2021 Fall Equinox Bun Burner Gold

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On September 21st I completed my 3rd Bun Burner Gold (1500 miles in less than 24 hours). I’m attempting to get the IBA Four Seasons Award by completing the same ride on each of the 4 on each of the 4 astronomical events (Solstice and Equinox). I only have the Winter Solstice to g after this one. I figured for the fall equinox a little bit of leaf peaping was in order so I planed a route that stayed entirely in New England. The route relies on the relatively high speed limits on I95 through Maine to keep the average speeds up. I’d originally planned to leave early in the morning on the 22nd, which would get me north of Boston before any traffic concerns arose. It would also have me in the more scenic northern areas during daylight. Unfortunately life didn’t co-operate and I needed to be home by the afternoon on the 22nd for my daughter’s taekwondo belt testing. In order to get the ride in I ended up leaving after work on the 21st, this put me in Boston late enough to avoid any real traffic, but unfortunately my entire time in Maine was as night. It was a little early in the season for leaves and the weather was overcast and dreary with the occasional showers, but there were still the occasional spectacular views. Over all the ride was pretty uneventful and the Super Tenere performed flawlessly. Now I just need to hope for good weather in December.

 

Super Tenere Valve Check/Adjustment

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The first major maintenance I’ve done on the Super Tenere is the Valve Check that’s required every ~26000 miles. I’m a couple hundred miles early, but wanted to get it out of the way during the winter while I’m not riding it anyway. The basic steps are pretty common for a valve check, but getting to the valves on this were a lot harder than on the F650. It took about 4 hours of work to get it taken apart far enough to actually make the measurements. This was the first time, and I’m sure I’ll do it faster next time, but it’s still a pain. I then waited 2.5 weeks to get the new valve pads (next time I’ll try and find them locally) and about 3 hours to put it all back together. At least it should have only taken 3 hours, in reality, I screwed it up pretty good. After putting the new pads in you’re supposed to rotate the engine several times to seat everything before confirming the measurements. When I did this I forgot to put the cam chain tensioner in first so the chain skipped messing up the timing. I then wasted almost a whole day between researching, swearing, and doing the same steps over and over again trying to get everything back correctly. Thankfully I eventually did get it figured out though, and I now know a whole lot more about that motor.

In the end the intake valves were all in spec but all of the exhaust valves were tight so I guess it was worth the trouble. Hopefully I’ll get to do it again next winter. Next up is cleaning up and powder coating the rack I built for the aux tank and redoing the auxiliary lighting wiring.

New Bike! 2017 Yamaha Super Tenere

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At an off road event I managed to over estimate my skill and get in over my head. I won’t go into the gory details, but suffice to say I messed up my bike pretty good, bent subframe, clutch shot, windshield and luggage racks destroyed, etc.

 

 

Given the age of the bike I’d already had thoughts of getting something newer, and given how long it was going to take to get parts this was the final straw. I talked it over with my wife, and we agreed it made sense for me to be riding something that was going to be more reliable and safer (ABS). With that decided I started looking and found a 2017 Yamaha Super Tenere at a reasonable price in Virginia.

 

A little bit of haggling and planning later I flew out to VA to pickup the bike and ride it home with a few TOH stops on the way.

 

The ride home was pretty uneventful, I’m really liking this bike so far. I need to get my Aux fuel tank moved over and some ergonomic changes done, let the farkling begin.

 

2020 – DirtDaze

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This year I once again attended the DirtDaze Adventure rally put on by Touratech and Americade. This year the event was moved to the North Haverhill, NH fairgrounds on August 20-23rd. The new facility provided a lot more room for camping, and to spread out which was critical this year given the Covid situation. Thankfully the timing worked out so that the Covid numbers were pretty low during the event and there were no travel restrictions between NH and CT that I needed to worry about.

I arrived Thursday afternoon after a few TOH / Grand tour stops on the way up and picked out a camp site. The sites weren’t terribly well defined, but there was plenty of room.  I was told there was an area set aside for quieter campers and in retrospect I probably should have chosen that. The camping arrangements were certainly better than last year though.

I spent the rest of the day Thursday demo riding bikes from Yamaha and Triumph. Originally there were supposed to be demo rides from several other manufactures, including BMW, but they all had to cancel due to travel restrictions. I was able to ride the Triumph Tiger 900 and Scrambler 1200 as well as the Yamaha T700 and Super Tenere. The T700 was defiantly the most fun, lots of power in a little bike. Unfortunately I think it’s a bit too small to do the distances stuff. As Long Haul Paul has shown it’s certainly capable of doing the distance, but not ideal, and I really want to get away from a chain. The Triumphs were both nice bikes and fun to ride, if I were seriously considering a new bike the Tiger 900 would  get a second look. In the back of my head, the Super Tenere has been the leading contender for my next bike. Demoing the one here didn’t leave me overly impressed though. It rode nice, but the throttle response was very touchy and due to it’s size wasn’t as nimble as any of the other bikes. It had been left in sport mode, which I realized after the fact probably contributed to the throttle behavior. It’s also pretty common to re-flash the ECU on those bikes to smooth out the power curve.

Friday morning I took a self guided route on the mild dirt roads and had a good time. In the afternoon I took the Intermediate Class taught by D.A.R.T. Adventure bike school. I’d taken the introductory class last year and this built on it with a number of exercises covering breaking, slow speed maneuvering, hill climbs and descents and towing. I enjoyed the class and it was good to brush up on the techniques. It was pretty warm though, and made me realize just how out of shape I’ve gotten.

Saturday I participated in the guided “Green Granite” ride that covered some pretty nice trails in Vermont and New Hampshire. There was one pretty challenging climb, and a few sections that pushed my comfort level a bit, which I enjoyed. Dinner back at the fairgrounds was a steak dinner by the local fire department. The dinner was pretty standard for such things, but it was a nice change from the single food vendor that was on site. That was another area impacted by Covid, they’d originally planned a whole bunch of food and beer trucks, but weren’t able to pull it off with restrictions in place.

I’d originally planned a circuitous route though NH and MA on the way home Sunday, but was pretty tired, and had some other commitments so I ended up departing pretty early and just heading home. Overall I had a great time and am looking forward to seeing what they have in store for 2021.

 

2020 – Track Day

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For a couple of years now, on the Facebook group New England Riders I’ve seen lots of post about the Non-Sport bike track days put on by Tony’s Track Days and Ken Condon. It always looked like a good experience, but never quite worked with my schedule. This year I decided to make it a priority. I also learned about the BMW MOA Paul B. Memorial Scholarship which provided $250 to offset the cost of class. I signed up for the Monday July 20th, 2020 date at Palmer Motorsport park. They do a track walk the afternoon before and I decided to make a day of it and spent the morning collecting TOH and Grand Tour Bonuses in Massachusetts.

For the track walk we were split into two groups one lead by Tony, the other by Ken. We then, as the name suggests walked around the track. This gave us an opportunity to learn the layout of the track, and the instructors provided tips on techniques for each part of the track. They also reviewed the safety related rules of the track to make sure everyone is being safe when entering and exiting the track. After the track walk many of us went to a local burger joint that featured outside seating for dinner and some appropriately distanced socializing. Camping was free at the track, so I’d opted to save a few bucks, and avoid unnecessary interactions and brought my camping gear. It turns out there wasn’t a lot of grass available to pitch a tent. Most people camping had trailers. There were also a few that setup under one of the cart ports which wasn’t an option for me as my trusty tent is not free standing. That may be something to consider when I replace it, but since this one is still going strong after almost 20 years I don’t see that happening anytime soon.

The next morning started with a Tech inspection (mirrors removed, tires in good condition, breaks good, etc). We were then separated in to three groups based on bike and experience. I was assigned to the intermediate (yellow) group. The rest of the day then consisted of alternating between 20 minute sessions on track, followed by classroom instruction, and re-hydrating (it was hot!). I learned a ton over the course of the day, and pushed my limits significantly. Looking at the video I captured, I realized after the fact that there is still lots of room for improvement. Overall I feel like I’m a better rider and have a better understanding my and my bikes limits. I would definitely recommend doing one of these track days and will probably do another in the future.

 

 

 

2020 – Summer Solstice Bun Burner Gold

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IBA BBG
Friday June 19, 2020 – Saturday June 20, 2020
(1523.6 miles)

The Iron Butt Association‘s Bun Burner Gold (BBG) ride requires 1500+ miles in under 24 hours. It’s generally considered one of the more challenging certified rides. It requires an overall average speed of 62.5MPH, there is not a lot of room for error. I’ve wanted to do see if I could pull off this ride for a while, and had started planning routes towards the end of last year. I’ve set the loose goal for myself of doing at least one certified ride a year, and had planned to try for the BBG this year. After my impromptu trip to Florida I was feeling pretty good about the prospect and with everything else being canceled, started looking at dates. The way things worked out this year I had about one significant motorcycle thing planned each month, with the exception of June, so I picked a weekend we didn’t have other plans, cleared it with the wife and started getting serious about planning.

Shortly after picking the date (June 20th) I saw an ad from Revzilla where they’d donate to a charity based on the number of miles ridden (and tracked on the Rever app) that weekend. I’d never used Rever but I figured why not? I then saw a post on Facebook that the 20th was actually the Summer Solstice. The IBA recognizes that with a special certificate and if you get the same ride on both Solstices and both Equinoxes you get a special certificate for that too. Looks like I picked a good date.

I like to have a goal to ride to, so I was originally looking for a Tour of Honor (TOH) site that would be about 750 miles away. I ended up with about 4 routes that could work. Unfortunately many of the TOH sites were closed due to the Corona virus, and coming out of New England where traffic is always a concern, I was worried about timing. I was also thinking that if I end up trying for all 4 solstice/equinox rides, doing the northern most one in the summer made sense. Consequently I settled on a northern route that followed I-80 most of the way. It also had the added benefit of passing right by Freedom Township OH, which would count for one of the harder to find bonuses in the Millage Maniacs grand tour.

Most people start these rides in the early AM so that they can get a mostly full nights rest ahead of time. That’s what I did for the first two SS1000s I did, but it results in finishing in the dark, late at night when you’re the most tired. For the Florida trip, I left in the evening due to the scheduled launch time, and felt pretty good about how that went. So about 1820 on Friday night I set off to get my start receipt and an official start time of 1842.

The trip when pretty much as planned on the way out. I planned for 250 miles between stops, but with the highway speeds I wasn’t quite making it, and ended up having to add a couple extra fuel stops. In fact over all I only averaged 30 MPG. I’m sure my right hand played a part in that but the fuel economy on this bike has been decreasing over the last few years and I’m at a loss to explain it, but it has me concerned. As I was making my way through Oiho towards the turn around point in Indiana I realized I was going to arrive before the target gas station was scheduled to open at 600. I’d planned a TOH stop on the way back if I had time as it was just off the highway. I decided to hit it on the way out to avoid arriving before the gas station opened. I also needed to make the extra fuel stop about that time so I’d kill 2 birds with one stone.

OH1

 

I arrived at the turn around point a little after 600 to find it completely dark and locked up. I checked the pumps to see if they might still be on (This was the case at one of the earlier fuel stops) but no such luck. A quick search on the GPS found another station a couple miles away. This one was 24hrs and open. Lesson learned, I’m only planning using 24hr stations in the future. I went through my fueling process, got a receipt, took a picture and grabbed some snacks. At this point I was running about 15 minutes ahead of schedule even with the extra stops and was feeling pretty good. I hopped on the bike, hit the starter… and nothing happened. This bike wont run with the side stand down in any gear, and the transmission has to be in neutral, or the clutch pulled in to start. I checked each of these things (and the kill switch & ignition) a couple times but I wasn’t that lucky. I pushed the bike to the side of the parking lot and started troubleshooting.

My Bike at the turn around point. It’s dead, but I don’t know it yet.

One of the disadvantages to the auxiliary tank is that in order to get to most electrical system under the seat I have to take it off. It’s not the end of the world but it’s probably 5 minutes to get it off and 10-15 to put it back on. That kind of time adds up. In an attempt to avoid taking the tank off, I started with the starter switch and side stand switch. When those both checked out I resigned myself to the inevitable and took off the tank. I then checked the fuses (there are only 3) and found that the 7.5A one for the starter relay was blown. I replaced it, hit the button and it immediately blew again. I know I could bypass the relay if I have to, but it would be a pain given that I was 750 miles from home. As an electrical engineer, I now this isn’t the smartest idea, but out of desperation I put in a larger fuse, 15A and pressed the button and the bike fired up!

I quickly put the bike back together without shutting it off. Texted the wife to let her know I’m running again and hit the road. In total I was stopped there for 45 minutes, 35 longer than planned. The Garmin 396 gives me an arrival time of 1835, 8 minutes before the 24hr mark. I know that I’m going to have to add in at least one stop for gas that it’s not accounting for and considering the likelihood of making it 750+ miles without hitting traffic or constructions I wasn’t feeling very optimistic about my chances.

As I headed down the road, the arrival time started moving up pretty quickly, and putting a direct to home route into Waze was showing an hour of margin (not accounting for fuel stops). My next scheduled stop was the Freedom Township sign 3 hours away. It only added 10 minutes to the route and I figured I’d make the call to skip it or not when I got closer. I’d also mentally decided to try fueling the bike up without shutting it off as I didn’t trust it to restart. The numbers were looking better when I got to the Freedom exit and I decided to go for it, but would do it without shutting the bike off. This required a little stretching to get the flag out of my top case, and I’m not 100% sure it will count as the bike is supposed to be in the picture, but I wasn’t willing to shut it off in the middle of nowhere for this. To add to the stress level, the camera on my phone started acting funny, most of the pictures were wavy. I’ve heard of this happening when the gyro for the image stabilization gets messed up, sometimes permanently. I was able to get a few good pictures though. I also carry a second phone, and have a backup digital camera in the top box. So while this was an inconvenience, it wasn’t going to be a major issue.



With that done, I decide to stop at the next service area for fuel. This was a little earlier than planned, but wouldn’t matter as I already new I’d have to add a stop. I figured the convince of not having to get off the toll highway would be worth it. I carefully got off the bike without putting the side stand down and got it up on the center stand. This is when I realized the huge flaw in my plan, locking gas cap. I thought I had a spare key in the top box, but no such luck (it was in the tool box at home, note to self, add spare key to packing checklist). Out of options (other than just running the aux tank, which wasn’t practical), I shut the bike off and filled up the tanks. Holding my breath, and crossing my fingers, I pressed the starter button, and as it’s done thousands of times for me, it fired right up. I headed back on my way and started kicking myself for not getting a better picture of the Freedom Township sign, oh well, hindsight’s 20-20 (Edit: I was awarded the points for the picture anyway!).

The rest of the trip was pretty uneventful and the bike started every time I asked. I did my best to minimize my stopped time, and miraculously didn’t hit any traffic or construction. Except for a few small sprinkles, I didn’t hit any rain this trip either. I attribute this to installing a new waterproof wireless charger I wanted to test. I did pickup a small exhaust leak, but I’m pretty sure it’s just a gasket that I had to tighten after the Florida trip. I also lost the cover to one of my rear turn signals somewhere along the way. I pulled into the final gas station and got my official end receipt at at 1756. In total I’d done 1523.6 miles in 23 hours and 14 minutes.

Overall I was happy with the result. Pending verification, I successfully completed a BBG and I learned a few things for the next one, and was happy with the way the timing worked out. It’s nice to get home and go to sleep without messing up my sleep schedule. I think I’m going to look into wiring in a switch to bypass the side stand interlock, this isn’t the first time I’ve had problems because of it and it should be a straight forward, low risk modification. Now I just need to get the bike cleaned up and get new tires put on it before taking it to a track day next month.

2020 – Space Crew Dragon Launch Attempt SS2K

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I was sitting at home Memorial Day weekend lamenting the fact that the final Mason Dixon 2020 rally that was schedule to be held that weekend had been postponed to the fall (and combined with the Void rally). The weather this spring was unusually warm and I’d barely had the bike out due to the Covid-19 restrictions. While feeling sorry for myself I came a across a post on Facebook from Dan Crowley stating that the IBA had approved a special certificate for a SS1k (1000 miles in 24 hours) that included watching the upcoming SpaceX Crew Dragon Launch.

As something of a space geek, I was well aware of the significance of this launch. It would be the first crewed flight from US soil since the space shuttle retired 9 years ago. It would also be the first crewed flight on a commercial rocket. While to many, rocket launches have become routine, this really was going to be a big deal. At this point I wasn’t seriously considering it, but I did some quick google maps planning and discovered that from my house in CT to Titusville FL where the best viewing opportunities would be was just over 1200 miles. I mentioned it to my wife in passing and as usual she thought I was nuts.

Over the next day or so I kept coming back to the idea of doing this trip, it would about 2400 in 48 hours which, while pushing my limits a bit, wasn’t out of the realm of possibility. I started doing some planning for real, and put a route together that would have me leaving Tuesday afternoon (just 2 days from when I started planning), arriving in time to watch the launch, continuing back until I hit the 1500 mile marker, which would give me a BunBurner 1500 Silver (1500 miles in 30 Hours). I would then get 6-8 hours at a hotel before continuing home, completing a SaddleSore 2000 (2000 miles in 48 hours) in the process. The Covid-19 restrictions were starting to ease up and being isolated on my bike, and taking appropriate precautions I felt it wouldn’t be an undue risk to me or other with me making the trip. I talked it over with my wife, who gave me the go ahead, and made arrangements for my mother to watch the kids while I was gone and my wife was working. And just like that this silly idea was going to happen.

The bike was in good shape, I’d done the annual maintenance over the winter, the tires had plenty of life, and there weren’t and out standing issues. All I had to do was reinstall the Aux fuel tank and my newly improved hydration system. I’d replaced the Coleman plastic cooler with a stainless steel vacuum thermos. This had a slightly smaller diameter so I made a new holder for it, fixing some of the mistakes I made with the first one in the process. I bought some snacks and packed a change of clothes. I had to work Tuesday, but working from home gave the flexibility to take an afternoon nap. When the time came to depart I was feeling pretty good.

 

Overall the ride down was, thankfully, pretty uneventful. Traffic was almost nonexistent. Waze took me right through the center of Baltimore and Washington DC and I encountered no issues. The one mechanical problem I had was with the Aux fuel tank. This was the first time I’d used it this year, and I’d stored it full to prevent condensation/rust. The first couple of legs were short due to needing to mark the corner where I’d deviated from the shortest route to avoid going through NYC. Therefore it was the third stop, well into the night when I went to fill it for the first time and couldn’t budge the cap. It must have seized up over the winter. I didn’t have a wrench big enough to fit it, and by this time any place I could have bought one was closed. I continued the rest of the way down without being able to use it. This meant stopping every 150 miles, about twice as often as I’d planned. I ended up sticking to the schedule within about 20 minutes though. Riding through the Carolina’s I encountered the remnants of a tropical storm and spent quite a while getting soaked. I was wearing an Aerostich suit that I recently acquired used. For the most part I’m happy with it, but it’s definitely not waterproof any more. I also had a problem with my phone detecting water in the USB connector and stopping charging. I didn’t notice this until the phone shut off and it took me a while to find a combination of cables/chargers that would make it happy again.

I also had a surprise on crossing the FL boarder where they were directing all of the cars into a way station setup for Covid screening. I was afraid they were going to turn me around ending the trip in failure. My heart sank when they asked me where I was from and directed me to another area (they were letting most of the cars continue at that point). It turned out that I just had to fill out a form stating where I was going and how long I was staying. I also had to promise to self quarantine. I was careful to wear a mask when I didn’t have the helmet on and avoided being near anyone. In total it delayed me less than 10 minutes, and I got a free pencil.

 

I arrived at the Titusville viewing area about 2 hours before the scheduled launch. Traffic wasn’t bad at this point and while the viewing area was pretty much full, there’s always room for a motorcycle. While waiting for the launch, I made a couple of minor fixes on my setup and oiled the chain. I have an automatic oiler, but I like to do it manually when I’m able to be sure. I was also able to get the Aux tank open with a makeshift strap wrench using some webbing and a pair of pliers. That would make the trip back less stressful.

It was raining and overcast when I arrived, but as launch time approached it started to clear and was looking pretty good. We could see lightning in the distance, this was Florida after all. Unfortunately it wasn’t to be, and about 17 minutes before launch they scrubbed due to weather. I packed up my stuff, took a picture with the VAB behind the bike, and headed out. I then sat in traffic for an hour and 45 minutes… I should have planned a back road route to get out of there. I took advantage of the time to call home and check in. I know people talk about calling people on the bike all the time, but I never think of it…

Shortly after getting back on the highway I felt something hit me in the neck. At first I thought it was a rock but quickly realized I’d been stung. It hurt, it hurt a lot! I continued on until I felt another sting on my chest. I was coming up on an exit and got off as quick as I could and stripped off my gear. I was stung in the neck again in the process, but didn’t find anything. Since I was stopped anyway I decided to fuel up and as I pulled up to the pump, this guy flew from somewhere and landed on my mirror. I can’t prove it, but I’m going to blame him. He hung out there giving me the evil eye while I fueled, then flew off.

Paper Wasp!
Paper Wasp!

Other than more rain, and more phone charging problems the rest of the trip to complete the BBS (1521 miles in 27hrs 28 minutes) was uneventful. I stopped for the night in Hardeeville, SC just over the southern boarder. I was fortunate to grab a sandwich from Subway just as they were closing and crashed for 6 hours of sleep at a Days Inn.

The next morning was a little rough and I snoozed the alarm more than I intended, but still managed to be on the road by 5am. The way north was marked by more scattered rain. I would just start to dry out when it would start to rain again. My hands were pretty well pruned and the dye from my gloves took a few days to dissipate. At 12:41 I reached 2028 miles in 42 Hours 13 Minutes completing the SS2k. That was the last stop that would count for certification and while I never felt pressed for time on this trip, it was nice to be “off the clock”.

I made a slight detour to Freedom, MD to try and get a picture of a sign for the Millage Manics grand tour. Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find a sign and wasn’t in the mood to spend much time looking. While the side trip was partially wasted time it was nice to get off the highway for a bit, and it resulted in me avoiding the Baltimore tunnel which was worth while.

The big problem with going almost anywhere to or from CT is that NYC is in the way. On the way down I detoured north via I84, and while that’s less stressful it did add about an hour to the trip. On the way home, I just followed Waze and It took me right up I95 through NYC. Traffic was moving and I didn’t have any problems, but there are an awful lot of places without breakdown lanes on that route. Ridding a 23 year old bike with a known vapor locking issue, I’m always conscious of where the out is, and I get very nervous when there isn’t one. It worked out this time, but I think in the future I’ll accept the delay and avoid NYC.

I arrived home almost exactly 50 hours after I left riding 2478 miles (2586 on the odo). I ended up being about 2 hours later than I’d planned due to the traffic in Titusville and snoozing too many times. I still made it home in time to put the kids to bed, and accomplished my goals with minimal drama so I was pretty happy overall.

 

I submitted my rides to the IBA, and pending verification I’ll be adding a BBS and SS2K to my list. Next up I want to try for a BunBurner Gold (1500 miles in 24hrs). I need to find a better solution to charging my phone on the road. Ram and Quadlock have both released waterproof/resistant wireless chargers within the last month, and while they’re expensive, my experience on this trip make me believe they’re probably worth it. I’m just waiting for reviews to decide which is a better product.

2019 – The Void 14 – Part 2

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Cutting 3 hours off my rest bonus made up for the lost time and had me getting to the finish with 30 minutes to spare. This sounds like a lot, but unlike other rallys, in the Void, the clock doesn’t stop until you submit your paperwork for scoring. I’m still new enough at this that I don’t have a good feel for how much I’d need so 30 minutes was about as tight as I wanted to cut it. (rumor has it the wining rider pulled into the parking lot with 3 minutes left to get his paperwork submitted).

I left the rest stop after 3:01 and was feeling pretty good (a fair bit of Coffee at Denny’s certainly helped.) The morning was pretty uneventful with only a few deer sightings. I made it to Baltimore, staying on schedule, picking up 3 bonuses and 2 fast food bonus. Unfortunately it turned out the I-895 tunnel was closed for construction forcing me to take I95, which cost me 30 minutes.

The next bonus was out in Annapolis, which is this cool little town that’s clearly been around longer than cars have. It reminded me of the pirate towns you see in movies, but a little more reputable, it would probably be a cool place to wander around for a few hours. This being a rally I stopped for about 3 minutes. and dodged through a possibly closed road on the way out.

From there I followed the Washington beltway around to the north before heading to the Taste of New Orleans Smokehouse. The plan called for a Fast Food bonus next at a near by Chipotle. As I’m getting close I see lots of people milling about and children carrying instruments. I quickly realize that there is either a parade just ending, or about to start. I’ve never heard of a Columbus day parade, my birthday was the day before so maybe it was for that? Traffic was still moving if a bit heavy, and I pulled into a very full shopping plaza with the Chipotle in it. A Maryland State trooper generously offered to let me park on a concrete slab that wasn’t really a spot. I explained to him that I just needed the picture and I think he was confused but let me do what I needed to do and I was on my way.

The route to the next bonus took me into the outskirts of DC, another first for me, it turns out there are some really interesting twisty parkways in the area, I’d like to go back and explore some more at some point. After getting the Metro diner it was once again time to make a decision. If I stuck with the plan the GPS was showing me getting to the finish 3 minutes late, and not leaving time for scoring. If I headed straight for the barn I would get there 1.5 hours early, which was disappointing. Based on my luck with traffic so far I made the decision to make this my last stop and head for the finish. Dropping the 9,840 point bonus hurt a little.

I felt a little better when I hit more traffic on the way back to Fredricksburg losing another 30 minutes. I still arrived over an hour early and was one of the first bikes back. I’d really tried to plan an aggressive route this time, and was pretty bummed I couldn’t execute it. This did give me the chance to triple check my rider log, where I caught one minor error.

Scoring went smoothly despite a couple of technical issues (hazard of being early I guess). Other than the light house issue I didn’t lose any other points.

The banquet was a blast as expected, hosted by Rallymaster/Comedian Scott. The food was good and it was fun listening to everyone’s stories. I was fortunate to sit at the same table as some of the top riders and it was reassuring to hear that their routes were fairly similar to mine, with the critical difference that they either skipped NYC or managed to hit it and Long Island at night when traffic wasn’t an issue.

Last year, of the PA starters I finished 9th overall, this year I was 6th overall, however they separated the 2-up teams into a separate class leaving me third out of 22 riders. Given my mistakes I was very happy with that. It stung a little that if I hadn’t messed up the light house I would have had 2nd, but that’s the way these things go.

On the 8 hour ride home the next day I spent a lot of time thinking over some of the conversations I’d had at the banquet. A few of these centered on the deficiencies in BaseCamp, the routing software most of us use. It’s main downfall is that it doesn’t have any concept of points, it’s a general tool and not specific to rally riding. As a result of this not only do we jump through hoops with spreadsheets to get the bonus data into the appropriate format but we also group the bonuses into categories (low, medium, high, etc) based on someone arbitrary tiers. There was some discussion on how this may artificially bias a rider between two bonuses that are only a few points apart in reality. I started thinking that a color gradient/heat map might be a better solution. BaseCamp also has no ability to use historical traffic data (which would have been really useful this time) and makes comparing routes a pain. By the time I got home I’d roughly flushed out in my head what I thought a rally specific tool might look like. And I have been looking for an excuse to learn C# better…  we’ll see where this ends up.

2019 – The Void 14 – Part 1

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This was my second time doing the Void rally and based on how things had gone on the previous two rallies my primary goal this time around was to not have anything major fall off the bike.

The theme of the rally this year was food, with most of the bonuses being diners or other food related establishments. About a week before the rally, as is typical, we received the bonus locations, but not details via email. I spent the next few days studying the locations and trying to come up with a route I liked. Unlike last year, there wasn’t an obvious best route right out of the gate. There were a high concentration of low to mid point bonuses in the NY City/Long Island area, and more spread out bonuses west and south. The highest theoretical route I could come up with was to sweep Long Island, take the ferry over to CT and come back that way. I wasn’t terribly thrilled about dealing with that traffic and would prefer to ride someplace new though. There was also forecast to be a massive storm system coming through and high probability of the ferry being canceled. Going west you could get close points wise, but were bumping up against the millage cap (1700 miles). Knowing my bike won’t make time on the highway the way some of the bigger bikes will, I felt I’d be at a disadvantage going that way.

I was still mulling over the options on Tuesday night when we received the full rally pack, which changed everything. The rally book it self was pretty typical with only 2 combo bonuses. What we also received though was details on the “blue plate special”. The blue plate special had two parts, chain restaurants and fast food restaurants. These were essentially wild card bonuses in that there were no fixed locations. We were provided a list of possible restaurants for each category with the restrictions that each restaurant could only be used once, and there must be at least 2 regular bonuses between each blue plate special bonus. A chain restaurant bonus was worth 75% of the value of the previous regular bonus. The value of a fast food bonus incremented exponentially, so the first one was only worth 50 points, but by the time you got to 10 it was 1,943 points, and if you could get to 20 it would be a massive 112,085 points.

Some quick calculations convinced me that the way to win this was to get as many fast food bonuses as possible. In order to do that, it was necessary to get as many regular bonuses as possible. Due to the huge value of the fast food bonuses, the individual bonus points values were almost irrelevant. I had a little bit of luck in that when I arrived at work on Wednesday, the power was out for the whole building and the power company was forecasting many hours to get it fixed. My employer sent us all home giving me almost a whole day to work on my route. I settled on a route that went up into CT before returning through NYC, Long Island, down the Jersey Shore, through Baltimore and DC before ending up at the finish in Fredricksburg, VA. I was shooting for 14 Fast food bonuses. This route had the advantage of avoiding the ferry, it turns out that this was probably wise as I know of 2 people that did it, the first had their bike fall over enroute, and the second was technically canceled, but managed to talk their way on anyway.

Thursday was a travel day and I hit a number of TOH memorials on the way down to the start in Bethlehem, PA. To get warmed up for the rally. The trip was pretty uneventful. I had one instance of the ongoing vapor-lock problem and decided to play it safe and only run 100 miles on the main tank, which gave me a total range of about 250 miles. Not the range I wanted, but it worked, I didn’t have any further issues on this trip. I had dinner that night with a number of the PA starters and had a good time reconnecting with people I’ve met in the past and meeting some new friends. After diner I returned to my room to try and get some sleep and finish my preparation. I remembered as I was falling asleep that I still needed to send in my route deceleration (worth a few points) and got that done.

The next morning I headed to a Wawa that I’d scouted ahead of time, and at the appointed hour grabbed my start receipt and texted a picture of it to the Rallymaster and receiving the “K” response I was on my way.

It turns out, on my way wasn’t very far as I’d chosen this Wawa specifically because it had Long John Silver next door, netting me my first Fast Food bonus. (Fast Food bonuses had to have the entire bike in the picture)

From there it was a bit over an hour to the Empire Diner in NJ (EDNJ), on the way I was passed by Steve Gallant and his wife Char. Steve finished 3rd, as a rookie, in the IBR earlier this year. This gave me some hope that my decision to go east wasn’t completely crazy. I didn’t see them again until scoring where they beat me by over 10,000 points. There was some morning traffic on I287 and I was running about 30 minutes behind schedule. I knew traffic in New York was going to be unpredictable and I told myself that I wasn’t going to worry about timing until I got off of Long Island. This became a kind of mantra as the day went on.

From EDNJ, I headed into CT via I87 and picking up the Merritt Parkway. I grabbed 3 regular bonuses and 2 Fast Food Bonuses in CT and NY before heading into Manhattan for another Empire Diner. I’d debated the wisdom of going after this one, but in the end decided to go for it.

I had a minor panic at the Empire Diner in Manhattan, after the stress of getting there, and finding a place to park (in front of a hydrant), I couldn’t get the bike positioned right to make the side stand work (this has been a frequent problem since adding the aux tank, I many need to consider shortening it, or upgrading the rear shock). I ended up popping the front wheel onto the sidewalk, so now that I’m stressed, and very questionably parked, I look down at my notes to see what I’m supposed to take a picture and read: “take a picture of the front of the Diner so you can see the red “Diner” on the front of the building”, easy enough. Except I can’t find any red at all, it’s all black. After wasting a bunch of time looking around and re-checking my notes I decided that it must be an error in the rally book and take a picture of the black signage. As I’m getting back on my bike and getting ready to head out I realized my mistake. The next stop is the Empire Diner on Long Island, and I’d been reading the instructions for that one instead. The correct instructions were “Take a picture of the diner so you can see the word “Empire” in the picture. There are several angles of the diner that will afford you this opportunity.” I was good to go, but had wasted a bunch of time.

Getting in and out was pretty straight forward, easier than I’d feared, but traffic was far worse than anticipated. In retrospect going for it was a mistake as it cost me almost 2 hours. I’m happy to be able to say I rode the bike into Manhattan, but I think once is probably more than enough in one life time.

The ride up the north side of Long Island was pretty uneventful I picked up 4 more regular bonuses and 2 more Fast food bonuses. By the time I started heading out to Montauk Light House it was about 1800 and I was feeling pretty glum about my prospects, I hadn’t lost any more time, but I hadn’t made any up either. I knew I was going to have to make some changes to my planned route, in addition it was getting colder, it was very windy, and I was starting to feel a little bit of evening fatigue coming on. I was shocked by the amount of traffic this far east, and knowing that it was a holiday weekend (sort of) I had serious concerns about how much traffic I would encounter on the way back. As a result of this, as well as very strong winds, I was not in the best frame of mind when I got out to the Light House.

The wind was strong enough that I had to put the bike on the center stand to keep it from being blown off the side stand. The requirement for this bonus was to have the light house and the historical marker sign in the picture. There is a sign in front of the light house that I couldn’t make out due to it being just past sunset, I made the incorrect assumption that this was the required sign, and hoped the picture would be good enough. I did look around to see if there were any other signs that met the requirements but didn’t see any. As I found out at the scoring table, this was not the correct sign, the correct one was only a few feet away, but in my hurry to get out of the wind I missed it. This is officially the first time I’ve lost points for taking a bad picture, I’m sure it wont be the last.

Not knowing about by mistake I headed out, now heading west on Long Island, feeling good about heading in the right direction and the last 3 Bonuses, and 2 Fast Food locations on the Island went by quickly and without incident. The traffic I’d feared didn’t materialize and I was getting a second wind as I made a final fuel stop in NY (I hate getting fuel in NJ).

I almost lost this one at the scoring table as the sign is hard to read.

Once in NJ I was repeating part of my route from last years Void hitting several points on the Jersey shore. This was fairly uneventful until I got to long beach. The storm that had gone through the last few days had resulted in some flooded out areas. There were some “puddles” about 6 inches deep completely blocking the road in spots. Going slowly I made it through these areas, but I’m not sure the bike will ever be the same. I’d hoped this might be freshwater rain, but the next time I used the hydration system my hope faded, definitely salt water. On my way back out through the puddles I passed another rally rider, the first I’d seen in quite a while. At the next stop, the Oyster Creek Restaurant, the rider caught up to me as I was trying to figure out the instructions to take a picture of a “Oyster Creek Inn”. The other rider turned out to be Steve Giffin, who’d won this year’s MD2020, and is always a top finisher, once again giving me hope I wasn’t completely off the mark. We decided that the instructions must be in error and I headed out to my rest stop.

This was decision time, I was still over 2 hours behind schedule. I’d also planned pretty aggressively counting on making up some time, which wasn’t happening. The rally requires a 3 hour rest stop, and awards additional points for each additional minute up to 6 hours total. I’d originally planned on taking the full 6 hours, but the 1800 points I would lose would be well worth it to pick up the 9840 points I’d get for the final planned fast food stop, so the rest bonus got cut to 3 hours. I knew I wanted to do some replanning and paper work so I decided rather than getting a hotel I’d just spend the time in a Denny’s.

I filled out my riders log and took another look at the plan for the rest of the rally. I’d planned on hitting the bonus on the southernmost end of the Jersey Shore, but looking at the map again I realized the I could add a bonus on the other side of the finish instead. I also remembered that to get to the one in NJ you had to go over a toll bridge that only took cash, which is just a pain. This would give me more flexibility in dropping it as the last bonus if needed without effecting the mileage or timing. Of course this simple change meant replanning all of the remaining fast food stops too. Oh well…

 

Continue to Part 2

2019 – Tipsy Goat Rally

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Two years ago the 8 Hour Team Lyle New England rally was my first ever endurance rally. Last year I participated in it again as a warm up for my first longer rally, The Void. Unfortunately the event wasn’t held this year, and that got me looking for other options to fill the gap between the MD2020 and Void rally. Jonathan Hammy Tan runs a series of experimental rally’s each year and this year he was planning one for the weekend of September 21 and 22. This was shockingly free on my calendar and the timing was right to serve as a warm up for The Void while still providing me time to fix stuff if something went wrong.

The theme for this years rally was “Tipsy Goat” and riders were awarded one point for each Brewery, Winery, Distillery, etc that they visited. There were 2 versions of the rally, a local edition and an online edition. The local riders could start from anywhere but had to meet at a restaurant in PA at the appointed time. The online edition could start and end anywhere and could take place during any 8 hour block of time during that weekend. I chose to do the online edition because I was worried about being able to fit the extra transit time required in to my schedule.

I’d originally planned on an early start on the Sunday but due to a change in my wife’s plans I ended up doing the ride on Saturday. I almost had to scrub entirely due to some last minute work issues, but it thankfully worked out.

The plan was to get the food art bonus (5 points) first using that receipt as the start receipt as well. The route start location was dictated by the location of a friends house who has goats. I found a nearby Dunkins, bought a couple of donuts and made some “art”. The observant may notice a rookie mistakes with this picture. The time on my camera is wrong. I’d opted to use an old school camera rather than my phone so I wouldn’t have to keep unmounting the phone and switching apps due to the high frequency of bonuses I expected. I had actually remembered to check the time on it the night before, but must have not set it correctly. Due to the nature of this rally, this wasn’t an issue, but on bigger rallies it would cost me points.

After grabbing the food art bonus and start odometer, I headed off to the first stop, a near by brewery. For whatever reason they didn’t have their name on the building, so I took a picture of the sign at the drive way with the building in the background. The rules stated no roadside signs, but I’m hoping this is acceptable. This actually happened several more times, apparently breweries/wineries don’t like signs on their buildings? From there It was off to the all important goat bonus. This was worth 10 points, and required all of the rider, and mascot, to be visible (i.e. no selfies). I’d brought a small tripod with me, but was having some issues with the animals running away from me when I walked to the fence. Thankfully, the daughter of the family was home and offered to take the picture for me.

I took this opportunity to take off my sweatshirt as it was warming up faster than expected. From this point on I didn’t get off the bike until I hit the 30 Mile Brewing, after getting my end receipt, almost 8 hours later.

Overall things went pretty smooth. There were about 6 locations that were on my route that I either couldn’t find, they’d clearly gone out of business (and taken down the signs), or weren’t clearly marked. This was disappointing and I guess I should have spent more time scouting with google maps/street view. I did stick to the planned timeline (with a budgeted 2 minutes per stop) and the bike had no issues other than one instance of the fuel line vapor locking. I’ve been trying to fix that issue for almost a year now so it wasn’t a big surprise. I would have preferred it hadn’t happened on the I95 bridge over the Quinnipiac river in New Haven though.

When time was running out, I grabbed an end receipt and continued to the next brewery on this list, 30 Mile Brewing. This time rather than taking a picture I purchased 2 growlers and proceeded home to write up my log sheet and have a beer. I ended up with 42 locations for a total of 57 points, not as many as I’d wanted but over all a good shake down run and I had a blast, now I wan’t to go back to each of these and sample their product. That may take longer than 8 hours though.

 

 

Results: In the final tally I was awarded 55 points (I’m not sure where I lost 2 points, but I’d guess it’s the 2 that weren’t obviously distillery or breweries.). That was good enough for 2nd place. First was and impressive 20 pts ahead which makes me feel better about the 6 locations I couldn’t find as they wouldn’t have affected the out come.