around Atlanta on the <strike>racetrack</strike> interstate. That place is hell to get through. But I survived and I was<br />
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on my own for the first time all day. And it was well past dark now and effin cold. I had 3 stops to make before I took my rest bonus. I had 3 lined up in a row off the interstate, and the plan was to get down the road closer to SC before I took my rest. But this was my first time riding in the dark in a looong time and the first time since my eye doc changed my contacts to correct one eye for astigmatism. I was having a harder time than normal seeing and focusing well in the dark . I was not able to ride as hard as I needed to, to make up any time. I got off the interstate to get my last 3 stops and passed a gas station. I looked down to see if I was OK, and I<br />
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had run about 325 miles on both tanks. I had plenty to make it to the town the last bonus was in so I kept going. Then 10 miles later I remember that we have a 350 mile max range between gas stops. It was after 11pm, and in bumfuck GA, most places are closed by 10. I pass a few that are closed before I finally find a gas station that is open. I pulled up, swiped my card... CARD READ ERROR. Crap. I grab another card... Accepted. I choose premium gas and start pumping. But the gas was trickling out, and the pump was not counting. WTF. I crank up the bike and go to another pump.<br />
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Swipe the card, this time choose mid grade, and it pumps $1.62 worth of gas and turns off. AND NO RECEIPT!!! So I go inside and tell the clerk I need $10 worth, and something is wrong with the pump I tried first. "Were you trying to get Premium or Mid grade?" Yes I was. " Oh. We aint got none of that." "Then you need to mark that on the pumps <strike>you dumb ass hillbilly</strike> so no one else does what I did." I grab the receipt and go. But the receipt only shows the dollar amount and not the amount of gallons purchased as required for the gas log. Well maybe I'll pass another open station in the next 10 miles and get a better receipt. NOPE! By<br />
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the time I found one I was over the 350 mile limit, so I would have to be to use the bad one at scoring. I get to the road to turn for the Ty Cobb monument, and the GPS says turn left. But the sign on the road points right. I'll follow the GPS since I know it was right from seeing it on street view. But as I pull up, the entire building is surrounded by temporary fencing due to it being under renovation. WTF! And as I peer through the fence, there is no monument. I took a photo of the construction, and headed back the other way to find where the sign was pointing. I found the location for the Ty Cobb<br />
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museum and got a photo of that and hoped it would be OK. I got the next monument photo without incident, and headed to the last one. It was a double, as the monument I needed was in front of a library. This would be the last one I needed to have the max of 4. So I got both photos and was done for the night as far as bonus hunting. It was 12:01am. I was wet, cold, an hour behind, pissed off, and ready to get off the bike. I pulled up hotels on the GPS and there was one .2 miles away, so that's where I headed.<br />
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There was already one bike in there with a Cape Fear sticker. I got checked in, took a hot shower with the drain stopped up to thaw out my feet, and created a new route to get to Wilmington in the least amount of time possible to be done with this crappy rally. Did I mention I was pissed. That's how miserable I was. So I plotted a new course, made up a new route cheat sheet, and went to bed. It was a bit past 1 am, but I set the alarm for 5 am. 5 am came way too soon.<br />
As the alarm went off, I jumped up, got dressed in dry clothes, packed the bike and went to check out. <br />
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How I did all that still asleep, I don't know but I did. When I finally got checked out, I was right at 5 hrs for a rest break. But I was rested, in a better mood, and ready for a new DRY day. As I'm headed to the Carolinas, I figure I was an hour behind, but I took an hour less rest break than scheduled, so I should be even for the day. I'll just go with my original route and be back in this rally. I pull up the first stop and get moving. As the sun is coming up, I decide to pull up the entire route in the GPS to see when I should arrive to the end just to be sure I was calculating it right in my head. According to the<br />
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computer, I should be there about 2:10. And if I was not behind, I could pick up on more high point bonus and head in. I have until 3 to make it to the finish. The GPS is telling me I'll be there AT 4:30!!! WTF!! How could the computer and Garmin be off that much. I check the route to be sure I didn't add the wrong one, or in the wrong order... Nope. WTF. I guess I was lucky I did the other route last night, because that is what I have to fall back on now. I pull off to fill up, and add the new route to the GPS. I get it all in and sure enough, I'll be in about 1:30 so I have all the time in the world now. <br />
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No sense of urgency at all. I start picking them off one by one, they were all easy, got my photos, and kept moving. After 7 of them, I was still way good on time, so I pulled up the way points to see if there were any more close enough to get. I picked up the last one, and 2 extras, and headed to Wilmington. I stopped 10 miles out to get the beer bonus 6-pack and eased it to the hotel. I just kept praying it didn't blow up at the end again. I made it to the finish at about 2:00 and started the scoring process.<br />
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Since I lost all the points from having to reroute the entire day, I could not leave any points at the table. <br />
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I checked and double checked, and triple checked my paperwork. I had it all ready and got scored out by Lisa Erbes. She was tough, but fair. The only points I ended up loosing were for the bad gas receipt that didn't show the gallons purchased. But it was only a 500 point penalty and not a full loss of the gas log bonus. That put me out with 42,xxx points. About 6000 points less than I had anticipated. But I figured it would be out of the top 10. I didn't bother going to shower before the meal this time as I was already in my clean clothes. I just hung around the conf room until dinner telling and listening to a lot of stories. But finally after the BBQ dinner, they finally got around to the door prizes and awards. Dad bought 5 raffle tickets and 2 were <br />
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winners so we got 2 Cape Fear ball caps. But we didn't win any of the cash. Once they finally got around to the winners they again did FL last. I was not 10th, 9th or 8th. Then they said how many points 7th got, so I knew I was out of the top 10. But dad was still in the running. 6th, 5th, 4th, 3rd... Still no dad. Then they called me up there to get my "top Finisher" polo shirt from last year's finish. Jim Bain made some comment about the Lee Family so at the point I was pretty sure Dad won it. I got my shirt and sat down, and they called Roni Bazenger to get his 2nd place plaque which meant Dad had pulled of the win!! They called his name as the winner and he went up to finally get a winners plaque in a rally. He's been doing these for 6 years and it finally all fell into place and he got the win. I was so happy for him. I hate to say proud, since he taught me how to do this rally stuff, but I was proud of him. He had a flawless ride, he got every point he went for, he did not have any issues... it all just worked as planned. He always told me. Plan your ride. Ride your plan. He kicked our butts with his plan. I was originally placed at 11th. But after they reviewed all the riders, I was bumped up to 9th. Still not bad out of 23 finishers. Had I got all my original points, I would have been 3rd. But that's a moot point. DAD WON! DAD WON! DAD WON!!!<br />
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Now WTF happend to my route to cause me to be so late on the GPS and early on the computer. It took me a while to figure it out. I rechecked the waypoints on the GPS vs the computer, and I was actually one short on the GPS. That would not cause me to be late. But when I got it zoomed way in on the GPS, my last leg from the bonus to the hotel was supposed to be on the I-40 south according to the computer. POS Garmin for some reason decided that I-40 was way to far to go from the last stop, and I need to run the last 120 miles on 2 lane back roads instead of the Interstate 10 MILES AWAY!!! What the hell Garmin! And more than likely, once I was closer to the end, it probably would have rerouted to the Hwy but I just didn't have the ability to see that on the GPS from where I was. Maybe I should go back to loading the route from S&T and deal with the screaming when I get off her route. I have to make up my mind and pick one way of doing it for Ed's Last Resort Rally 2013 in a couple weeks. <br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17949710209610441126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468865764554952696.post-57877158905263470862013-04-04T14:11:00.000-04:002014-04-18T08:33:07.081-04:00Grand Tour of Georgia 2013 - Leg 1The past few years, one of our crazy cults of long distance riders, Team Strange Airheads, has put together a ride in Georgia called the Grand Tour of Georgia. Its basically just an excuse to get out and ride around the state and actually tell the wife its got a purpose... To raise money for Eddies Road in support of at risk youth. They give you a 'passport' and you have to ride to the locations and get a photo of that location with your passport. Unlike most of my rides, you actually get 6 months to get to all the locations, vs the normal 12 hrs. And if you get the required 17 or more, then you get a certificate. Not my normal kind of ride, but a good one. So how can I turn it into one of MY rides. I have the Cape Fear 1000 coming up in mid April, and Ed's Last Resort in May, and very few miles on the bike since I dropped it in Nov. The GTG seems like it could make for a good warmup ride. I talked to dad about it and he agreed. Lest see if we can do this GTG in a day!!! We got signed up and awaited the 'bonus' locations. About a week later we got the email with the locations. I imported them all into Streets and Trips, selected them all and hit Get Directions... 1650 miles. Ok. Time to break it up. I do need the warmup ride, but I don't need to over do the warmup. So I broke it up a bit and started playing with multiple options. What I came up with was 2 rides. One with 750 miles, the other is 1200. That way we could work our way up to the longer ride. Weather was bad the first 2 free weekends, so finally we got a break of a free weekend and no thunder storms March 30th. Time to ride. The route was pretty simple. Leave the house, meet dad at a gas station on our route, and start picking off the locations. We would have 8 planned stops, one 'if we are ahead of schedule stop', most likely a lunch break and 1 or 2 gas stops. But we were not going to do this in full blown rally mode. Just a leisurely ride, off the bike stops for photos, and take our time. And that's what we did.<br />
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<a href="http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj258/eldouble/Grand%20Tour%20of%20Georgia%202013/D47C6B18-8260-4486-BE89-3B1B8C8A2C4E-2827-000000F9366E8540.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="http://i274.photobucket.com/albums/jj258/eldouble/Grand%20Tour%20of%20Georgia%202013/D47C6B18-8260-4486-BE89-3B1B8C8A2C4E-2827-000000F9366E8540.jpg" height="240" width="320" /></a>The first stop wasn't until almost to Jax. We planned that leg first since we left in the dark, and I-10 is boring at night when you are tired. So we got the crappy part done first. It was about 45 degrees when we left, but tolerable. I-10 lived up to its normal standards... long and boring. We shot north just before the city limits and went to find the Cherokee Tribal Grounds in St George, GA. I knew from google maps, it was behind a ball field, over the RR Tracks. GPS took us right to it. I followed the same process for just about every stop today... Got off the bike, took off my gloves, got my passport/camera/cell phone out of the tank bag, took a photo w my camera, then with the cell phone, and uploaded the photo to Facebook. Put it all up, got my gloves back on, and off we went. 5 to 10 mins per stop. NOT like my normal 2 min rally stops. So we got the photos and headed back over the tracks back to the road. I followed dad out since he got turned around first. Over the tracks and back to the main road. About 30 seconds later the train blew his horn and about scared dad off his seat. It was then I realized I rode over the tracks without even<br />
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looking for a train. 30 seconds later and that could have hurt a little bit! Lesson learned. Look both ways crossing railroad tracks.<span style="text-align: center;"> The second stop took us north up to Darien, Ga to Americas smallest church. It was just off 95 so an easy in and out. Got the photos and got back on the interstate. Traffic was thick with Spring Breakers headed to/from the southern beaches. But only once did a cager try and run into me from the side. We made it up to Pooler, GA where there is an aviation museum. We got off the hwy and my GPS said turn left now... dads </span><br />
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<span style="text-align: center;">said go to the next road and turn. We followed his route to a dead end where the road we needed to get on was under construction. So we back tracked and followed mine right to the plane. </span>He needed a photo of the A-4 Phantom jet parked in the lot. I'm sure there was some neat stuff in the building, but we took a quick look at the 2 other planes in the parking lot and headed out. Those Migs were tiny compared to the Phantom! We headed up 95 a bit more then took a left and headed NW a up the state line. We found the park and huge sign for the Battle of Briar Creek. Hopefully the battle took place during the time <br />
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of year that the gnats weren't there. I forget how bad they are in GA. GA has the gnats. FL has the noseeums. Not sure which is worse. But at least they weren't biting. Now we started our westerly ride. We were already 383 miles into the ride and past lunch time. We had probably seen 5 or so BBQ places so far on the ride so we decided to stop at the next one to eat. We made it to Statesborough and finally punched in a Sonny's in the GPS since we had not seen anything else. When we got there it had been converted to a taco joint. So I pulled up the next closest place which ended up being a Shane's <br />
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Rib Shack. Kinda like a Joe's Crab Shack... but with counter service. But the hard wooden chairs left something to be desired after 7 hours in the saddle. We finished up and made our way to our next bonus. My GPS told me it was on the right. Dad had his eyes open and saw it was on the left, and only clued me in after I passed it. Thanks pops! Luckily there was somewhere to turn around. I got my photos of the horse drawn funeral coach and continued on. We made the short jaunt over to Abbeville, GA and found the Wild Hog Express caboose. We took a few extra photos of us and the the bikes in the pictures. <br />
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Something we hadn't done all day. Stop number 7 on the list was an old steam locomotive in Sylvester, GA. We had had our Sena headsets in intercom mode all day, but mine finally gave out before we got to the train. I took it off and plugged in in to charge all the way to the next stop in my tank bag. We took the pics and got back on the road. Our last stop ended up being in Boston, GA. We parked in front of the Carnegie Library and took our photos. It was getting close to dark so we decided not to go for one more since technically we were behind schedule. I hooked the headset back up, since it <br />
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had about an hour to charge, and it ended up making it all the way home. I led dad back to his house, and he peeled off behind me while I continued on. I made it in, right at 14.5 hrs, and a total of 725 miles. It was a long day, and there was a tinge of discomfort a few times, but much less than anticipated. And the next morning... nothing. I felt like I hadn't been on the bike at all. Nice. I guess I am ready for the Cape Fear 1000. Now to fix the front fork leak I discovered. <br />
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Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17949710209610441126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468865764554952696.post-84769808744233572462012-12-14T13:32:00.000-05:002013-03-13T09:44:52.891-04:00Fire and Ice - 2012 Digital Scavenger HuntIts 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. <br />
Here are some before and after shots:<br />
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<span style="text-align: center;">But it was </span><span style="text-align: center;">definitely</span><span style="text-align: center;"> worth all the headaches and backaches:</span><br />
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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!<br />
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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. <br />
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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". <br />
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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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!<br />
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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. 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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. <br />
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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. <br />
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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. <br />
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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. <br />
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MilesAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17949710209610441126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468865764554952696.post-89727103625325864522012-06-21T21:01:00.002-04:002012-08-08T10:24:42.641-04:00Ed's Last Resort Rally 2012We 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!<br />
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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. <br />
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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.<br />
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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 no<span style="background-color: white;">one was late. Not a single DNF! I was just glad I was done. </span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;">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. </span><br />
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MilesAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17949710209610441126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468865764554952696.post-28042981482727403292012-04-30T12:18:00.003-04:002013-03-13T11:02:45.554-04:00Cape Fear 1000 - 2012<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieOHMm0wMoEich_W7HSD3GloJQQ2lhAvztyQSxwjROA7gBy6VTdL87NMksH3_dxqxkVNBbciqVKvN-kr2pITluLGm98fvh9wDMU6-hpoyzIJh0CfE3ksNX06GS30lDdDAmL31y9QHOvYg/s1600/coolantleak.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="180" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEieOHMm0wMoEich_W7HSD3GloJQQ2lhAvztyQSxwjROA7gBy6VTdL87NMksH3_dxqxkVNBbciqVKvN-kr2pITluLGm98fvh9wDMU6-hpoyzIJh0CfE3ksNX06GS30lDdDAmL31y9QHOvYg/s320/coolantleak.jpg" width="320" /></a>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)<br />
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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!! <br />
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.<br />
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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. <br />
<br />
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.<br />
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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.<br />
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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. <br />
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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. <br />
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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. <br />
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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,<br />
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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<br />
friends led him away. The next bonus required me to get a photo of Zimmy the Turkey at the National Wild<br />
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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.<br />
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! <br />
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.<br />
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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. <br />
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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.<br />
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.<br />
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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. <br />
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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!<br />
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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!<br />
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Miles<br />
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<br />Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17949710209610441126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468865764554952696.post-85332548419186724702011-12-02T13:52:00.003-05:002012-02-17T14:11:09.449-05:00The Long Riders Digital Scavenger Hunt 2011My final organized ride of 2011 was The Long Riders - Digital Scavenger Hunt. The Long Riders are a group of riders spread out in the South East... primarily in Florida, that get together pretty much every weekend and make a short ride for lunch. Short means anything from 100 to 1000 miles round trip... I met a few of them at Ed's Last Resort Rally 2011, and was turned onto their <a href="http://forums.delphiforums.com/n/main.asp?webtag=FLlongriders&nav=start&prettyurl=%2FFLlongriders%2F%3F" target="_blank">online forum</a>. I also heard about the rally they put on. As soon as they opened up registration, I signed up. Literally!! I was the first one registered. <br />
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The Digital Scavenger Hunt 2011 was titled and themed "Nautical and Naughty" which led most of us to believe we'd be looking for boats and strip clubs. FL and South GA has a lot of both. But of course the Rally Masters tend to be sneaky, so I didn't think too hard about it. The rally dates were Nov 4-6th. The RM was very nice and sent out the bonus locations in digital format about a week before the event to ensure we had enough time to input the waypoints into our GPSs. But we got no descriptions or point values for the locations. Some were obvious, like the submarine in Kings Bay, GA... and the Blue Angels jet @ NAS Jax. But most were still a mystery. Enter... Google Maps. I was able to narrow down 90% of the locations and what was there using Google Maps and its Street View option. That really helped find out what place or object we were looking for. But again, without point values or descriptions there was no route planning that could be done. But I knew I wanted to go to Kings Bay to see the Sub memorial since it was not erected until after I was stationed there in 1996-2000. But I made 3 very rough routes just to get an idea of which places I could get to and back in the 10 hours we had. The rally was based out of Dade City, FL which is west of Orlando, and North of Tampa... pretty much in the middle of FL. I planned one route NW up through Tallahasee, one NE up to JAX and Kings Bay, and a 'southern' loop through Tampa, Occechobee, and Miami areas. Those routes I would build around once we got the rally packs. I preped the bike with an oil change for the engine and rear drive, cleaned the air filter, and tested the aux tank to ensure I wouldn't be stranded like dad was when he had this tank last year. I was out of work the week up to the rally, so I did a practice run with 5 local landmarks, my new waterproof camera, and a new 'special process' to help speed up my bonus location stops. I wanted to be sure I had my process perfected before the rally. For most rallys you get a rally flag with your rider number on it. You place your rally flag on, or in view of, the bonus location and take a picture of them both. Sometimes the bonus description states your motorcylcle AND rally flag must be visible in the photo along with the bonus. You also have to write down in your rider log, the time and your odometer reading while at each location for final scoring. All these things are to prove you were at the location and didn't send a friend to get the photo for you while you were some where else. I do things a bit different than some to speed up my stops. I don't write anything in the rally log during the ride itself. This prevents me from having to get to the location, get off the bike, get out the rally pack from the saddle bag, find the page the bonus location is on, find the bonus entry (70 in this pack), read the description, figure out if I need just the flag in the photo, or the bike and the flag, get and turn on the digital camera, place the rally flag in view of the bonus, take the picture, take more pictures if need be, retrieve the flag, store the flag and camera, write down the time and odo reading in the rally pack, store the rally pack in the saddle bags, remount the bike, hope it starts, and drive off to the next stop to do the process over again. Thats a lot of steps to do at each location, and it takes a lot of time. I know... thats how I did my first rally. For my second rally, I wrote down what I needed to get at each location in a pocket size notebook I kept in my tankbag, to minimize my off the bike time. But for that rally, there was no flag or photo requirement. For this rally I tweaked to process even more to add the camera and flag requirement. The complete process is currently on a NEED TO KNOW basis, and right now, you dont need to know! Actually I <strike>stole</strike> borrowed the idea from a rider in another rally I read about in one of his ride reports like this one. In short... it greatly reduces the off the bike time even with the camera and rally flag requirement. The only bonuses I got off the bike for were the ones that req the bike in the photo too. My dad had the need to know, so he used the same process. He qualified for his need to know by giving me the aux fuel cell. So if you want to be in the know... I'm taking tire, and Zumo donations. :) Its guarnteed to save 2-5 mins at each photo stop !! 2mins times 17 stops... thats 34 mins. 85 mins on the high side. That could be 2 or 3 more bonuses you could add to your route! <br />
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Two days before the Rally, we got the rally pack with the bonus descriptions and their point values... most of them. Part of the format of this years rally, is some of the bonuses were "Pot Luck" which means, the riders had no idea of the point value of the bonus until we were at the scoring table. But we were told they were somewhere between 300 and 2000 points. That throws a lil kink in the planning. And we were also informed that we would not find out what the Nautical and Naughty wildard bonuses were until the Friday night riders meeting. But we do know they are in addition to the normal bonus locations in the rally pack. At least now we can really start planning routes. The point values for the southern loop were way to low and too spread out make it an option for me. I focused on the NW and NE loops. I knew how to get to 3 of the NW locations near Tallahassee... One of them is 3 miles from my house! But I couldn't get the points up high enough to compare to the NE route up to Kings Bay, GA. It was my first gut reaction to go there before points were known, and now the sub was the highest point value bonus on the ride. I had to go there! Plus there was a multi state gas bonus so GA was a must. I planned my route to GA and back, and would only tweak it if the wildcard Nautical and Naughty bonuses were worth a lot of points. I was done planning and it was the day before the rally! No staying up til 2 am plugging in cooridnates and rally planning like Eds. Nice.<br />
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I got up Fri morning and sent the kids and wife off to school and work. Got everything packed, and did my last once over on the bike. Tires on pressure. Oil and brake fluid levels good. New GPS cradle secured. But I noticed a little antifreeze on the right side of the engine, on the cowl. Not much.. just a few green streaks. I popped the cap off the radiator and pour in about 4 oz of water. No biggie. I plug up the GPS and enter in the addres for the hotel. Funny... no sounds. I guess its on mute. Nope. It has a big loud speaker in its cradle for use as a speaker phone in the car. That was now dead. I normally couldn't hear what it was saying on the hwy due to the noise and the helmet anyway, but I could hear noises to alert me to look at it. Now I didn't even have that. I'll have to watch it more carefully now. Too late and too expensive to replace on the way to the rally. And now I have to keep an eye on the antifreeze too. Off to Dade City.<br />
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I happened to pass a few of the bonus locations on the way down as they were right on my route on HWY 98. But since I wasn't planing on taking that route, no biggie. BUT... just incase I changed my mind, I'll scope out 2 more that are just off the beaten path. But of course there is nothing to gain but knowlege that the bonus location is indeed where the GPS says it is. (Another reason you get your rally flag the night before the rally) At one stop in BFE, I check my phone and see I missed a call from my job recruiter (i'm out of work remember). No signal, so I couldn't check the voicemail. Once I get back into civilization, I check the VM and all he says is to call him. I did and got his VM... time for phone tag! Then I got an email from the recruiting company to call him. Replied back that I did and got his VM, but I was on the motorcycle headed south and will be unable to answer the phone and out of coverage for a portion of the trip anyway. I keep heading south. The phone rang again while riding, so I waited till I found a parking lot to pull off in. Of course the roach motel was nowhere near a cell tower. So I kept on down the road until I got into Chiefland, FL. I think they have one cell tower. I pulled off and finally got to speak to my recruiter. He informed me that the company I had done 3 previous interviews with, was officially offering me the position. Which I excitedly accepted! I am now the IT Manager for Star and Shield Insurance. That was a load off. I could now focus on the rally, and not worry about gas money to get home :) I called the wife to let her know the good news, and that she could return the pallet of ramen noodles. I continued on to Dade City with no more stops. <br />
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I met up with dad at the hotel about 2 hours before the riders meeting/dinner. I trained him up on the special photo taking process, and gave him the items he needed to do it. We met up with a few of the other riders as they were trickling in. Let the lies and trash talking begin :) We talked routes, and stategies, and such. Rule of thumb is... whoever is telling you their best route... you agree with them and remember they most likely are lying! Or if their route matches yours, you steer them off of it to keep the advantage. We are evil! And when they tell you they are going for the bonus across the street from UFs stadium, you forget to tell them that its homecoming weekend and the roads are packed or blocked off. Or that a particular bonus is 10 miles down a dirt road. HEY... I looked it up. So can they :) But most of the time we do really help each other out. Buber programmed 2 other riders GPSs for them. The guilty (Ed) shall remain (Ernie) nameless. After a little while, we all headed out to the riders meeting at a restaurant to eat and get our rally flags.<br />
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At the riders meeting we finally got clarifacation on the Nautical and Naughty bonuses. Nautical photo bonuses were 400 points for each picture of anything nautical... but just not 'right'. A lighthouse nowhere near water... a boat on the ground... that sort of thing. But the Naughty bonus was not related to establishments of ill repute as many of us thought... but places they put people that have been naughty... prisons and jails. There is no way to plan a route to look for boats on the ground... but you CAN find prisons. Crap! Time to re-route when we get back to the hotel. Naughty bonuses were worth 300 points, so they could be worth it if on your main route. Pot Luck were still unknown point values. We headed back to hotel with a stop to fill up our tanks and fuel cells. <br />
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Once back at the hotel, searches for prisons on my route commenced. I found a good number of them, and was able to bypass some of the lower point, hard to get bonuses in favor of the prisons on the main route. I finally settled on a route around 11pm and got them all loaded into my GPS. I filled out my cheat sheet notebook for the tankbag, and went to bed. I was going to make 19 total stops, 3 being Pot Luck, and 7 naughty bonues. I scheduled a 9hr route, so I could get the 30 min lunch bonus, and still have a 30min cushion. I would look for nautical bonuses while riding, but none were pre-planned. <br />
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We had another riders meeting before the start in the hotel with the free crappy hotel continental breakfast. We had to seal up our registration and drivers license in an envelope for the 'No Speeding' bonus. If it comes back still sealed, you get 500 points. Then we got one more new option to score some more bonus points. You had the option of carrying with you a Grade A, Farm Fresh, numbered egg (not boiled) and if it made the trip back... it was worth 2000 points. If it broke, you would lose 1000 points! The kicker was... you had to take a photo of it every 100 miles, plus or minus 3. I really did not want to be on the shoulder of I-95 or I-4 trying to get a photo of an egg, or possibly lose 1000 points if I broke it... so I passed on the egg bonus. We all headed for the bikes, as the start time was closing in. I checked the antifreeze situation, and poured in another 4oz of water. I figured it wouldn't be an issue on the ride, if it only lost 4 oz in the 5 hrs of riding to the rally and dinner. I suited up, set the GPS to my first location, and activated my SPOT tracker. It was right at start time, so I headed over the to starting cones. Ray just let the first 2 riders go, so I was headed out # 3. He got my ODO reading, start time, and off I went. Its always good to get a jump on most everyone! Then waiting 5 mins at the 2 stop lights to get to the Interstate, half the field was right behind me. So much for a starting advantage.<br />
<br />
I had my route planned before the Naughty bonus explanation, but I pretty much followed the same route after I added all the jails. My first 2 stops were changed from the low point value bonuses to jails. The first one was in Bushnell, 20 mins from the start. It was still dark when I arrived, so it took me a few camera shots at 2 differnt signs to get a valid photo of the sign and my rally flag. I got it and was gone. I passed my dad as he was coming in to get it. Garmin decided not to take me back to the interstate, but a 2 lane rd that hit I75, 5 miles up the road. I passed a ton of cops going/leaving work as there was a huge Sherriffs office just up the road from the jail. Once I got past all that, it was nothing but pastures for 5 miles. Just before I got to the interchange to get back on 75, one of those cops headed to work was feeling a bit excited to be on the job and flipped around and lit me up. My GPS said 65... but I was in a 55 zone.<br />
"Do you know why I pulled you over?" <br />
"I guess because I was doing 65 in a 55???"<br />
"No. You were doing 66."<br />
"Oh. Well my GPS said 65, and speedo said 62, but OK."<br />
Here it comes.... "License and registration please." <br />
"Sir if I open this envelope, I loose 500 points."<br />
Blank stare...................... So I rip it open and give it him. <br />
"Mr Lee, where are you headed."<br />
"Actually I'm headed up to Kings Bay, GA, down to Daytona, then back to Dade City. I'm in a motorcycle rally."<br />
Blank stare..................... "Whats that thing on the back of the bike?"<br />
"Its an extra fuel tank so I can ride 350 miles without stopping for gas."<br />
Blank stare..................... "Wait right here," as he heads back to this car. <br />
I wave at a few riders as they are riding by on the interstate. He comes back with his ticket book, asks me the make and model of the bike, and hands me the ticket book to sign. "Mr. Lee, this is just a written warning. But I'm putting this into the system, so If you get pulled over again, you will get a ticket." <br />
"Thank you sir. That won't be an issue."<br />
"Slow it down," as he hands me a pink slip and license back. <br />
"Yes sir," as I'm rushing as slowly as I can to get back on the bike and leave. <br />
<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">Now, I'm 500 points, and I don't know how many minutes, behind. I thought I was only stopped for about 10 mins, but I really didn't have a clue. I hit the interstate to get headed to my my next jail in Ocala. I didn't see any riders on the way there, so I figured I got passed by all of them that were headed the same direction. As I was stopped at the red light at the bottom of the off ramp, dad pulled up beside me. He gave me confused look as he knew I was ahead of him at the first jail we went to. I followed him to the Ocala jail and once stopped, I started my on-the-bike flag and sign photo process. Dad started his off the bike, put the flag on the sign photo process. I went through all that planning and training for you NOT to use it... Hey. Whatever. I was ready to leave as he was gettin his picture. I think from that point on he used the on-the-bike method since he saw how much faster it was. I explained the getting pulled over fun I had... and he figured out thats how he caught me. So I still thought at that point I was only 10 mins behind schedule. I hit my next waypoint on the GPS and headed out. The next bonus was a histrical marker and caboose in Waldo. I was on back roads most the way there and the sun was up, so I started looking for boats on the ground as I figured there'd be plenty with all the shady homes on the back roads. But then I realize... If I pull up in some of these run down domicile driveways, I may stir up more trouble than I want. I passed 2 or 3 boats being used as pit bull houses... Nope. Not worth getting eaten or shot. And this was the case the rest of the day!!! I found the caboose and got my picture of the bike, flag, 2 historical markers, AND the caboose... all in one photo. Another rider was pulling up, as I was headed out. That was the last rally rider I saw until 45 mins from the end. I passed a road sign pointing down a side road for a correctional facility that was NOT on my list. I was in the boonies, so I figured it couldn't be too far down the road. It wasn't. Stopped and got my photo and avoided the security guard coming at me to see what I was doing. I waved as I took off. One TRUE wild card as it was not planned at all. Next stops were NE of Jax in and around Yulee. There was a Giant golf ball, an adult prison, one of my Pot Lucks...the Jacksonville Vetrans Cemetary, and another prison... all within a few miles of each other. I even found a juvenile prison not on my list. More points! I didn't get off the bike once. I texted a Navy friend of mine to meet me at the sub memorial in St Marys, and headed to my old stomping grounds. </div><div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;"><img border="0" closure_uid_yp67b8="96" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgi9bw5jeaGaYKHFTrmAceB4ArALcn5gnhWEOCxvKb_JK7El4nfAURxmKdGJMNcW4tc-RqCPWlgYCrKkPd8zBfwGRVtd4DMyz5M_mxjykoS-moiYjW7aI5skGuRT2KkretLXw9KerQfqgo/s320/C10-Sub.jpg" width="320" yda="true" /> I got there and got the photo of my bike, flag, and sub from the road. That was the first time off the bike in a couple hours. My friend wasn't there so I left to get gas for the 2 state gas bonus. I figured I'd take my lunch bonus there too as it was in the lunch window now. I filled up the main tank, and aux tank at a BP station, and sure enough... no address on the receipt. So I go inside to get a receipt. NO ADDRESS ON THE RECEIPT!! Just a station ID #. So I head out to find another gas station. I find a gas station with a Subway next door. As I pull up to the pump I see a receipt hanging out of the machine. It has the address, with the state showing. I pumped 25 cents of gas to get my scorable receipt, as that was all the tank would hold. I ran into Subway and ordered my lunch. I think the couple working there thought I was weird, since it was only after I ordered, called in the bonus, and took a picture of my lunch and flag, that I took off any of my gear. I texted my friend again and told him where I was and the exact time I was leaving. I never heard from him.... Slacker Jeremy sleeping till noon! Headed to NAS Jax.</div>Its a quick 45 mins or so to NAS Jax, but even with Garmin's latest update, the new I-95/I-10 setup in Jax is not in there correctly. But I found my way to the road headed to NAS Jax. I knew there was an airshow that day, so traffic may be an issue. But I figured I was there 2 hours after it started, so it shouldn't be too bad. And it wasn't... until I got to the road everyone was turning on to get to the airfield. 2 turn lanes backed up 50 cars deep. I knew the plane was outside the gate, and visible from the road, so I passed everyone thinking worst case, I'd block traffic leaving the show for a min while I got my photo in front of the median. But I saw, once I got to the intersection, there were NO cars coming from the other direction, and there was a turn around spot in the median 100 yrds up the road. So I flipped around there, and stopped on the shoulder of the turn lane into the airfield and got my photo of the Blue Angles jet and flag. Flipped around again at the intersection and was gone... 2 mins. <br />
My next planned stops had 4 grouped together in St Augustine. Once I got to I95 South, I started figuring in my head, how much time I had to get back to Dade City, versus all my stops I had to make. I knew it was going to take 2 hours from Daytona to get back to the finish. I still don't have a route in the GPS... I just go bonus to bonus. So I don't have time-to-bonus and time-to-finish calculated for me. But I do have my expected arrival times for each bonus. I was going to be 1hr behind getting to my first stop in St. Augustine. At that point I knew I would have to drop a few places. I used to live in Daytona and know my way around pretty good, and there were 5 places there to stop. So I opted to drop all St. Augustine locations and head to Daytona. I hit the first waypoint in Daytona on the GPS, and I was still going to be a little behind.<br />
Once I got to the Daytona area, I knew I would have to still drop something to be able to finish on time. I got to the first stop in Holly Hill and got my flag and caboose photo. Then Ms Garmin tried to send me dead West to get to another location, then right back dead East to head to the next one... so I opted to drop the two out west, and if time allowed pick them up on the way out of of town. I made it to Sugarmill Garderns... another Pot luck, and got my photo. I used to play in that park as a kid, as we lived a few blocks away for about a year. Then I headed to another Po Po station for a jail bonus... literally across the street from dads neighborhood. 2 mins gone... Headed further south for my last jail photo and another pot luck in New Smyrna. Hit the last waypoint to see how much time I had, and if I could hit the hwy and go get the last 2 jails in Daytona... It showed I had a 5 min window to get to the last stop and back to Dade City, AND I still needed a gas receipt in FL without going back to the last 2 stops. So I headed west to I4 and started to the house. Weekend traffic was HEAVY to and through Orlando. Luckily I brought my SunPass and got on the Turnpike as soon as I could. No traffic after that. Somewhere off the Turnpike and past Groveland, I pulled up at a light next to another rally rider. I asked if he'd gotten any Nautical bonuses, since I hadn't seen any. He said "No... oh wait. I did get a pic of a jetski on the ground." I told him I hadn't gotten any. We rode through the lil town together, and as soon as we cleared all the lights... wouldn't ya know it. A jet ski on the ground. I pointed to it so he could see it, did a U-y and rode up the sidewalk to get the photo. He kept going. I ran him down about 20 mins later, and as soon as I got to him, he pulled off for gas. I wanted to bag the last bonus, before I stopped for gas, so I continued on to the Lighthouse restaurant to get my last photo of the bike and lighthouse. And wouldn't you know... right next to it was a boat on the ground. Got 2 photos for 2 bonuses. Of course with needing to get off the bike for a bike-in-the-picture shot, this stop took a bit longer. But when I pulled up, there were 2 riders already there that had already taken their photos and were packing up. I asked if they got a picture of the boat too for the nautical bonus. They had not, and thanked me for reminding them. I got my photos and was gone in 3 mins. They must have been there at least 10 as they started unpaking their gear again for another photo as I was leaving.<br />
I stopped right before Dade City's historic downtown for a splash of gas and a receipt. Downtown... right where we had to check in... was a car show. All the side roads were blocked off trying to get to the check in area. We had to go past the road we need to be on, and circle back behind it, and ride through some baracades. I made it in with 15 mins to spare. I possibly could have gotten those last 2 bonuses in Daytona... but it wasn't worth DNFing. I was done! I had ridden exactly 500 miles in 10 hrs, made 17 stops for bonuses, 3 stops for gas, and 1 stop for lunch. Not bad. Time to go do paperwork.<br />
<br />
This time, I was determined not to leave ANY points on the table due to clerical errors. That is the drawback for doing all my entries in the notebook vs right on the rally pack. Its easy to overlook something, forget something, or write something wrong. But I took my time and got my package together. And even thought there were 5 or 6 scorers, I waited 30 mins or so in line to get scored. But it went pretty fast once I was at the table since I had everything ready and in order. I did good... I didn't loose ANY points at the table. The only points I lost were the License points from being pulled over. But having to drop 4 places in St. Augustine, I knew I wasn't going to win. But I still hoped for a top ten. Ended up 8th! 20 points behind dad. Not bad.<br />
<br />
I still don't know where I lost an hour of time during the ride. Getting stopped didn't help, but it wasn't an hour. I built my route on Streets and Trips, then entered the waypoints into the Garmin. Mine still doesn't support uploading routes like the Zumos and 2600/2700/2800s. So I may need to look into how much different the S&T route was compared to my Garmin route. When I created the route within the GPS, the times were within 5 mins. But once it recalculates on the road, there is no telling what it does. Maybe I just wasn't riding fast enough :)<br />
<br />
Made the freezing ride home to Crawfordville that night. Dad rode with me the whole way and stayed at my house. We got in around 2am. Passed about 50 deer within 20 miles of the house, so we were taking it easy through there. We rode handlebar to handlebar most of the way back since no one was on the road that late. That was cool. Parked the bikes and we crashed til morning. It wasn't until the next morning when dad was headed out that I noticed the pool of fluid under my bike. And all the antifreeze on BOTH sides of the motor. I've since tracked it down to a leak from the thermostat housing wheree it mounts to the cooling log. Hopefullly just the O ring. Problem is... I have to take off the carb rack to get to it for repairs. I have yet to start that project a month later :( Too much going on lately. But now with another paycheck coming in, I think its time to start on it. I may find a few other things that just HAVE to be replaced around Christmas time. Like a new cooling hose, tires, or Zumo :) !!!<br />
<div class="separator" style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none; clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVdueUa0wh1Ye6TdbyhV_VDYFCwsMFXatU-vTYOFoej-yejgmWPsP12qd68Y93elXQKfA4Axg076EcpOpfgm4pIJafu8FVyuW6z_I3ksErkEj-Xti4egWQ0zy2EO1wnty6Ij3A7aE5eok/s1600/C10-Sub.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhVdueUa0wh1Ye6TdbyhV_VDYFCwsMFXatU-vTYOFoej-yejgmWPsP12qd68Y93elXQKfA4Axg076EcpOpfgm4pIJafu8FVyuW6z_I3ksErkEj-Xti4egWQ0zy2EO1wnty6Ij3A7aE5eok/s320/C10-Sub.jpg" width="320" yda="true" /></a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17949710209610441126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468865764554952696.post-72922383080997086032011-09-20T14:22:00.000-04:002011-09-20T14:22:53.389-04:00Aux Fuel Tank InstallOnly twice on the last rally would a bigger gas tank had come in handy. I only had two gas stops in Ed's Last Resort Rally 2011 that were just gas stops, and not documenting where I was, or required for a bonus. But skipping those 2 stops could have saved me +/- 15 mins. Not a huge deal, but considering I came in 15 mins early, and add those 15 mins in... thats 30mins that possibly could have led to one more bonus stop. And on the SS1000, it also would have saved me 2 gas stops in between mandatory stops. But almost all veteran rally riders have an aux tank, and since dad was offering one up, I jumped on it. Even if the tank was full of gremlins and left dad out of gas on the side of the road, 15 mins from the end of a rally.... WITH GAS STILL IN IT.<br />
The Concours already has a 7 gal fuel tank... one of the largest on a motorcycle... but an extra 4 gals increases the the range another 50%. Luckily it came off of a Concourse, so all the mounting was easy as can be. I had to loose my top trunk, which is a huge storage loss, but I probably carry too much crap with me in the other bags anyway. I removed all the trunk hardware, and added the mounting hardware for the tank. Easy as pie. Bolted the straps around the tank, and to the mounting platform... a few bolts short. No problem... Fuel lines too short!! It was late so I quit for the night, and went to get the new lines and a T fitting the next morning. Tried a few different routes for the line, so all the bodywork would work without crimping the line anywhere. Finally got it all routed, tie wrapped, and ready to test. I went to the gas station with a gas can (the main tank was emptied for the install) and got 2 gals of gas. I poured it all in the aux tank, since it should flow into the main tank. Luckily there is a see through filter where it comes out of the aux tank. I saw it was half full of gas, and half full of water!! I turned the valve off and dumped the water out of the filter. All good right! I get it cranked up, and warmed up, and start down the road to go fill up the tank. It dies 50 ft from the house. Cranks up, but dies with any throttle input. WTH. I figured water made it into the carb float bowls, so I drained them and started it back up. Within seconds, the filter was full of water again! I checked it before I installed it... nothing poured out of it so I figured I was good. Apparently, there was a lot of moisture in the foam inside the tank. So few sloshes, and more filter / carb dumps I was off again to the gas station, with a gas can, for more gas. This time I put a gal in the main tank, and the other gal in the aux tank. I was hoping to see the gas gauge move up to "see" the gas fill from the aux to the main tank. I took it out for a ride, and watched the gauge. Nothing! Gauge stayed on dead empty. I'm thinking I inherited the gremlins that were in the tank before! I ran the bike with the fuel petcock on ON, RESERVE, PRIME... nothing. Dead empty. The kids were outside playing, so I took a break to play with them, and think about what is wrong. When I get back to it, gas was leaking all over the bottom of the bike, onto the ground. WTF. Oh... I left it on PRIME. Gas was flowing out of the carb, into the air filter housing, and leaking out. I turned the petcock to ON (there is no OFF.. OFF is On with bike OFF.. got it), aux tank OFF, and let it air dry for a bit. I took it back out for a ride to be sure it wasn't flooded too bad with gas. Seemed to be fine. I parked it for good that day... outside in case something else decides to spring a leak. My thoughts at this point are... the 1/4" fuel line from the aux tank is small, so the fuel is flowing SLOW. Barely faster than what the bike was using. And the gas was so low in the main tank, that it wouldn't show any changes on the gauge even if all the fuel made it into the main. It shows empty at about 5 gals used, not 7. So that makes sense I didn't see it move.<br />
The next day after work, I suit up for another test ride. A longer ride this time. I drove it to the gas station, filled up the aux tank to the top, and filled up the main tank until the gauge read about 1/2. That way I could watch it move. Off I went. I took it out for about 30 - 40 mins, and the gauge moved a bit to the plus side, but nothing drastic. But when I got home, the aux tank was more than half empty, so I know it was working, most likely just feeding the motor more then filling the main... but at least its working!! Still a hint of water in the fuel filter so a bit more maintenance/full tank runs will be required. But now I can ride 325 - 350 miles before I go on reserve, and then I have another 50 miles to go. But thats well over 4 hours in the saddle, which is probably long enough without stopping. Time for a BBG1500!!<br />
<br />
MilesAnonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17949710209610441126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468865764554952696.post-11784366236850408252011-08-23T15:20:00.000-04:002011-08-23T15:20:26.191-04:00Iron Butt Certification RideI mentioned Iron Butt rides in an earlier post, so now its time to look into riding one. The shortest Iron Butt ride is 1000 miles, in 24hrs. I wasn't sure the bike would make it or not, and I didn't want to be 500 miles from home and it break down. I decided to wait until Ed's Last Resort Rally 2011 to be the first time I put the Kawasaki on the road for any considerable time or distance. In the 2009 rally I rode less than 400 miles. So I figured I'd never be more than 2 hours away from the finish in case I needed to call for help, broke down on the side of the road on this untested bike. This will be a good test to see if is ready for a sustained long haul. If she breaks, she breaks. I had no idea I'd have to ride over 700 miles in the '11 rally. And after getting my free entry into the Cape Fear 1000 next year, I had to complete an Iron Butt ride since you have to be an Iron Butt member to get into the rally! <br />
<br />
Dad turned me onto the <a href="http://www.mctourer.com/">Motorcycle Tourer's Forum</a>, which is one of the largest online forums for the crazies that ride bikes loooooong distances. They host group rides a few times a year around the country for people that want to do Iron Butt rides, but never get around to it. This way you are motivated by a set day to do the ride and get it done. I signed up for the June 4th, 2011 Regional SS1000 out of Jacksonville. Normally for an Iron Butt ride, you need a starting witness, plan a sufficient route to do 1050 miles (50 more miles in case of speedometer inaccuracies), then find an ending witness. Fill out all the paperwork and submit it to the Iron Butt Association for review... Lots of stuff to figure out, and easy to screw up. But you can start from anywhere. With this scheduled group ride, it was all planned out. All you had to do was show up to the starting point. We were given the required route a few days in advance, which for this ride was all within the state of FL. The witness would be there with the required paperwork for the start and finish, review our receipts, and submit all the information to the IBA for us. How easy is that! You just have to start and finish at the same place. In Jax. 3 hours from the house. Dad said he'd ride with me, just for fun, so he signed up too. Neither one of us wanted to spend the $ on a hotel on Jax Beach, so we decided just to get up a bit early an ride out from his place in Daytona. Yes it would add 90 un-counted miles to the start and end of the ride, but after 1050, whats 180 more...<br />
<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>I left Tallahassee after work on the 3rd and headed to Daytona. Its a 4 hour ride, so made it in around 9. When I got there, dad's wife was really sick, and dad said he wasn't sure if he was going to be able to make the ride or not. He'd wait to see how she was in the morning. 4 am came quick, and he got me up. She was feeling worse, so he said they would be headed to the Dr. He gave me his SPOT GPS tracker, so he could track me on the ride. It also has an SOS button, so no matter where I was, I could hit the button and help would be sent. This is good if there is no cell reception somewhere in BFE, and the bike is broke... or wrecked. So a lil after 4:30 I headed out to Jax Beach for the start. The start window was 6 - 7am, at a Gate gas station. You use computer generated receipts to prove your start time, route, and stop time. Easiest place to get those is gas pumps, plus you need gas anyway... I figured if I get to the starting line just when the window opens, I'd just ride with the others doing the ride. I knew of 2 people doing the ride with touring bikes, and the others were on cruisers. I would just ride with the other touring bikes since our gas stops were less frequent than the cruisers. Plus one was on a Connie like me! I took it easy getting there, and saw the sign for the Gate at 10 mins after 6am. And I saw ALL the other riders pulling out starting their ride! They were not wasting any time.<br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh8PxRGHE7fFc99IVlt4Pmmy3CoQlP7qnFQaO3ZItkjaxwys-R5d88woxLfM1YkLjf4YafMsqFauHV10MwD3NwEkK0E43yaG4yS2wM2R158un1UUpxS1EzRDQFUq10GoEjwgw4PxNALdY/s1600/SS1000-1.jpg.crdownload" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgh8PxRGHE7fFc99IVlt4Pmmy3CoQlP7qnFQaO3ZItkjaxwys-R5d88woxLfM1YkLjf4YafMsqFauHV10MwD3NwEkK0E43yaG4yS2wM2R158un1UUpxS1EzRDQFUq10GoEjwgw4PxNALdY/s320/SS1000-1.jpg.crdownload" width="320" /></a>I pull in and see Ray King who is the ride coordinator. I inform him dad wasn't going to making the ride, but he'd email him my SPOT tracking info so he could see where I was on the ride. He got my odometer reading, I signed some paperwork, he signed my trip log as the witness, I filled up, and off I went. I was about 10 mins behind everyone else, but I figured I could catch up before the first fill up. We were all on the same route so that should be easy enough. I just have to drive faster than them :) I had 200 miles until I needed gas, so that should be enough time.... Or so I thought. I put it on around 85 once I got outside of the city on I-95. The route was I-95/Turnpike South to Ft Lauderdale, Turnpike/Alligator Alley West to Naples, I-75 North to Lake City, I-10 West to Tally, and turn around and head back East to Jax. So it was around 330 miles to the first corner of the ride. I rode through St Augustine, Palm Coast, Daytona... and still no signs of the riders. (Dad later said he past me on the hwy when taking his wife to the hospital in Daytona) Finally, south of Daytona I see a group of bikes. The closer I got, I realized they were all crusiers. Not the tourers. Its Daytona... there are more bikes in Daytona than any other place I've ever lived. I have no idea if these guys are on this ride or not. But they all had GPS, and water bottles, so I figured they may be the other riders... just not sure. So I passed em and kept on going to still try and catch the other 2. At a little over 200 miles and still no sign of em, the bike stuttered. I put the tank on reserve fuel and it picked back up. Time to get gas and something to drink. I didn't pre plan any gas stops other than what we were given. Some people do this to be sure the find a gas station right on the exit to save time. We've all pulled off the interstate because it said Gas/Food this exit. Then have to drive 5 miles to the little town to find it. Thats a time waster on these rides. So I passed a few exits if I couldn't see a gas station on the right side of the exit. Luckily on 95 there are exits every 5 miles or so. I had 30-40 miles to run on the reserve tank, so I knew I was good. I finally saw a Flying J sign... which are ALWAYS right off the exit. I pulled off the exit ramp and took a right to get to the station. It was off a side road, off the road, off the exit. There was a "Roach Coach" as we called it in the Navy, (restaurant on wheels) that had been smashed by a semi truck on the left side of the intersection. No biggie. Cops were there handling it. I get in, gas up, store my receipt, and run inside for a bottle of water. While in the store, I called the wife to let her know dad wasn't with me, but get in touch with him for the GPS tracker site. And to talk to my sister to give her the tracking site, and my estimated arrival time in Ft. Lauderdale, since Sis and the fam were meeting me to say hi at the gas stop. I didn't eat breakfast, so I grabbed a Cliff Bar to to eat on the ride and some water. I paid for it all and headed out. I was one of those obnoxious people on the phone, in a store, checking out... I open the cliff bar and put it in my tank bag (much easier than trying to do it while riding and with gloves on!) I get out the the side road to head back to the intersection, and wouldn't you know it. The cops decide to block it off so they could do some measurements, and to get the wrecker in there. I was stuck at the light, waiting for them to let us all out. Good time to eat!<br />
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Finally after about 10 mins they start letting people through the intersection. But NOT back to the Interstate. They ran us down a parallel road to 95. At least it was the same direction! But still I'm loosing time. I still had hoped to catch the other 2 riders... but that idea was now squashed. Guess I'm on my own all day! I finally get to the next town, and back on 95. I was about 100 miles to the first required gas stop... a Sunoco right off 95 and near the Turnpike. My GPS wanted to take me on the turnpike, but I ignored it since I didn't have the EZ Pass, and didnt want to fool with the tolls. I kept on down 95. I was running with traffic for the most part, 75 - 80mph. Then I got passed by 2 cars running a bit faster, so I pulled in behind them. We ran most the way trough West Palm, in all the traffic, at about 85. I was making good time. I got off the exit, and the Sunoco was on the left. My sis, her husband, and my twin nieces were there waiting for me. I gassed up while talking with them (don't want to break my rhythm ) then got off the bike to go inside and get a Gatorade. I asked for the receipt just in case. Which was good... since while talking to everyone, I'd forgotten to press YES for the gas pump receipt! Butt saved there. We all chatted for a bit, took some photos, and I was off. Maybe 20 mins stopped time. You don't have to drive fast to finish a SS1000. You just have to keep the wheels moving. BUT... the faster you drive, the shorter the amount of time in the saddle. I was feeling really good at this point considering I was 330 miles into the ride, and over 400 for the day so far! But if I could spend less time on the bike, then I'm all for it. I jump on the turnpike, and head for Naples across Alligator Alley. Its around 11am.<br />
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Again... I'm running just a tad faster than traffic, so I don't have follow anyone. I get passed by a car, so I fall in behind him. He was doing 90. Then 85. Then 75... No cruise in the beat up Malibu! So I passed him. He passed me back. He slowed, so I passed him again... we did this 5 or 6 times. Finally we both got passed by another car. I was hoping the BMW had working cruise. Which it did. Set at 100!! We slowed down a few times when his radar went off, but we never saw a cop. So I made the 100 trip across the state in about an hour. Drove to the required Shell station (good thing for GPS, cause it was hidden and only a tiny sign on a fence to say where it was). I gassed up, GOT THE PUMP RECEIPT, and went inside for a drink and some jerky bites for a snack. I grabbed 2 drinks this time because it was now about 95 degrees! I pretty much finished one off on the way from the door to the bike, and used what was left to wipe the bugs off the wind screen. I got back on the bike cranked it up, put in the next stop in Lake City on the GPS and was about to pull out. Then I looked at the SPOT tracker. It was off. There were no lights blinking at all. So I pressed a few buttons but couldn't get it to do anything. So I called dad for technical assistance. He said it quit tracking as soon as I got to the Ft Lauderdale stop, and maybe the batteries had died, so I could try to replace them. He asked if I was with the other 2 since he saw on the GPS tracker I was right with them in West Palm. Apparantly, they were on the Turnpike, and I passed them while on 95. Oh well. I'm not going to wait for them, or change the batteries. Got to keep rolling. So I headed out with no tracker. Stop time about 15 mins. North bound 75 about 1pm!<br />
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Once I got settled in on the road again... I started fiddling with the SPOT again. I was able to get it to power up finally, but the lights that were flashing didn't seem right to me. So I kept pressing buttons until it flashed like I thought it did before. Who knows if its actually working. I was 330 miles from Lake City, so instead of running the tank dry at 200 miles, I would split the difference and stop at around 150 miles, then go the other 150 to Lake City. Plus at 95 degrees, I would need the hydration by then anyway. Where the hell are the afternoon rain showers!!! I need some relief! This was the uneventful part of the trip. I eat my jerky, finish off a Gatorade, and begin wishing I had an MP3 player. I was getting bored. I was finally starting to feel the effects of sitting on this bike for so long. I started doing motorcycle yoga and stretching as much as I could. Then I figured out if I lay down on the tank and put my legs out behind me, the wind would keep them from dragging the ground and I could stretch out all the way. This became my goto position when my knees would start to ache. I kept the speed around 75 - 80 as I-75 is bad for hwy patrol. They love picking off the college kids headed to UF, and the families to and from seeing the mouse. And holy shit the # of Crown Vics and Mercurys that look like cop cars in the deep south of FL. You never know if they are unmarked cars, or blue hairs on the road. But I made it about 160 miles and stopped off at another Shell station for gas and water. I was sweating pretty good. I took everything off this time, gassed up, got my receipt, and went inside. I looked in the mirror once in the bathroom (1st potty break all day) and I was beet red. I ran some water over my face and arms for a bit to try and cool off more than the AC was doing. I looked like I had a sunburn on my face...which is not the case since I have a full face helmet with built in sunshade. I was just that hot. I took a few mins and wandered the store after I got 2 more drinks. I finished one off, and finally headed back out. I suited up as fast as possible and got moving again. I needed the air to be moving to try and keep cool. If 95 degree wind could be considered cool. But its better than nothing. I continue up 75 to Lake City, and finally see some rain clouds. I had forgotten my waterproof GPS cover (ziplock bag) so right before it looked like it was going to rain, I got the exit # off the GPS and stashed it in the tank bag. It never rained on me, but it had rained in Lake City before I got there. I got to the required Shell station, swiped the card at the pump, and... DECLINED. Crap. I've heard of cards being cut off after being used at too many gas stations. So I swiped another card and it worked. Filled the tank, grabbed the receipt, and.... NO ADDRESS on the receipt. I stowed it away anyway, and went in for some more bottles of Gatorade. This receipt had the address so I was good. The weather was still looking wet to the west, so the GPS was not to be used on this leg. Good thing I'm from Tallahassee, and knew exactly where the next stop was, so no big deal. I pulled it out to get an ETA to the Tallahassee Shell station. I texted the arrival time to the wife to let her know when I would be there if she wanted to drag the kids out to meet me, and headed back to the interstate. Its around 6pm.<br />
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I missed every rain shower! Usually that would be good. But I wanted to get wet to cool off. The roads were wet the entire way to Tally, but I never got rained on. At least now it was overcast. 88 degrees and 100% humidity wasn't a whole lot better. But at least I wasn't sweating as much anymore. Another uneventful trek to Tallahassee. I get to the Shell station and see the wife and kids parked on the side of the building. I parked the bike at the pump, took everything off, and went over to see them. We chatted for about 15 mins, and the kids were begging me to come home. I was 11 hours, and 800 miles in, so there was no chance in hell I was headed home. We said our good byes, they pulled away, and I went back to the pumps. I swiped the card that was declined before... sure enough... declined again. Worth a shot. So I swiped the other one.... DECLINED! WTF! Maybe the reader is bad... there is a sign on another pump that says that. So I moved the bike to another pump. I tried both cards again... DECLINED. Ok. I have a Mastercard. Didn't want to use it, but now I have no choice. DECLINED!!! Oh Shit. I count my cash. I have $11 dollars. That would get me, with the gas in the tank.... maybe to the finish on fumes. But then what? I'm sure Ray would fill my tank to get home, but I don't want to risk running out 10 miles from the end, nor do I want to expect a handout. I'm way good on time to figure this out. Its around 7pm so I have 11 more hours to drive 200 miles. But I can't leave town knowing the bank has shut off our cards. The wife may need to use it. So I call the only # on the back of the bank cards... the lost or stolen hotline. That in itself is stupid. If I really had lost my card... the # on the card would do me no good... SINCE I DON'T HAVE THE CARD! But I called it since I did have it. I'm on hold for 30 mins!! But I sat inside in the AC. Finally a person answers. "Thank you for calling. I see you have been on hold for 30 mins. I just want to apologize. Someone from the Lost or Stolen Card Division will be with you shortly." I told him that my card was not lost or stolen, but probably flagged as stolen and I need that fixed. So I may not need to talk to the Lost and Stolen div, just customer service. "Sir. I'm just the operator. I can't do anything. You will need to talk to the Lost and Stolen Division". OK... just thought I'd save myself some time if they weren't the folks I need to really talk too. "Sir. I can't help you. You will have to talk to the Lost and Stolen Div." F'N TRANSFER ME THEN. Back on hold.... 15 mins later someone answers. Yep... they cant' help me. I need to talk to Customer Service. He transfers me. "Thank you for calling. Please enter your 16 digit account #. " which I did. "Thank you.............. Our systems are currently down. Goodbye." MOTH*** FU*** SHI*** I JUST WASTED ALMOST AN HOUR ON THE PHONE AND IT HANGS UP ON ME!!! WTF!! Now what. I'm stranded. Called the wife... she didn't answer. Do I drive home? Do I beg for gas? What the hell. I'll try the Mastercard again. It works fine. Whew... STILL PISSED!!! But I throw all my stuff on and head out. I don't know if the rain knocked out communications somewhere, if my cards were locked... But I was not wasting anymore time. Its now around 8pm. Still no sign of any of the other riders.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div><div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>About 50 miles out from the gas stop, I passed the 2 bikes I thought I was chasing all day. So they were 100 miles behind me. Then 80 miles out, just before I-75, I passed the group on the cruisers. So they were 160 miles behind me. Wow... Not that its a race, but I was way ahead of everyone. Even after the CC fiasco. Roads were drying off and the clouds were long gone, so I reattached the GPS. I had no issue getting to Jax, but wasn't too sure I could make it back to the Gate. I was getting a bit tired, and my legs were aching a bit... but still I felt OK. I think the hour off the bike helped more than thought it did. But I was still nowhere ready to quit. It was dark by the time I hit the outskirts of Jax. I knew from the last time I drove through down town, that the new configuration of the I-10 & I-95 interchange was not in my GPS. It hadn't been updated in 3 years. No way was I going to pay $79 to update a device I paid $97 for new. So once I got close in, I knew I had to follow the signs and ignore the Garmin until I got back on 95 south. And since I was tired, and it was dark... I was driving very cautiously. Plus there was a lot of construction still. So I eased it through downtown Jax, and made it back to the Gate. Of course Ray King was there as the ending witness, but Dad had showed up too!! They did put his wife in the hospital, but gave her something to knock her out all night. So they told him he could go home if he wanted. She'd be out for 12 hours. So he rode up to meet me and the rest of the riders at the end. He and Ray had been watching the SPOT tracker which apparently I did get working right again. I pulled up, got my $1 of gas, and more importantly... the ending receipt! Officially, I rode 1060 miles in 15hrs 11mins. My odometer said 1052. I was done!!<br />
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I talked with Ray and dad for a few minutes. Got something to drink, and started on the paperwork. Ray and the MTF made it pretty easy. I had to tape all the receipts to pieces of paper and he photographed them, so we didn't have to send them off. I filled out the rest of the trip log and witness form, and handed them to Ray. That was it. He would collect them all and send them to the IBA for review and certification. Now I just sit back and wait for the certificate. ( for 2 months!!)<br />
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I called home to say I was done. The wife told me the kids had been sick all night, and if at all possible... head home. Sure why not! I've only ridden 1150 miles today. Whats another 200! I should have planned on it and completed a Bun Burner Gold... 1500 miles in 24 hrs. I hung around about an hour longer hoping the other guys had picked up the pace so I could chat with them. But I called it around 11pm and headed home. I passed one guy, who ended up riding the whole day by himself also (Rony or Tony Baenzinger) a mile or two down the road, and the other two touring bikes (David Gillespie and Bobby Downhill) a few more miles down the road. I never saw the cruisers again (Joe Merkt, Timm Indoe, Greg Haines). But they all finished! Now I get to really see how tired I am, and start the 3 hour ride to the house.<br />
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I get out of Jax and was just cruising on desolate I-10. About an hour into the ride home, I'd pulled over in to the left lane to pass a car I was catching. I have a flip face helmet, so to drink, I have to flip it up, take a swig or two, put the bottle down, then drop the face shield back down. I had just put the shield down and barely got my hand down on the handle bar and WHAM!! I ran over a retread off a semi. Apparently bikers call them "road gators"... because that's what it looked like the millionth of a second I saw it before I hit it. A 4 ft alligator. I heard it hit the underside fairings before it went under the rear tire. I slowed down to see if the tires were going down, or something dragging, or anything out of the ordinary. Everything felt OK so I kept riding. I didn't want to stop on the side of the hwy if I didn't have too. Plus I was tired and just wanted to get home. A ways down the road when I hit the FL mountains and curvy part of I-10, the bike felt a bit... heavy. Like it didn't want to go where I wanted it to go. It was drifting, and hard to keep in a straight line. I figured I was either tired... or did have a tire going down. I pulled off at a rest stop and checked everything out. Tires were up, nothing leaking, nothing falling off.... I walked around a min, used the restroom, and headed back out. As soon as I hit the throttle to get back on 10, it felt really weird. I stopped again on the on ramp. Checked the tires again since it felt like a low tire. Nope... all good. I know I'm not thaaaat tired. But it feels weird the whole ride home. In the city it really felt weird. But tires were fine. I got home around 2 am, and fell into bed. I'm home, and if something is broke, I'll figure it out tomorrow.<br />
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I called dad the next day to ask him his opinion since he's on Connie #2... he immediately said tires too. Then he said check the shock. Sure enough... it was down to 20lbs of pressure, from 45-50. I had to buy a new pump that would fit the short valve stem, but I pumped it up to 50, and the problem was gone. Apparently there's a pressure relief valve on them, so if they get hit hard, the seals don't pop. Good to know. But all is better.<br />
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It was a long ride. A HOT ride. But I finished in good time, learned a few things, and will add that too my Rally/Iron Butt database of knowledge. But overall it wasreeally not that bad. I never felt like I wanted to quit... I never felt like I needed to stop for rest. I was a little sore, but the re-cushioned seat helped my ass. My legs will just have to get used to it. There is not much I can do about the seating position. I don't think I want to do the 100 hr Jax to San Diego, back to Jax Coast to Coast to Coast ride anytime soon. But I Think the 1500 miles in 24hrs is easily doable. Just not until it cools off!!<br />
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Miles Lee<br />
Iron Butt Association Member # 46560<br />
Got the license plate mounted to the bike already!!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17949710209610441126noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468865764554952696.post-65795204144165069692011-07-27T16:38:00.004-04:002012-03-21T10:42:03.814-04:00Eds Last Resort Rally 2011 Ride ReportI finally have my own motorcycle to ride in a rally!!! I put about 1500 miles on the 98 Concours since I bought it, and other than a few tiny oil leaks I took care of, there have not been any issues with it mechanically. Thats good considering its got 73000 miles on it. Some rally guys have up to $30,000 tied up in motorcycles, electronics, riding suits, and other "<a href="http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Motorcycle_accessories">farkles</a>". I have a staggering $2500 invested! I'm doing the "Bubba" version of rallying... Duck tape it if it breaks and hope you make it until the end. But I bought 100mph tape just in case! My farkling consists of a taller windshield, cup holder, and GPS mount. I installed a 12v lighter plug outlet in the dash so I could plug in a GPS or phone, or both. I used a RAM mount and cradle on the clutch reservoir for the Garmin (car type) GPS. It test rode a few times and I got it positioned where I wanted it. Worked great. Hard to hear over the noise, but no big deal. The motorcycle versions of GPS are water proof and pair up with bluetooth helmet systems to listen to it. They are also $700 and up! Not gonna happen. So I packed a ziplock bag and duck tape to cover the GPS in case it rained since it was $99 3 years ago, and not waterproof. And if for some reason, the RAM cradle or mount broke, I also packed the suction cup from the car for it. Just in case.... I packed all the hand tools I thought I would need for a minor roadside repair, tire slime and plug kit, small air compressor, cloth to clean the windshield, rain suit, change of clothes, and a shaving kit. All that had to fit in the saddle bags, so my top bag was free for rally paperwork, laptop, and other essentials needed during the rally. I used the tank bag for medicine, 5hour energy drinks, granola bars, cash, phone... anything I may need immediately while riding but not worth stopping for. I packed it all up the Thurs before the rally, so all I had to do Fri morning was pack my computer bag, suit up, and head out. <br />
Fri came, kissed the fam goodbye and suited up. I figured I would show up early and help out Ed with anything he needed. This was also going to be THE long distance shake down run, since the longest ride yet was only about 1 hour on the road. I figured if the bike could make the 3 hour ride there w no issues, it would make the 12 hr rally. I was also using the ride there as a practice rally. No stopping for any reason other than gas. This was to make sure the RIDER was ready for the 12 hour rally. Got my gas in Crawfordville, reset the GPS trip meter, and hit the road. There are no highways to get to Surrency, GA... all back roads through tiny towns. This is a good test for GPS functionality and accuracy as most rally locations are "off the beaten path". See the trend here... A lot of things to test on this ride to the rally. Its almost like I'm winging it! Which is pretty much the case. <br />
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I made it 200 or so miles, 10 miles from Ed's and stopped in Baxley for water, lunch, and gas... in that order. It was pushing 100 degrees and my 24oz bottle of water was long gone! I grabbed 2 bottles of water, a corn dog, and sat down on at a gas station table for lunch. Drank one full bottle of water, ate the corn dog, and was out the door in 5 mins. Headed to the pumps, filled the tank to the max since this was my starting fuel for the rally, and drove it in to the the Resort. I made it and the bike made it with no issues. Again... this had been a test of the GPS. From the time I left the house, until I got there, time was falling off the arrival time on the GPS. Add in the food and gas stop, I arrived at the end at the exact minute the GPS said I would all the way back at the house. Good info to have. Basically, for every 3 hours on the road, I gain enough time to fill up w gas, food, and water... and break even on time. Gain time on the road to loose it at the gas stops. When my route says 12 hours on the computer, it does not factor in stopping for any reason. It just gives you on the road time. But since my driving style lets me break even on the GPS arrival times, this means I won't have to factor in the stops for the rally. Less of a headache. Score! GPS worked like a champ the whole ride over on its new handle bar mount. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB8VvG1x1HTw_BgRmr2KGlbetPte5_7edn10EgUqAwhr4WLWQX29O4wsa_oj4h3_bINiphL7kWwATVc2WAGWTKm677_nYXHgfxx1AEftQ_fozBikkQnnH4NPn1emVxS4ln0jP18Z5M84c/s1600/247822_201919053184106_176310609078284_546643_195556_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhB8VvG1x1HTw_BgRmr2KGlbetPte5_7edn10EgUqAwhr4WLWQX29O4wsa_oj4h3_bINiphL7kWwATVc2WAGWTKm677_nYXHgfxx1AEftQ_fozBikkQnnH4NPn1emVxS4ln0jP18Z5M84c/s320/247822_201919053184106_176310609078284_546643_195556_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div><br />
There are only a handful of people there since I'm pretty early. Ed greets me and wants to check out the ride. He tells me he used to have one just like it and was thinking about getting another one. (I'm sure he was just blowin smoke since his mount is much nicer than mine) Dad pulls in a couple minutes later with Ernie and now all the story telling and lying officially begins. Dinner isn't until 6 so we have a few hours to burn. We help Ed move stuff around, and get things ready for the rest of the crowd. People keep trickling in. Again... on bikes. In cars. Trucks pulling trailers. Campers pulling cars. Bikes pulling trailers. Most everyone is there by 6 for dinner, as the rally packs are getting handed out @ 7:30. That's really what everyone wants the night before the rally. The partying is really for when the rally is over. Tonight its all about planning the route. As it is for all of Ed's rallies, its a 'soup' dinner on Fri evening. Ed's special stew and rice. If you ask whats in it, you possibly run the risk of hurting Ed's feelings. You don't want to hurt Ed's feelings! But I helped him take the pigs feet from the freezer to the pot, so I have a good idea whats in there. It was pretty good considering it was my first time eating pigs feet. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl1AKn5dTFXalzCq0fY3EFRumwo-g8IM1M2qSQSqmTxjyWcfPW6fVwOJHRvPX0H1tkBwmyRLfhbeUxBnFi8d0A7rYENqVgtSQoLl99mhbM_rjTynb5wipPKJu3rBJ0rYLZPvkuhyphenhyphenO8uNg/s1600/225305_200899223286089_176310609078284_540974_1388013_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjl1AKn5dTFXalzCq0fY3EFRumwo-g8IM1M2qSQSqmTxjyWcfPW6fVwOJHRvPX0H1tkBwmyRLfhbeUxBnFi8d0A7rYENqVgtSQoLl99mhbM_rjTynb5wipPKJu3rBJ0rYLZPvkuhyphenhyphenO8uNg/s320/225305_200899223286089_176310609078284_540974_1388013_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>This is also when I learned the boat paddle stirring the stew was hand made from the reclaimed wood of an old outhouse. Luckily this wasn't the first time it had been used. But in true southern fashion, and Ed's, things took a litter longer than expected. And dinner ran a little late. No big deal right? As stated before, people show up Fri night to get the rally packs. Around 8pm people were getting antsy for their packs, since they were supposed to be handed out at 7:30. Ed and the Rally Masters, Jim and Donna Phillips, combined the dinner and riders meeting to calm them down. It does take a while just to input the 70 or so locations into a computer, or on a map, so any time wasted cuts into planning and sleep time. So once the packs were handed out, and bellies full... everyone scattered to start route planning.<br />
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Thankfully dad and I sat down together with our computers and started formulating plans. This was of course only my second rally. And a few weeks prior, he got trained on the way to plan a route on a computer. A bit after that, we talked on the phone on how to do it, so now we are both ready to put our new computer aided route planning skills to the test. DO YOU KNOW HOW LONG IT TAKES TO TYPE IN 70 LOCATION'S GPS COORDINATES INTO A COMPUTER WITHOUT MESSING UP!!!! WTF! Next year I'm lobbying to get them in digital format, since that is how they got the info in this years Iron Butt Rally... The biggest rally in the US. I took me almost 2 hours just to get the data in the computer right. But I finally got a birds eye view of all the locations and started plotting a route. But what I was finding, was that all the close in bonus locations weren't worth shit for points. Its a common thought that there is a winning route that most people quickly see, and plan around that route. Not this year. Jim and Donna put a lot of work into spreading the field. You had to go for a long ride to get points. Generally, you can pick up a lot of little point bonuses, or go for a few big point bonuses to win. Not this year. If you want a lot of points, you have to go a long way get them. The previous 2 years, the winners racked up around 7000 points. Most of my routes were coming in around 2000-2500 points. Dad was having a tough time too. There were just no routes to go to pick up a lot of big points, or a few big points with a bunch of little points on the way. There was a cluster way down in central FL, but dad said that was the "sucker route". An obvious route thrown in by the Rally Masters to see if a sucker would take the bait and DNF (Did Not Finish). They look doable, but they aren't. So I kept trying all the routes I could, and throwing in all the wild card bonuses... still not enough points. So just for the hell of it... I plotted a route to the FL locations. It was over 3000 points before the wildcards. It was also 12 hours drive time... not including stops to get the bonuses, or gas. Dad was still convinced it was a sucker route... So still being in the Rookie class this year, I took the sucker route. I figured if I make it, I have a good shot at placing in the top 5. If not, oh well. But in my head it was the only route that had enough points to possibly win. It was now about midnight, so I was beat. I plugged the coordinates to all the bonuses into the GPS by hand and went to bed. Dad was still up grinding away on his route.<br />
I tossed and turned about an hour, so I got about 4 hours sleep before it was time to get up. It was nice to stay in the cabin at Eds since it was right there. But after sharing a room with 3 other old, crusty, snoring men.... the Holiday Inn may have been a better choice :) I put my contacts in, brushed my teeth, and headed out for the doughnut breakfast. I had 2 or 3, a cup of OJ, a small cup of coffee, and a 5 hour energy drink. I dried all the dew off the windshield so I could see, mouted up the GPS and verified all the coords were still in there, and STARTED THE BIKE. It started fine. You do learn something in every rally. I was not going to be jump starting my bike after everyone left this year. Plus I had a 700 mile course in front of me, so I was going to try and be one of the first out. I told dad my route, he tried to explain his which was HEAVY on piecing together all the wild card bonuses. I warmed up the bike around 6:10 since its carbureted and doesn't like to run smooth until its got some heat in the motor. Shut it off after about 5 mins. I got suited up, and was sitting on the bike ready to go at 6:20. I was the only idiot doing that. Rookies. Oh well. I was ready. I had the first bonus in the GPS and ready to go. People started wandering to their bikes. At 6:25 the Rally Master said "We have a lot of bike to get out of here, so you can start moving out." I wasn't waiting for a second opinion. I cranked it up and was gone! I was 2nd out of the gate. I can use those extra 5 mins!<br />
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I purposefully chose my first bonus 10 miles away, first instead of last, just to get one out of the way quick and settle the nerves. The rider that got out in front of me apparently had the same idea. I followed him a mile or 2, doing the speed limit. When I saw I lost a minute on the GPS, I flew around him and took off. I had a LOT of ground to cover, and could not loose time on the GPS. I found the first location, grabbed the notebook from my tank bag, wrote down the info requested, and was off. Never got off the bike. I pulled up the next location on the GPS, did a U turn and was gone. The guy I passed pulled up as I was leaving. I saw him getting off the bike to get his rally sheet out to fill in the info. What a waste of time I thought! I took a left at the stop sign and took off. The sexy British voice on the GPS said "Recalculating. When possible, make a U-turn." Lesson one learned already. Look at the GPS when leaving a location!! I'm sure the other guy was saying to himself... "What a waste of time," as I drove past him going the other way now :) My next stop was just past the GA/FL line 85 miles away. On my way there, since it pretty early, and I'm in the middle of nowhere, and noone is on the road... I pick up the pace. Maybe slightly above the posted speed limit. Well... the faster I go, the more the bike vibrates. Thats normal. The handle bars is where most of the vibration is felt. The GPS is mounted to the handlebars. It starts tuning off, and back on randomly. WTF! I cant ride a 12 hour rally w/o a GPS. Especially my route. The plug is in the socket tight. I lay my hand on the GPS. Its shaking like a Harley on the handle bars. I slow down a bit... that lessens the reboots. Speed up... reboots more. I figure I will deal with it until the next stop. About 20 mins from the next bonus it starts sprinkling. Now I have to stop to cover the GPS with the ziplock, or the rain will kill it. I figured my only other option in mounting was the windshield suction cup mount I brought on a whim. I stuck it on there, ziplocked it, and duct tapped it shut to keep the water out. Off I went. Got it up to speed... no vibrations. It didn't turn off again... SCORE. 5 mins wasted on the side of the road though. I'm just hoping it doesn't loose suction and fall off. On to the bonus.<br />
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Most the bonuses have a paragraph description, since they are usually historical in some way. This one was called "Off the Beaten Path". To me this meant, most likely, a dirt road. No problem. Ed's Last Resort is on a dirt road. When I turned down the first road, it showed 6 miles to destination. It was paved. Cool. A mile later, it turned to dirt. Crap. I slowed down, since it was hard packed and rippled really bad. It was shaking me to death. I'm idling for about another mile, then w/o warning, that hard packed dirt tuned to sand. The front wheel dug in, tuned right full tilt, and came to a complete stop. Immediately! We went down. Holy F'n Sheeiit!!! Lesson two. Don't drive on loose sand roads! I immediately jump up, put he kick stand down, and throw the bike back up on two wheels. All 600 lbs of it! Mirror is bent back, air scoop on the fairing is busted off on one end, but nothing too bad. I shoved the vent, back into its hole. Sheeit! Cranks right up. Good. Nothing but sand the next 5 miles... no f'n way. I'm just going to turn around and head back to the main road, and skip this one...... 5 mins later, I finally got it turned around and headed out. Sand pits are not easy on a 600 lb street bike and street tires. Now I'm really behind, and no points. What else can go wrong! I'm barely into this and already have GPS issues, dropped the bike, and missed a bonus. One more thing goes wrong, and I'm done.<br />
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I get back on the pavement, and head south. I'm one mile into FL, and my next stop is 150 miles south in New Smyrna Beach. Bike is feeling Ok after the fall, and the GPS still hasn't shut off. Looking better. But I have a lot of time to make up, and I can't miss any more bonuses or my route IS the sucker route. I was on the west side of Jax so I got on I-295 and continued south around Jax. 295 is normally 80 - 85mph, bumper to bumper traffic so I should be able to keep the pace up pretty high. UNLESS you fall in behind an FHP car. Speed limit it is... for about 10 miles. Finally he pulled off and traffic picked back up. Traffic was pretty thick all the way to Daytona, but I was able to keep the Connie in the 80s most the way. I was making OK time. Still gaining time so thats good. I guess. But my GPS, being the cheap-o one, does not let me set an entire route. So I only know how long to the next stop... not total time. I had 5 stops to make in FL, make the turn, and head back to the house. I've included 2 'throw away' bonuses back in GA, that if I was short on time I could skip. I just won't know how good I'm doing on time, until after the last FL stop. Plus at some point I have to take a mandatory 30 min break at a McDonalds. I decided to get all my FL bonuses before my break, that way I had 30 mins to calculate how much time I still have and if I need to head to the house or go after the last 2 bonuses. So I'm pretty much winging it... Bubba style.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZfIgvY6YAxN-GItD_QnEB5L8XKq4WhtkbPlJSR-gwGmRvfxbbE-tdSnk3iAjuF8xCM7W9-QfVDBwcgAvtOIHaMGewPlZNNc122Rwd9_ildp7Z2mUR6L-w-9dp7tET0BUgNj3fax6Lo5Y/s1600/IMG00651.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhZfIgvY6YAxN-GItD_QnEB5L8XKq4WhtkbPlJSR-gwGmRvfxbbE-tdSnk3iAjuF8xCM7W9-QfVDBwcgAvtOIHaMGewPlZNNc122Rwd9_ildp7Z2mUR6L-w-9dp7tET0BUgNj3fax6Lo5Y/s320/IMG00651.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>I make to the New Smyrna Beach Harley store, and get my business card as indicated on the rally sheet. I have a flip face helmet, so I just walked in, in full gear, grabbed a card from the sales guy and left... 3 mins. My GPS took me west to I-4, to get to Mt Dora. The next stop was the Mt Dora Lighthouse. I had to find the sign that stated the wattage of the bulb used in the light house. Yeah.... 20 mins looking for the sign, I gave up. It looked like everything at the park was brand new. I guess that sign was removed during renovation. I snapped a photo with my cell phone, and headed to get a gas receipt that showed I was in Mt. Dora. I hope thats enough for the Rally Bastard. 15 mins wasted, and a few more minutes getting gas. But I have a full tank which should last me the rest of the FL bonuses. Now its time to start looking for BBQ restaurants. One of the wild card bonuses, was (I thought) to get 3 menus from 3 different BBQ restaurants. Off to Gator Joes Restaurant in Oklawaha, FL! <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkeE0S5q9kVN1eJOoz4rkYFIL-uHey1AWUCIyveKXEnmSX9TIoPttI-nLNoMI1GoPYKf-S9V8YN_6wNBVF7S-Pk2Y9paMWk5_jTVKmJbsGZbaCYrHDq8weL7CczS-3R8Ic4Xlb2OaUgS0/s1600/215465_195321823844651_178098535566980_462098_2313314_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkeE0S5q9kVN1eJOoz4rkYFIL-uHey1AWUCIyveKXEnmSX9TIoPttI-nLNoMI1GoPYKf-S9V8YN_6wNBVF7S-Pk2Y9paMWk5_jTVKmJbsGZbaCYrHDq8weL7CczS-3R8Ic4Xlb2OaUgS0/s1600/215465_195321823844651_178098535566980_462098_2313314_n.jpg" /></a></div>I ate a granola bar out of my tank bag while stopped at the red lights leaving Mt Dora. 45 miles of back woods towns and back roads through mobile home retirement villages to the next stop. I found a BBQ catering truck on the side of the road and asked for a menu. But I had to explain to the frail lil ole lady what I was doing, and will not be ordering food. She had to be 85yrs old. I asked if she knew of any more BBQ places nearby so I could get menus from them. She said "If you want to cheat, I have a binder full of them. How many you need?" I respectfully declined and headed on. Thats not the spirit of the rally. Besides, I should pass 100 places by the end of the rally right... I'm in the south. BBQ joints are like Starbucks... one on every corner down here. Unless you are looking for them!! I didn't pass another one before the next bonus. I finally get to the coordinates for Gator Joes, and all thats there is a house, and a gated road. WTF. I get off the bike, and pull out the rally pack to check what I typed in at 12 am was right. It looked close, but not the same. So I typed it again, and hit GO on the GPS. She immediately told me to turn right. So I load everything back in the trunk, crank it up and turn right. "Arriving at destination on right". Oh yeah... lesson one was look a the GPS before leaving the location. I didn't see, the 'new' coords were only 100 ft away. Too bad I had to drive a mile to find a place to turn around. WTF!!! Get off the bike again, pull out the rally pack again, and read the description again! The coords are in the GPS right. WTF!!!! But this listing had an actual street address, unlike most of the rest of them. I type in the street address and hit GO. 6 miles further down the road, on the OTHER side of the lake it shows the destination. Bad Rally Master!! Giving us the wrong coordinates. Time lost 10 mins! The GPS finally takes me strait to Gator Joes, and I get my info. 5 mins onsite to park and go hunt the sign I needed to find... still in full gear of course. Next stop, The Florida National Cemetary in Bushnell, FL.<br />
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Still on back roads, I'm driving as fast as reasonably safe... passing when I can. But still making OK time. I think. I still have no idea if all the set backs were were too much to overcome on the road. I only had a 15 min window in the good according to the computer... but thats been eaten up twice over. I find the cemetery easily, but the plaque I needed for info was on the back side of the tourist building. Off the bike again. I get the info and punch in the listing for the Train Museum in Dade City, FL. Now where is another BBQ place.<br />
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Still all back roads, its 30 or so miles to the Train Museum... I passed another road side trailer selling BBQ. Swing in there real quick, and the guy was not too pleasant. No menu. So off I go again. 3 mins wasted. I found another one... this time a real building. Ran inside and asked for a menu. "Sorry. We area all out." WTF! "Oh wait, here's a breakfast menu. But there is no BBQ for breakfast." As long as it has the word Barbeque on it I'm good... and It does. Out I go w my menu. Oh wait!! This one does say BARBEQUE, but the other says BBQ. I better check the rally pacl to see if either is OK. Well... the letter of the law says it needed the WORD "barbeque"on the menu. But it didn't say BBQ was not accepted. These things matter. But I also read that I only needed ONE barbeque menu. I mixed up in my head the requirements from another wildcard bonus that needed 3 different items. Shit! All that time wasted! Oh well... Keep moving. I have what I need. Plus a backup.<br />
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I was looking for a locomotive, or caboose, or something visual on the side of the road for the train museum... nope. Just a little old train depot building with a plaque on the wall. I had to park on one side of the building and run to the other to find the plaque. Got my info, and re-read the rest bonus requirements so I don't screw that up too. All I need is a starting receipt, and an ending receipt from a McDonalds. But another bonus was a Vidalia onion, or a sauces made w Vidalia onions. I figured since I was headed to I-75, I could find an exit with a McDs and a roadside FL fruit stand/tourist trap. Don't they always have Vidalia onions... and pecan logs... and Moon Pies!?! I'm now done with the FL bonuses, and headed back to GA. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXuh4D2-H5f8kXnjdGB8E9DvF4KYPo3y6OdIC-fsxLx-jKiDNPxDP1-ZmEq0NsUBp4wPhFIHl_4GNNn8sU_5vDLiFgGNy1clTnGPcSYwejK0g5tUga0EgsH1CWjJSnDf2GEUwTMt9uXRs/s1600/fruit.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjXuh4D2-H5f8kXnjdGB8E9DvF4KYPo3y6OdIC-fsxLx-jKiDNPxDP1-ZmEq0NsUBp4wPhFIHl_4GNNn8sU_5vDLiFgGNy1clTnGPcSYwejK0g5tUga0EgsH1CWjJSnDf2GEUwTMt9uXRs/s320/fruit.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>I see a sign on the hwy for one of the tourist traps at the same exit as a McDonalds. Score. I pull off and head for the McDs. I go in and order a full meal since this is the first stop for food and drink today. The receipt says 2:00 pm on the nose. The 30 min clock is ticking for the rest bonus. I eat my nuggets and fries, down 32 oz of Powerade, and call the wife to say I'm still alive and kickin. I walk across the parking lot to the fruit stand to see if they have Vidalia onions or sauce. They did! Awesome. I told her I'd be back in a bit. I could have bought it then, but again... thats not in the spirit of the rally. You are not allowed to complete any other bonuses during the rest bonus. So I went back to the bike, and brought up the time/distance to get back to the finish. I had to be back by 7pm, and GPS said I was a bit less than 4 hrs out. So I had about a 1:15 cushion after my break to get back. That was plenty of time to pick up the last two bonuses in GA and get back. So I pulled up Valdosta, GA and had it set for the next leg. I look at the clock on the bike and it was 2:30, so I went back in and ordered a small fry (the cheapest thing on the menu) and got my end receipt for the rest bonus. It said 2:29.... close enough to to 30 mins. I rode the bike around the parking lot to get my Vidalia onion.... which they only sold on 5lb bags. So I bought a little bottle of Vidailia Onion sauce FOR $15!!! SHould have bought the 5lb bag and just taken one onion for $5. Oh well. To the other side of the parking lot for gas. Fueled up, and headed out. 2.5 hrs to Valdosta.<br />
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Somewhere between Ocala and Gainesville on 75, the bottom fell out of a cloud. It looked like it'd be a short afternoon shower, so I didn't bother donning rain gear in order to save the stop time. 30 MILES LATER I drove out of it. I was soaked!! But @ 80 something mph, it doesn't take too long to dry out. But I still don't know how I made it through all of it. I was sandwiched between two semis, front and back, riding in the center lane, and one in the right lane out front. It was raining like hell, and all the spray from the trucks gave me a visibility of about 20 feet. My new wind shield had no rainx on it so the water was coating the front, then rolling over to the back of it... so water on both sides and I couldn't see through. I had to sit up as straight as possible to see over the top of it. Luckily the wind kept the visor clear of water. And all this was @ 80 mph. I couldn't see cars coming up in the left lane to move over, plus, they were passing us.... so they were doing about 85. I just rode until the rain slowed enough so I could see to get out of my sandwich. Finally the rain stopped, and the sun came out, so now it was time to stick my arms and legs out to dry off. Once I finally got dried out, another storm was approaching. This one looked bad! A low ceiling of black clouds as far as I could see. It looked like an upside down boiling mud soup. This time I pulled over and threw on my rain gear over my jeans and jacket. Took about 5 mins, and I was off again into the mouth of the storm. Lightning was streaking all around me. It sounded a few times like it hit right next to me... when you hear it the same time you see the flash. It was nasty! But no rain yet. Just blackness. Once the the lightning stopped, I finally hit the rain. It was light, and lasted about 5 mins, and all was clear. WTF! Oh well. This was a cold front moving in, so the temp dropped about 20 degrees. I should be able to tolerate both jackets. I was not going to stop again to remove the rain gear, unless I had plenty of time in Valdosta at the next bonus. <br />
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All I needed was gas in Valdosta, so just outside the city, I pulled up the finish line to see how much time I had. I showed me arriving at 7:05pm... 5 mins late!!! Shit. No time to remove the rain gear now, so it was a gas and go in Valdosta. When I had figured my time check at the rest bonus, I didn't account for Valdosta being so much farther west than I thought. Time to pick up the pace. The next bonus was on the route back, so only a min or two stop there. I should be able to make up those few mins late on the road. But I also had to stop for the last wildcard bonus... a cold 6 pack of my favorite beverage. That'd be another 5 mins or so. So I had to make up almost 15 mins on the road, and had to cover 110 miles in 1.5 hours, and stop two more times, not to get in late. Luckily, through most of this, it was mostly long straight back roads, and no traffic. I was dropping time real good off the GPS now. Got to the last bonus, got the info w/o out having to get off the bike, and headed to the finish. I was only going to stop for the beer bonus if the store was on the right side of the road. So wouldnt you know it... I never passed another store on the right side of the road!! I finally saw one on the left, one car (no crowd) and pulled in there. Grabbed the 6 pack of 16oz cans of Bud Lite (I knew I would need a few) , and hit the road. Now the GPS said my finish time was 6:55. Still a pretty slim margin, and I had 30 miles to go. So once the time read 6:50 I felt pretty secure. Then I see the road blocked in front of me with people walking everywhere, cop cars and firetrucks on both sides of the road, and in the middle lane!! WTF! This is not good! I think... I just drove 650 miles, in 12 hrs to DNF 20 miles from the end!! Luckily (for me, not the drivers of the crashed cars) the road was clear on my side, so I made it through the mess with just having to slow down. I cleared it, and sped back up to speed and took it to the finish. Again, once I was back around 6:45 arrival time, I locked it to the speed limit and eased it home. I finished in 12:15 mins (15 mins early) and logged 704 official miles on my odometer... 715 or so on the GPS. I was worn out. But happy I finished on time. I got logged in as completed by the Rally Bastard and they beer checked me for the beer bonus. I then clarified that I could drink one, BEFORE I got scored since the rally pack said bring the 6 pack to the scoring table. I was good. So I downed a 16 oz beer while I gathered all my scoring paperwork. Then drank another while filling out my paperwork... maybe not the best idea. There were some riders there, and some still coming in. Dad was not there yet. So I sat down and started filling out my scoring sheet.<br />
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7pm was the end time. After 7:15, you DNF. Where's dad? DNF time came and went. Ed told me he got a call from dads wife, that he was 200 miles out 2 hours ago. He showed up around 7:30. DNF. But as Richard Buber said... if you never DNF, then you don't try hard enough. This was his 3rd I think. So he's always pushing the limit. I was still doing my paperwork we he came in. There was a trip log in the back of the rally pack, so thats where I was filling in all my bonuses. Got it all neat and pretty, then dad said "You know you have to put all that info in the rally pack, not in the log right?" Crap. Now I have to go back and transpose the info again! I get that done... organize all my receipts... and go sit in front of Donna Phillips. Were going through it all, and get to the Mt Dora Lighthouse. I show her the photo, and the gas receipt that says Mt Dora, and that there was no sign to be seen talking anything about the light bulb in the light house. She accepted it. All the bonus locations points were good. I didn't loose one... Except for the last one I forgot to write down. I missed writing it in on the second transposing of the data. Good thing it was only 30 something points. Now for the wild cards. Got the beer bonus. Got the Vidalia onion. Got the no speeding ticket bonus. Time for the gas in 2 states bonus. The gas bonus in Valdosta was my only gas stop in GA. I couldn't use one receipt for 2 bonuses. So I forfeited the regular bounus for the 2 state bonus since it was worth more.<a href="http://www.blogger.com/home"></a> 60 points lost there. Now the big blunder... the rest bonus. Rally pack stated it was a mandatory 30 min bonus. My check-in was 2:00, but my check out was 2:29. Only 29 mins!!! She said no. It has to be 30 mins. I pleaded since the rally pack was wrong about the coordinates for Gator Joes, and that I wasted 10 mins figuring out their mistake, that should more than account for the 1 min short on the rest time. She asked the other Rally Bastard... Jim Phillips. He asked me if I knew when I got the receipt that I was 1 min short. I said yes. He said nope! Stop was too short. There goes 450 points!! So I ended up loosing 500 points at the table, and 100 something by missing the bonus when I dropped the bike. So I was down 600 - 700 points than what I planned on getting. Well... I hope more people screw up like me so I have a chance to finish in the top 10 now. Off I go to tell dad the whole story of the trip and get his reasoning for being so far behind... And EAT!!!<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJsU-XLCjyDCWBVbiGSKbirrZorfPF1GOCrqETXEQ05UcqXLrbTRurOq-GhSbnE3kiJpI8nIj0PsjLS6LUIv4HuoEaCx_z17kLXC4AIGjkucDOeAINtcizNtNsiUhXgGSKGsCOXcA1QOA/s1600/226243_201921813183830_176310609078284_546675_3834210_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJsU-XLCjyDCWBVbiGSKbirrZorfPF1GOCrqETXEQ05UcqXLrbTRurOq-GhSbnE3kiJpI8nIj0PsjLS6LUIv4HuoEaCx_z17kLXC4AIGjkucDOeAINtcizNtNsiUhXgGSKGsCOXcA1QOA/s320/226243_201921813183830_176310609078284_546675_3834210_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>BBQ has become the "Official" food or rallying, and long distance riders. So dinner was of course BBQ. And again... all the food at Ed's rallies is homemade. The only thing store bought was the doughnuts for breakfast. And of course everything was wonderful. Everyone is dishing out where they went and the troubles they ran into. Dad was 25 miles down a road, and came to a bridge out sign. That put him 25 miles back to reroute, so a 50 mile loss. Other wise he'd been in on time. But everyone ran into weather at some point, so we were all even on that regards. Most the people went North West to the Atlanta area. Some went to Alabama. A lot went the west Florida route to Ft Myers and back through Tallahassee. Me and one other guy did the Sucker route to Central FL. And he did it in a no-top hot rod. In the rain. With no wipers on the 12inch tall windshield. I think he got more wet than the motorcycle riders. There was supposed to be a Hot Rod rally too, but with the rain forecast, all but Joe Sunnutti backed out of it. Instead of winning by default, he decided to compete against the bikes in his open top coupe. We both made it on time. Now its time to see if the sucker route had enough points to place well. 18 bikes finished and were scored, 5 DNF'd, and 6 more didn't start for various reasons. 10 of the 18 finishers were considered rookies... me included. So I had an OK chance of placing well. Once everyone was scored, it was finally time to release to results. Jim started up the list from 10th place. 10th not me. 9th not me. 8th... to 3rd NOT ME. So I figured at this point I was out of the top 10. That sucks. I really wanted a top 10. 2nd Richard Buber. This guy has been in a million rallies... I think he lives on a motorcycle. I'm definitely out. And first goes too.... ME!! What... I was shocked. Pleasantly shocked. And after loosing all those points!!! Jim confirmed he put all those locations down there as the sucker route, and didn't think anyone would do it. And if they did, they couldn't make it back in time. I proved him wrong. I averaged 57.4 mph over the whole day, rest and all other stops included. When I wasn't stopped I was moving, and riding hard. But I knew in my head that route was the highest scoring route, w/o all the wildcards added in. Richard went for all the combinations of wildcards to get the max points w/o all the mileage. He still did 625 miles. But he didn't loose any points at the table. He shook my hand and said "Congrats on the win. Winning these things are hard. I've been trying for 20 years and still haven't won one." That statement almost made me feel bad. I felt like I took something from him. But I earned it... and rode my ass off for it. And he wasn't mad or upset, and was genuinely excited for me... so I didn't feel bad anymore. I got my trophy! One perk that came with the win as a rookie, was a free and guaranteed entry into the 2012 <a href="http://www.capefear1000.com/">Cape Fear 1000</a> rally. This rally fills up in 5 mins once posted online every year. So in theory I won $90 bucks! Cool. The rest of the night was more talkin and chattin... People said their goodbyes and headed out. Some back to the house, most back to their hotels. Me, Dad, Richard, and Ernie piled into our respective bunk beds in the cabin and got some much needed sleep. <br />
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Sunday morning breakfast was cooked up by Ed in the cabin. Pancakes, bacon, sausage... and probly some other stuff. Mr Hod Rod, Joe Sunnutti gave a morning prayer meeting. He is a Chaplain for <a href="http://godspeedministry.com/">God Speed Ministries, </a>and usually travels the drag racing circuits. After the services, most everything was done. Me, Dad, and Ernie headed out, and I followed them to Jax. They went South, I went West and cruised on the house... Ed's Last Resort Rally 2011 Winner. What to do next? I have a few ideas.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17949710209610441126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468865764554952696.post-63497948585267127692011-07-11T14:41:00.000-04:002011-07-11T14:41:55.159-04:00My 2nd Motorcycle<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>After Ed's Last Resort Rally 2009, I know I had to get another motorcycle. But with 2 kids in daycare, the money was just not there to buy and maintain a bike. I already had to sell the boat, so I knew I was going to have to wait. Plus, I really didn't have a place to store a bike, since the single car garage was full of fish... The Clown Hatchery is a side business of mine. I breed and sell 4 different breeds/color variations of Nemo. Every year I hope to retire off of the little guys, but just about the time things get going really well, something happens and I still have to keep my day job. But sometimes, jobs come my way in my real profession... computers, that I can earn a lil bit of cash on the side. I just never seem to get enough lined up to save any. Summer of 2010, we moved to a bigger house, with a bigger garage, with more room for the fish, and a spot for a motorcycle :) <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizKxPaKFfXjognCn7kiVrpkBw1qXjICWaes42Gwz3ObXECk6258lbWSt1G7NgkOpLq6IlQDicpTGx21tDy8KMa0RfcCA1C9d1BIqX-xEEzNTuFSL4Df6-KgCNqdAjI3FD11k_dVNB0oFg/s1600/163112_1626836545725_1080875630_1642096_6597529_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEizKxPaKFfXjognCn7kiVrpkBw1qXjICWaes42Gwz3ObXECk6258lbWSt1G7NgkOpLq6IlQDicpTGx21tDy8KMa0RfcCA1C9d1BIqX-xEEzNTuFSL4Df6-KgCNqdAjI3FD11k_dVNB0oFg/s320/163112_1626836545725_1080875630_1642096_6597529_n.jpg" width="300" /></a></div>Santa brought a pocket rocket for my 4 yr old, and this made daddy really jealous. Luckily that was mommy's idea. Our son loves grandpa, and grandpas motorcycle. So that was his big present for Christmas. He couldn't ride a bicycle without traing wheels, but he learned to ride the motorcycle in a few minutes. Finally, Dec 2010/Jan 2011, 4 side jobs were lined up that put enough money in my pocket that I started looking for bikes!!! I figured with the cash on hand, it would be a 30 -50% down payment on a used bike. I picked a bike, put a hold on it, called the bank, and..... a week later I called back, long story short, they laughed! Now I had to re-plan this bike thing. I had to find one that cost the same as I had... which wasn't a lot. My options just dropped way down. I knew I needed a rally bike, and they are on the upper end of the cost scale. I knew how much dad paid for his Concours, which is a sport touring bike, so I started looking at them. OLDER versions of them. The good thing about touring/sport touring bikes is they generally have large saddle bags and comfortable riding postures so you can ride them long distances. The bad thing about touring/sport touring bikes that are comfy to ride, is people like to ride them a loooong way, many times! So finding a rally bike with low mileage is a needle in a haystack. Most have 50,000-100,000 miles on them after only a few years. But most long distance riders maintain their bikes pretty good. So I looked, and looked, and looked. Too expensive. Only needs a $100 part to be road worthy. Only dropped once in the grass ( translated to - flown off a cliff). No test rides... But I finally found on Craigslist, a 1998 Concours, 5 miles from dads, test ride allowed, ready to ride. He drove it, liked it, couldn't find anything wrong with it, plus it had a brand new rear tire and Givi top rack/trunk. But it had 72,000 miles on it. After reading 1000s of posts on the COG forum, I felt comfortable that the bike should last to 150k with not too many issues. OR it would blow up on the first ride. What the hell. So I deposited the cash in Dads account in Tallahassee, he paid for it and drove it home, and I headed down to pick it up that weekend. I'm the proud third owner of a 98 Concours! <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjKzdsLUkw6q5Ie1EZag1maWN7VwR707mc-izi-tN68qN7xDaGH6O6JYd2BspfCtf-ekwDwpud3Eia4nlflXZEpLDUt_CPC7a8OBK1irMUdMBQH4HSIQA2p_E4sDNrQgMHgf_ealAzoUI/s1600/168461_200989739916355_100000159927044_909796_748526_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhjKzdsLUkw6q5Ie1EZag1maWN7VwR707mc-izi-tN68qN7xDaGH6O6JYd2BspfCtf-ekwDwpud3Eia4nlflXZEpLDUt_CPC7a8OBK1irMUdMBQH4HSIQA2p_E4sDNrQgMHgf_ealAzoUI/s320/168461_200989739916355_100000159927044_909796_748526_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div> I left work at 11 Fri, picked up the U-Haul bike trailer, and headed South. I needed to get there early enough to register it at the DMV for tags and title. There was no way I was going to wait to take it out on the roads. Plus, if any issues popped up, who better to help fix it, than someone on their second Connie. I drove straight to the DMV in Daytona, met dad and his wife there with the title, and got it all registered up, titled up, and grabbed a tag. Luckily dad had an extra helmet, jacket, chaps, gloves... all the stuff I still need to buy!! It was cold, but off we went for a real shakedown. ride. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQDuGepBHUH2bFMfSPOWa05fRjEMoUTCUEl1IMYQpk4NM7do9_lI3PBofkx780GSEO2jvZ1LuU5ivdtEZJ6DRXKGPCkBmykImSHCNJO5hlu3J6ky_UrXzgxR2g40Hfx7k2WcxYhHPG5WY/s1600/179479_200989773249685_100000159927044_909797_3834788_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhQDuGepBHUH2bFMfSPOWa05fRjEMoUTCUEl1IMYQpk4NM7do9_lI3PBofkx780GSEO2jvZ1LuU5ivdtEZJ6DRXKGPCkBmykImSHCNJO5hlu3J6ky_UrXzgxR2g40Hfx7k2WcxYhHPG5WY/s320/179479_200989773249685_100000159927044_909797_3834788_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>This time, it'd only been 2 years since I'd ridden a bike, so no crazy moments. Drove it straight to Pep Boys for carb cleaner to run through it just in case. Then some hwy riding, and back road riding. The hand brake light switch was apparently a bit dirty because the brake light was not coming on except with the foot brake on the start of the ride, but it was working by the end. I'm good at this mechanic-ing stuff!! She rode like a dream... a rough buzzy dream... but no issues, no leaks, no problems. Score! We took the twins out again the next morning, met up with a crotch rocket friend of mine, and did a little bit more riding before I had to strap it down and head home. I'm liking this thing. So far. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>I bought 2 jackets, 2 helmets, rain gear, and some gloves. After a few more rides, I was getting neck aches, which turned into headaches after about an hour of riding. This is not good. I plan on muti-hour and multi-day rallies for this bike. After searching the COG forums even more, and common sense, I figured out the wind was hitting me straight in the middle of the face shield. It was causing some horrible buffeting of my head. I had to do something. So I ordered a new Cee Bailys wind screen that is about 5 inches taller than stock to direct the air over my helmet, and it has a vent to help with the buffeting. WOW what a difference! But I do have to look through the glass unless I sit up as straight as I can, then I can see over it. Its really not an issue... or so I thought. More on that in the next blog. I ended up having to replacing the oil cooler due to a cracked thread causing a small oil leak, and there is still a tiny leak coming from the bevel gear housing seal, which so far is not worth the down time to replace the gasket. But its on the list of major repairs for a minor annoyance. Changed the oil in the motor and rear drive just to be safe a few hundred miles later. I bought some RAM mounts for the GPS, and beverage holder in time for Eds Last Resort Rally 2011. I've finally got all the essentials for a rally bike. Time to Rally!<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5C7nbRUqZ1_O0zcOfd6i6JkVa3p2txbdBJhJWttiSaCZ6FeSpSL9y42QJoqoeqRJnjr26PE8ubhyphenhyphenILs5rWIvkX-YLBuE3vj7sB_7DCcSoFTRE7ddgSixwG7e9F0SKRlej1f15PQflsBQ/s1600/184939_1697212745086_1080875630_1778819_1575262_n.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="238" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5C7nbRUqZ1_O0zcOfd6i6JkVa3p2txbdBJhJWttiSaCZ6FeSpSL9y42QJoqoeqRJnjr26PE8ubhyphenhyphenILs5rWIvkX-YLBuE3vj7sB_7DCcSoFTRE7ddgSixwG7e9F0SKRlej1f15PQflsBQ/s320/184939_1697212745086_1080875630_1778819_1575262_n.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17949710209610441126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468865764554952696.post-66320587563747498412011-07-04T17:21:00.001-04:002012-01-16T11:37:55.297-05:00My First RallyStill not owning a bike, I entered Ed's Last Resort Rally 2009. I (at the time) still had very little knowledge about rallies, how to plan a route, or most importantly... how they are scored. But dad is loaning me his Victory, a GPS, and a map. All I need :) I took a computer to try the 'pro' way to plan a route, but that was more learning than the amount of time I had. Luckily, Ed's rally is a return to origin rally... you start and end at the same location. I borrowed a pop up camper from the mom-in-law, bought some Wally-World motorcycle gloves, a 6-pack of 5 hour energy, 3 diff types of pain relievers for a planned sore ass, and some Starbucks canned coffee. That should be enough to keep me awake 12 hours on the bike. Off to my first rally.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzkAxMX-Vj5YCl7mheOGPVWG9CBjaWcLBxHHQqNnJ_7EH_cbUaXq6w5EtMx_7XSHmyghiwVQa7Pf-R6lbCJEhvQnobE0CshJDi_cf6YMZ3wl1je5VwCnfTtROwGgUgIPyaFAfLiBPONfQ/s1600/large_20100404_30.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhzkAxMX-Vj5YCl7mheOGPVWG9CBjaWcLBxHHQqNnJ_7EH_cbUaXq6w5EtMx_7XSHmyghiwVQa7Pf-R6lbCJEhvQnobE0CshJDi_cf6YMZ3wl1je5VwCnfTtROwGgUgIPyaFAfLiBPONfQ/s1600/large_20100404_30.jpg" /></a></div>I get to Ed's Last Resort... which Ed has turned into a nice little campground with power hook ups, a stocked fishing pond, and IIRC, the house his mother grew up in, or the house he grew up in. Either way an old country cabin that he had moved to the location. Its a real quaint set up, right in the middle of hundreds of acres of farm land in Surrency, GA. There is also a covered carport/barn/outdoor diner where all the festivities take place. Since its all on location, and not a hotel... and the food is primarily cooked on site. The entry fee covered dinner on Fri, doughnut breakfast on Sat, BBQ dinner and live music Sat night, and a pancake breakfast on Sun... All hand made right there. Some people just come for the food and entertainment for the weekend, and don't actually ride in the rally. They call that in the culture, an RTE.. or Ride To Eat. This year there were 11 bikes that started, but about 30 people onsite for the event. I got there a bit early to set up the camper, then waited for everyone else to show up. I met Ed Tillman for the first time, face to face. Then I met the special guest this year, who was John Ryan. Hes the one I mentioned in the last blog, who had just completed his 84 hr, Alaska to Key West trip. He was well know before that ride, and is now a Legend. Ed keeps good company! Everyone started showing up on bikes, in campers, trucks pulling bikes, bikes pulling trailers... There were Harleys, BMWs, Hondas, Kawasakis, Yamahas, and others I couldn't identify. Cruisers, Tourers, Dual Sports, and maybe a rocket in there. All kinds of bikes, and all kinds of people. Most were seasoned rally veterans, since most only heard about the rally at other rallies. It was only me and one other newbie getting our feet wet for the first time, in our first rally. I got to meet and talk to a few more people, and everyone was free to offer advice. My issue was, I didn't know what to ask.... so mostly I just listened to other people talk and soaked up what I could.<br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDbOHUKiGgqr2j94JiMgCdoRMH6DEMoOTlIRVaQCcsS04WCJtj1XPUOCChTwnpZFqvzNBgP9wOUBo9O_mioNHLM5Rdc52wdgfB7PIvuZ2xVDl6qNoHFR92RJOvo_g1CFCpiq-psA1pMOQ/s1600/large_20100404_33.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDbOHUKiGgqr2j94JiMgCdoRMH6DEMoOTlIRVaQCcsS04WCJtj1XPUOCChTwnpZFqvzNBgP9wOUBo9O_mioNHLM5Rdc52wdgfB7PIvuZ2xVDl6qNoHFR92RJOvo_g1CFCpiq-psA1pMOQ/s1600/large_20100404_33.jpg" /></a></div>Everyone floated around chatting until dinner was served. Ed used a paddle to stir the stew of ingredients that were sometimes questionable. It would be my first time eating pigs feet that night. A lil chewy, but not bad. It had fallen off the hoof, so you never knew what was in each bite. REAL southern cooking. ( I found out in the 2011 rally that the paddle I assumed came from a boat store 50 yrs ago, was actually purpose made for cooking... from a reclaimed board... from an old outhouse. ) But that is the charm of Ed's rally. No 4 star hotel banquet hall and dinner at a restaurant. Ed is a country man, and this is how its done in the country... <br />
After dinner, the long awaited drivers meeting happens. This is where the Rally Master... also affectionately known as the Rally Bastard... hands out the rally packs. In your pack is all the bonus locations and wild card bonus info. They go over a few rules, answer any questions, and clarify any misunderstandings in the pack. There is also a white envelope in the pack. We had to put our license and insurance card in the envelope, seal it up, and the rally bastard initialed the envelope. One of the wild card bonus is extra points for not getting a speeding ticket. So if you get back w the envelope intact, the points are yours. This is to discourage speeding. When all the questions are finally answered, everyone scattered like cock roaches! I knew then these guys were serious... off they went with the packs and computers back to hotel rooms or far corners of the carport to blast the bonus location into the computers, optimize the route, and upload it to their GPS units. I had a map and post it notes. My dad helped as best he could, but he was planning his own route. So me and the other newbie, Ernie, sat together w our maps and plotted the locations as we found the cities. The locations were all the way up into North Carolina, over into Alabama, and as far south as Key West. But most were in GA. We spent a few hours laying out the locations and trying to figure the best routes to get to them, as well as pick up the wild card bonuses. Around 11pm, I think I finally had a good route picked, so time to MANUALLY type them into the GPS. Now again, Ed is not technically savvy. But he had a crap load of 'off the beaten path' places he's been to over the years and gotten their GPS coordinates. And some he's gotten from other people. If you know true GPS coordinates... not just entering an address, but the N34.51179 W83.52669 coordinates... then you might know there are 3 ways to write a location. And Ed had collected all three types of coordinates, and had them mixed in the different bonus locations. The GPS I had only took one kind. I tried to get some in there... but it wasn't working. The other issue was, I was tired and the GPS was hard wired to the bike. So I was sitting on the bike trying to program it, just getting frustrated. So after about an hour... FK it! I had my map, and I knew where I was going. I would program the next town I was headed to from each bonus stop, and search the town when I got there. Off to bed. <br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhURcLCzcYhkn7bIeQr8BZSdRHKUZOJF3eqXPfEnkA-pPuKjRT7aahilxkYScQxYBv5tqDk6UMcOBiXqHcnBAnCA_NJk3kz5PuskdTJI4Q8GxCpmpcnCQe2ZJccGaeJRXR3iR7PAel-iew/s1600/03Vic.jpeg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="242" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhURcLCzcYhkn7bIeQr8BZSdRHKUZOJF3eqXPfEnkA-pPuKjRT7aahilxkYScQxYBv5tqDk6UMcOBiXqHcnBAnCA_NJk3kz5PuskdTJI4Q8GxCpmpcnCQe2ZJccGaeJRXR3iR7PAel-iew/s320/03Vic.jpeg" width="320" /></a></div>I don't sleep well when not at my house. Especially in a pop up camper where you can hear every noise outside around you. I may have gotten to sleep around 2 am and back awake at 5. Dad, Ernie, and I unload the bikes off the trailer, crank em up, and drive em to the starting location. Now this short, 100 yd drive, was the only warmup ride I got on this beast of a motorcycle. I'm sure I drug my feet most of the way praying I don't drop it. But I got it there and shut it off. This also was my only warmup ride on ANY bike in the last 5 years. A whole 10 seconds... And I'm about to take off on a 12 hr ride. No problem. I popped an aleeve and tylenol for precationary measures, and drank a 16oz can of coffee. Over to breakfast we went. Got to talk a lil bit of strategy, and listened to a lot more. I already knew I was nowhere near able to win, and all I wanted was to NOT finish last. Ate a few donuts, drank some juice, downed a 5 hour energy, and waited for the start. The Rally Bastard walked around and got everyone's starting odometer reading, since you have to track your ride to each bonus and put your odometer reading on the rally scoring sheet at each bonus. I took my last potty break, and donned my gear. My plan was to let everyone start ahead of me and be the last to leave... A) Because I hadn't ridden a bike in 5 years. B) Because the Resort was down a mile long dirt road (did I mention I hadn't been on a bike in 5 yrs) and C) I was not here to win it, so to give everyone else a minute or two head start and not be in their way. I said my good lucks, and see ya's to dad and Ernie, got on the bike, and waited for the go signal.<br />
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The Rally Bastard said go, blew a horn, something... I don't remember, and off everyone went. As I watched them pull out on the road, I hit the starter button on the Vic. Nothing. Not one turnover, or even a click... Nothing. I turn it off, rock it a bit (maybe the starter is hung), turn it on, hit the button... Nothing. Awesome. Now remember... I just cranked it up and drove it over here an hour ago. WTF! Now its dead. Ed and another guy come over and try taping on the starter, rocking it again... nothing. So now we have to figure out how to get to the battery. We manage to get the seat off, and jiggle the battery wires. One it slightly loose, we tighten it... Nothing. So Ed finally grabs a battery pack - jumper cable thingy, hooks it up, and she fires right up. We put it back together, and I'm ready to go. Ed reminded me his cell # was in the rally pack and to call him if I need any more help. I told him my first bonus stop was 20 miles away, so if it doesn't start there, then he'd be hearing from me, and I'd be out of the rally. And off I went... 15 mins behind everyone else.<br />
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Now this was 2 years ago, so I don't remember the details of the entire ride. But my path took me from Baxley, Ga, up into South Carolina, followed the state line north a while, came back into GA, across into the middle of the state, and circled back down and around. I learned real quick that having the exact GPS coordinates saved A LOT of time. I was driving around the towns (thankfully most were teeny tiny) looking for the desired landmark. I probly spent 20 - 30 mins on the first 3 or 4 locations until I found the locations... but I was seeing a pattern. Nothing was really hidden, and most were on the main drag, near the courthouse. So common sense started to set in and they got easier to find. I was also trying to figure out the new-to-me GPS. I'd type in the next town, it'd say 1 hr, off I'd go, and 35-40 mins later I was there. I was always gaining time.... and a lot of it. The GPS in my car... I was lucky to gain one minute running 85mph in 35 zone, let alone 15 - 25 mins like this one. And I was not speeding. Most of the time. But I was able to settle into a rhythm, I followed my route, and found just about all the bonuses I went for. I had already planned a conservative route, but the GPS was not allowing me to accurately calculate just how far North-West I could go and still get home in time. I dropped 3 locations off my original plan just in case. No point in coming in late and loosing all the points due to late penalties. Around noon I stopped, got something to eat and drink, and stood up for a while. Put a call into dad's voice mail to let him know I was fine (and the bike too), and called the wife to say I wasn't dead on the road somewhere. I was feeling really good still, not tired, not really sore... a little bit, but that was to be expected. Took some motrin and more tylenol, downed another 5 hour energy and was off again. I kept on my planned route and the closer to home I got, I was still dropping a lot of time off the clock. I should not have dropped the northern most locations! So I added a few more lower point places not far off the lower leg of the trip. Still I had plenty of time... but no more places to go in range. So about 9 hours in, I only had 2 more places to go. But now I was starting to get tired. I couldn't find the next to last bonus... Screw it, off to the last one... couldn't find that one either... FK! And I had all the time in the world to look! Nope. Not gonna happen. It was 10 miles from Eds, and the last wild card bonus was "a 6 pack of your favorite beverage" the politically correct way to say bring some COLD BEER. I stopped at a CVS, got the beer, and just knew this was going to be the time the battery is dead again and won't start. I waited to put the beer in the saddle bag, until after it started... just in case I needed it while waiting for a jump start. But she started right up... just like every other time except the beginning. I put the resort in the GPS and headed to the farm... almost 2 hours early.<br />
<br />
Expecting to be the first one back, I was surprised to be greeted by my dad. Apparently, about 4 hours into the ride, his GPS showed his next location to be in the middle of the ocean. None of his other locations would show up right. So he mapped it home with a dead GPS and waited for the rest of us. Now I get to learn about the scoring process. Its pretty cut and dry, and there are NO gimmies. If it says write some thing down, it better be written down. If it says get a receipt, you better have the receipt. If it says bring it to the table for scoring... you cannot get up to go get it if you forgot it in the saddle bag. Once you are in the chair in front of the Rally Bastard... you are there till the end. I lost a good amount of points for forgetting stuff on my score sheet. The worst was not writing down the points for the gas receipts to 2 states. I had the receipts at the scoring table... but since I didn't write it down...XXXX. NO points. And after driving that far out of the way to get it. But this is how you learn. I was tired, but still thinking this was a lot of fun. The most fun I'd had in a while. We watched the rest of the riders trickle in, most within the last 20 mins of the 12 hr window. One guy cut it close so he was flying down the dirt road, hit the grass drive way to the area, and dumped the bike. He was fine, the bike was fine as far as we could tell, and was listed as a few mins early. One was about 5 mins late after driving the last 200 miles home around 90mph. He got a ticket 15 mins from the end. Late penalty, lost the no-ticket bonus, and has to pay the ticket. Ouch! But everyone made it back... no accidents, 1 ticket, no mechanical failures.... oh wait. Dad decided to load the bikes up on the trailer before it got too late and too much beer was downed. He hit the starter on the Vic, it cranked right up.... but the starter didn't turn off. He immediately drove it to the trailer, starter whirling away, and turned it off. Starter motor still running. He pulled the seat, and disconnected the battery... finally the stater motor turned off. Ok, one mechanical failure. I'm soooo glad it didn't do that while I was 200 miles from home! But all in all it was a good day. Ate some dinner, they added up the points for everyone, and I met my goal. I did not finish last! I actually ended up in 6th place! Not too bad for my first attempt. On a borrowed bike. With no real GPS. I was happy. I was hooked.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17949710209610441126noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468865764554952696.post-41988190879211385012011-07-01T16:58:00.001-04:002012-01-16T11:29:42.457-05:00Iron Butts and RallysFast Forward a few years, and changing family dynamics.... my dad bought a new motorcycle. His girlfriend didn't mind too much. It was Vulcan 750 cruiser. Neat little bike. Fun to ride, looked like a Harley... w/o all the problems :) He was back on a bike after a long time off of them. Awesome. Fast Fwd a couple more years... that lil 750 wasn't enough, and the newest girlfriend wanted to drive one, instead of ride on the back. Along comes a Victory 1300cc... The Beast as I call it. It is still the largest bike that I have ever ridden. Windshield, saddle bags, shaft drive... Really Awesome. This bike was made to ride. And with bags, you could ride all day and carry stuff with you. So what do you do with a bike that is comfy, and you can carry stuff on it???<br />
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IRON BUTT Rides. WTF is that? Somehow my dad heard about the <a href="http://ironbutt.com/about/default.cfm">Iron Butt Association</a>, and their sanctioned rides. He decided this was something he wanted to try. The "entry level" ride you can do, and get a certification is a Saddle Sore 1000. SS1000 is a 1000 mile ride to anywhere, completed in 24 hrs or less. He did one... and another.. then a 1500 miler... then a Lap Of Florida... 1850 miles in 32 hours or less, touching Perdido Key (Pensacola), Amelia Island, Key West, Naples, and back to Perdido Key... he was the 4th person ever to do it. Needless to say he's hooked on Long Distance rides. I'd hear the stories of the rides and the issues that pop up, the paperwork nightmare they are to get them certified.... and wonder why would anyone do this. Whats the fun in it? There has to be a reason to do this! Well there is. The Iron Butt Association hosts, every 2 years, the Iron Butt Rally. It takes place over 11 days, and is around 11,000 miles. And to qualify for the IBR, you have to have completed a select few of the IBA rides, and/or competed in other multi-day rallies and placed well. A typical rally, unlike the IBR, is 10 - 36 hrs. Some start and end at the same place like <a href="http://www.edslastresortrally.com/">Eds Last Resort Rally</a>, and some start in multiple locations and end at the same place like the <a href="http://www.capefear1000.com/">Cape Fear 1000</a>. How a Rally works is its pretty much like a scavenger hunt, but on a motorcycle. The rally master hands out a list of places you can go see, called bonus locations. Each location is given a different point value, generally based on how far away it is or how hard it is to get to. Most bonuses are something like... "In Smalltown, Nowhere, on the corner of 1st and Main is the Courthouse. In what year was the building built. " And generally the GPS coordinates are also given. Your goal is to plan a route to drive to the most bonus locations, collect the required info, and get back to the end location before the time is up. He who collects the most points wins. Easy right. Wrong! They also throw in "Wildcard" bonuses like: get gas in 3 states, get a Vidalia onion in Vidalia, GA, eat a hotdog at three different hotdog stands in 3 different towns... stuff like that. Those bonii make you have to think, and strategize a bit more than just drive 2000 miles to 50 places. The fastest rider doesn't usually win.<br />
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There is a large size cult of motorcyclists that partake in these rallys. Some just stop at the IBA rides. And some get creative with the rides. I talked to one guy that did a SS1000, 1000 miles in 24 hrs, all within the city limits of NY city. One of the rides is 10 SS1000's in 10 days. Enough people did that, so one guy got a bit more creative. He did 10, 1000 miles rides in 10 days, each day on a different motorcycle (Richard Buber). But the most extreme ride I know of, and met the rider (same that did the NY Ride) is a trip from Prudhoe Bay Alaska, to Key West. To get the certification, you have 30 days (720 hrs) to complete it. John Ryan did it in 84 hours (3.5 days). Why? Because someone else did it in 92 hrs and thought he could do better... What did he get for it? Nothing. These rally guys are from all walks of life, electricians, lawyers, mechanics, computer geeks... but they all share an un-natural love to ride motorcycles. For any reason... or no reason at all. They just want to ride.<br />
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<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"></div>FWD a bit... Once dad completed a few of these rides, he decided it was time to try his hand in a rally. Then another. Then decided the Vic was not a good rally bike. 1. Its HUGE. 2. The gas tank is too small so it take a lot of gas stops. 3. Its V-Twin vibrates A LOT. This means he needs something smaller, bigger gas tank, and a smoother ride. So he bought a Kawasaki Concours, 1000cc, the largest tank on a bike, and somewhat smoother ride. He slaps on a GPS and is ready to rally for real. While at these rallies, he meets Ed Tillman, who hosts his own rally every year or so. Dad asked for the web address so he could look it up, but he didn't have one. Technology is NOT one of Ed's strong suits. Lucky for him, my dad's son knows how to build and host websites... And does it pretty cheap! So he contacted me about doing the web site and email stuff for Eds Last Resort Rally. I took on the duties, long before I understood the rally stuff and Iron Butt stuff. I needed diaper money, and I liked motorcycles, so why not. I found a photo of a really cool chopper online and doctored it up, made it look really sweet... showed it to Ed, and he laughed. <br />
<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSI8gZCu_afQHBsQBzWCtgtNPvcXm6nkGw7yROaTyRJXDG3Tew5aFOwNBFfta7n-JtwAdLrm5dpZmmtZqSApuSekw_yBHCOEYVXwNWR-qC2L_GR9Rfqn4NV_5PdZJwjouOearuZz3sb5s/s1600/ChopperRed.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="148" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiSI8gZCu_afQHBsQBzWCtgtNPvcXm6nkGw7yROaTyRJXDG3Tew5aFOwNBFfta7n-JtwAdLrm5dpZmmtZqSApuSekw_yBHCOEYVXwNWR-qC2L_GR9Rfqn4NV_5PdZJwjouOearuZz3sb5s/s320/ChopperRed.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>"Well son... You don't quite understand what a "Rally" bike is. Take a look at your dad's bike, and you'll know what I mean." So then I Googled around for pictures of rally bikes, and started getting my feet wet in this crazy sub-culture. And I asked dad to send my a picture of his bike to add to the website.<br />
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<br />
Bike Differences:<br />
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Basically, choppers ( like most bikes at bike week I saw) are low, loud, and really cool to look at. They have a speedometer, and maybe a tach. But they SUCK to ride more than an hour or so because they are uncomfortable, and are probably needing gas already. The rider has on cowboy boots, bandannas, black everything, and maybe a skull cap helmet. They may have a map stashed somewhere. Who cares where you are. They can get directions from the next bartender. (I may be over exaggerating a bit just to make a point... I still want a chopper one day).<br />
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A rally bike is a taller bike, wrap around fairings, big gas tanks, windshields, and TONS of electronic gizmos. 1 to 3 GPS units, satellite trackers, satellite radio for weather and traffic. Spare gas tanks, extra saddle bags, hydration systems. The riders (generally) have full body protective suits that are everything proof... rain, hail, snow... Can have heated gloves, seats, grips, vests, pants.... for cold weather rides. Helmets generally have Bluetooth earphones to listen to all the gizmos. Some even have iPads and netbooks installed in water proof cases. Knowing where you are and where you are going is king. (I may be understating a bit).<br />
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Ed liked the new rally bike picture, and was happy. Then he invited me to the next rally to experience the rally culture. Hey why not. I told dad I'd probably go with him to see how it all operates and get some good photos for the website. Then the light bulb came on. Since dad still had the Victory... He offered it to me to actually participate in the rally. Sure! Why not. I haven't ridden a bike in 6 years, and my ass was numb after 6 hours on it (dads Vulcan 750). Whats 12hrs on a Victory? So I went.Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17949710209610441126noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-5468865764554952696.post-53509249901375599782011-06-30T09:52:00.002-04:002012-01-16T11:23:03.862-05:00My First MotorcycleGrowing up in Daytona, there are three things that set the town apart from most other towns. The beach, Nascar, and Bike Week. I started surfing as soon as we moved there. I was already a fan of Nascar since my father took me there when I was 8 to see my first race. And for one week a year, I oogled all the motorcycles that filled the place. I always wanted a motorcycle since I was tiny. Mom always told me the normal motherly stuff... "When you turn 18 you can do whatever you want. Until then, no motorcycles in my house." Well, when you are 10, thats an eternity... for me and mom. Fast fwd 8 years... I just turned 18, I've been borrowing the parents cars to get to work at night after school for a while, and its Bike Week 1994. I took a ride one afternoon down A1A to see all the bikes, then back across the bridge near the "old" Beach St Harley dealership... way too many bikes and no parking, so I just continued on to US1. Hey Look!! The Yamaha dealership has plenty of parking. Lets go in there. An hour later I walked into my dads office, pushed some papers across the desk and asked for a co-signature. He pushed them back and said "Your mother will kill us both." I pushed them back with the follow up, "Mom said when I turned 18 I could drive whatever I want." Still not selling it on him, he told me of a place in Jax that sold late model Vettes for about the same price. So he called our Ins agent and ran it by him/her. Ins on the Vette would be about $400 a month, and only $68 on the bike. He signed the loan paper work and off I went to the bank, who cut a check to the dealer. As I got to the dealer, he told me it be a little while as they had to un-crate one in the back and get it ready. Cool... plenty of time to call around to get a friend w a truck to pick us up, since I've never ridden a 'real' motorcycle before. And NEVER on the streets. He gave me a look when I asked for a phone to make those calls. "Have you riden ANY motorcycle before?" he asked. I told him I rode a 50cc a year or 2 ago, and a moped once. "I'll show you. You'll be fine" he smirked. I'm not sure if he was looking out for me at this point, or just wanted the bike out the door. But I picked out my helmet, and waited for the bike to be prepped. I saw it take off down the road, then come back a few mins later. Here we go.<br />
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I was now the proud new owner of a 1993 Yamaha FZR600, Navy Blue w Purple Wheels and trim. It had about 90 HP, and redlined at 10,500 RPMs. It would do 0-60 in 3.3 secs. And I'm about to ride it home. In traffic. By myself. Never riding a street bike before. This is stupid. But hey, I'm 18. I can do anything. The sales guy walks me around the bike, pointing out the 500 different parts to it and what I have to do with each one. Thats alot of info. "Maybe I should call and get a truck lined up?" "Don't worry. I'll show you what to do, and you can ride around the building as much as you like till you feel comfy." I think he is looking at the repair bills that he'll get a commission on too... the same day the bike is sold, and it never left the parking lot.... this guy is smart. But hes a professional... So I trust him. I crank her up and he again points out all the controls. Brakes, clutch, shifter, throttle, blinkers, horn, waa, waa, waaaaaa, waa wa. He gets me to feather the clutch few times to get a feel for the sweet spot. Instructs me on braking... More on the front, the back is for emergency. And off I go in circles around the dealership. I'm sure there was a pool going on how many seconds it was going to take till I dropped it. Luckily... they all lost. I drove around for about 15 mins... waved at the sales guy, and hit the streets. I made it home w/o incident. Mom asked whos it was... I said mine. And that was it. I'm not sure what happened behind the scenes w dad... but we didn't see mom for the next 2 weeks. Didn't have a clue where she was! But she came back, and I drove the bike everywhere. Work, school, the beach, Jax... wherever I felt like going. I took me about a week to see how fast it'd really go. 145 slightly in the red zone. Any faster and I think the bike would literally fly off the ground. It was real light at that speed and kinda floated down the hwy. It was as my dad put it... "Not just fast, but sudden." In a car on the hwy, you pull out to pass at 60, it takes a while to get to 80, then pull back in line. On the bike, 60 to 90 was 3rd gear and 2 seconds. It was a dream. But a few months later I bought a car, then joined the navy, moved around a lot and was always broke. The Navy really doesn't pay the new guys very much :( So I ended up selling it for what I owed, 2 years later. But I always knew I would get another bike. Some day... just didn't know it'd be 15 years later!Anonymoushttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17949710209610441126noreply@blogger.com0