BITE Rally - Day 1
Day 1 - Statesville NC to Milford DE, 1160 Miles
States Visited: NC, SC, VA, MD, DE
The last entry in my blog before the start of the rally mentioned that I would have my route finalized and locked before going to bed, even if that didn't happen until early AM. That must have been foreshadowing ... while I would have my route finalized before midnight, I would spend a couple more hours still fighting with the computer and GPS to actually get the data loaded and ready to ride. Bikes needed to be in the pen for the starting odometer reading by 04:00am with the last mandatory riders meeting at 04:30am. In order to have the bike in the holding area by 04:00, I calculated that I needed to be up at 03:00 to get things ready, bike fueled, and move the bike to the holding area. I would end up fighting the computer and GPS until just after 01:00 getting data loaded, before being able to quit for the night. I was hoping for more than 2 hours sleep before getting started.
03:00 would come soon enough, and it was time for my last shower for a couple of days, then pack up my stuff and get ready to roll. I made it down to the bike at 03:55 to run next door for fuel, and then was in the pen just after 04:00. I went ahead and got the bike in and odometer checked, then went back to the room to grab my luggage and load up the bike. The bike was loaded, GPS's mounted, and ready to go by 04:20. The riders meeting started promptly at 04:30 with no new surprises, just reminders on the key points brought up during the previous two riders meetings plus a deer warning for the area. At 05:00 we were off.
The first stop was the "Road to Nowhere" in Bryson City, NC. As we left the hotel, it looked like there were about 7 of us headed towards Bryson City. This segment would take me from Statesville into the Great Smoky Mountains. The location was a site where a tunnel was being constructed to bridge two cities together. The tunnel was never completed, and the two cities eventually died out. The road stops and turns into a hiking trail. The route sheet provided GPS coordinates for the trail marker which was the item we were supposed to grab a picture of. Even though the GPS coordinates were that accurate, I also messed up following the exit off I-40 onto US-23, and ended up circling back to I-40 and taking a longer approach to the stop. In the end, I tacked on an extra 20 minutes to the ride ... not a good way to get started.
The morning weather was pretty nice ... temps in the low 70's and no rain starting off. Because of my flustered start and routing issues, I accidently left the digital camera on the bike when I went to shoot the trail marker, and so I ended up with no digital pictures for the first leg at all. There was another rider pulling up as I was headed out, but that was the last time I'd be met at a bonus stop as I was leaving.
With the first stop in the bag, and hopefully with the routing woes behind me, it was time to head down to Laurens, SC for a stop at Crenshaws. This was a small country general store location, with the roof decorated with many, MANY cow skulls. The goal was to get a pictures of the roof. As I headed down I-26 into South Carolina, I was greeted near the NC/SC with rain ... a rain that would follow me for the next couple hours. With the rain, the temps dropped down into the mid-60's, but the rain was just that, so there was no threat of lightening or any other hazards than just the wet roadway and reduced visibility. Traffic was light since this stretch of Interstate would avoid the metro Greenville SC area, and it was still early enough on Monday morning that holiday traffic wasn't a problem. I made it to Crenshaws, still ~20 minutes behind schedule, and arrived just as two riders from Bryson City were getting ready to head out. It was looking like I was on a common route, so I needed all the points I could get.
After Crenshaws, it was back on I-26 and headed south towards Charleston SC in order to get to Jacksonboro SC. Approaching the I-26/I-95 interchange, the rain would finally let up, and the rest of the day would be dry. The approach into Jacksonboro was one of those segments where Garmin would route me different than Microsoft would, and so I was able to reclaim most of that 20 minute deficit I had picked up this morning. I passed a couple riders coming from the marker as I was making my way out there. There was a short, maybe 1.5 mile sand/dirt road from the highway up to the marker. I was expecting this to get pretty nasty with all the rain, but fortunately it was easy to read the tracks from the riders who had been here before ... and where they had crashed ... to avoid the real nasty stuff. Heading back to I-95 from this stop and I would have my one "idiot incident" of the whole rally, where a car decided at the last minute that it needed to make that left at the Y in the road when it had already missed that turn ... so the driver made several of us panic stop to avoid rear-ending him as he tried to figure out how to avoid turning around and still making his turn-off.
After my second stop in South Carolina, my route had me running North up I-95 and into Virginia. The fourth stop of this leg would be Assawoman VA, for a picture of the United Methodist Church with the same name. This leg of the route would be a highlight for me in a couple aspects. I made it to Virginia just before dusk. In fact, I would make it up to Emporia, and then east on US-58 before night fall. This part of Virginia was visually stimulating, and seemed much different than my previous run through Virginia ... seeming almost like I was in another country. Continuing to head east, I would eventually hit Norfolk, and then take the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel across the Chesapeake Bay. My only regret here was that it was after dark, so there wasn't much to see, but as much as I enjoy bridges this was still rewarding. I would also hit just past the 1000 mile mark on the other side of the bridge, with the odometer rolling past 1002.1 miles as I was back on solid ground.
The ride up the eastern side of Virginia was through a wildlife preserve, although there still wasn't much to see because of the darkness. The final few miles on the approach to Assawoman would be small roads through farm fields, but I would make that location right on time at ~ 23:30. I tried to get a picture of the sign while lighting the sign with my motorcycle, however I couldn't get my rally flag to stay on the sign, and my duct tape wouldn't stick with the dew on the sign. I ended up parking the bike next to the sign with the towel hung on my bike, then used the flash on my camera to get the picture.
With that, my fifth bonus bagged, I would start heading for Toms River NJ ... and this is where the adventure would really begin. During route planning, the thought had crossed my mind that Streets and Trips might be trying to dump me on a ferry for some of the water crossings. I specifically looked into this with the Chesapeake crossing, and when I saw the bridge decided I was good to go. What I didn't account for was the Delaware Bay. Still on schedule, I found myself in Lewes Delaware at the Cape May-Lewes Ferry crossing at 01:30am ... obviously while there was no ferry service running. While I was trying to figure out what my backup plan would be, I was greeted by a Lewes police officer, who also happened to be a rider, who filled me in on the ferry's travel schedule. Unfortunately, the first ship out wasn't until 7:00am, and I just didn't feel I could wait that long. I needed to take a 3 hour rest stop, but not a 6 hour stop. The officer pointed out that I could continue north on Route 1 to make the route around the bay, and that it wouldn't add much more time than if I had taken the ferry route across anyway ... either the loop around or the ferry ride were both approx 1.5 hours in duration. Not having a choice, I headed north to route 1 to make my loop.
By the time I made it to Milford DE, I was starting to fight fatigue. I decided I would go ahead and stop for my rest stop, grab an hour sleep, and make sure I was still on plan with the reroute around the ferry crossing. I was considering dropping the NJ bonus from my route, depending on how timing worked out. Toms River wasn't a huge bonus, only 567 points, but every point was going to matter since there were so many riders who seemed to be riding a similar route to mine. I found a Super 8 hotel and checked in for the night. First off ... this is HANDS DOWN, the *WORST* hotel I've ever stayed at. I was on the clock, so decided to make the best of it. Alarm clock set, it was time for sleep. In the room at 02:20, I should be awake at 03:30.
The real drama would start tomorrow.
States Visited: NC, SC, VA, MD, DE
The last entry in my blog before the start of the rally mentioned that I would have my route finalized and locked before going to bed, even if that didn't happen until early AM. That must have been foreshadowing ... while I would have my route finalized before midnight, I would spend a couple more hours still fighting with the computer and GPS to actually get the data loaded and ready to ride. Bikes needed to be in the pen for the starting odometer reading by 04:00am with the last mandatory riders meeting at 04:30am. In order to have the bike in the holding area by 04:00, I calculated that I needed to be up at 03:00 to get things ready, bike fueled, and move the bike to the holding area. I would end up fighting the computer and GPS until just after 01:00 getting data loaded, before being able to quit for the night. I was hoping for more than 2 hours sleep before getting started.
03:00 would come soon enough, and it was time for my last shower for a couple of days, then pack up my stuff and get ready to roll. I made it down to the bike at 03:55 to run next door for fuel, and then was in the pen just after 04:00. I went ahead and got the bike in and odometer checked, then went back to the room to grab my luggage and load up the bike. The bike was loaded, GPS's mounted, and ready to go by 04:20. The riders meeting started promptly at 04:30 with no new surprises, just reminders on the key points brought up during the previous two riders meetings plus a deer warning for the area. At 05:00 we were off.
The first stop was the "Road to Nowhere" in Bryson City, NC. As we left the hotel, it looked like there were about 7 of us headed towards Bryson City. This segment would take me from Statesville into the Great Smoky Mountains. The location was a site where a tunnel was being constructed to bridge two cities together. The tunnel was never completed, and the two cities eventually died out. The road stops and turns into a hiking trail. The route sheet provided GPS coordinates for the trail marker which was the item we were supposed to grab a picture of. Even though the GPS coordinates were that accurate, I also messed up following the exit off I-40 onto US-23, and ended up circling back to I-40 and taking a longer approach to the stop. In the end, I tacked on an extra 20 minutes to the ride ... not a good way to get started.
The morning weather was pretty nice ... temps in the low 70's and no rain starting off. Because of my flustered start and routing issues, I accidently left the digital camera on the bike when I went to shoot the trail marker, and so I ended up with no digital pictures for the first leg at all. There was another rider pulling up as I was headed out, but that was the last time I'd be met at a bonus stop as I was leaving.
With the first stop in the bag, and hopefully with the routing woes behind me, it was time to head down to Laurens, SC for a stop at Crenshaws. This was a small country general store location, with the roof decorated with many, MANY cow skulls. The goal was to get a pictures of the roof. As I headed down I-26 into South Carolina, I was greeted near the NC/SC with rain ... a rain that would follow me for the next couple hours. With the rain, the temps dropped down into the mid-60's, but the rain was just that, so there was no threat of lightening or any other hazards than just the wet roadway and reduced visibility. Traffic was light since this stretch of Interstate would avoid the metro Greenville SC area, and it was still early enough on Monday morning that holiday traffic wasn't a problem. I made it to Crenshaws, still ~20 minutes behind schedule, and arrived just as two riders from Bryson City were getting ready to head out. It was looking like I was on a common route, so I needed all the points I could get.
After Crenshaws, it was back on I-26 and headed south towards Charleston SC in order to get to Jacksonboro SC. Approaching the I-26/I-95 interchange, the rain would finally let up, and the rest of the day would be dry. The approach into Jacksonboro was one of those segments where Garmin would route me different than Microsoft would, and so I was able to reclaim most of that 20 minute deficit I had picked up this morning. I passed a couple riders coming from the marker as I was making my way out there. There was a short, maybe 1.5 mile sand/dirt road from the highway up to the marker. I was expecting this to get pretty nasty with all the rain, but fortunately it was easy to read the tracks from the riders who had been here before ... and where they had crashed ... to avoid the real nasty stuff. Heading back to I-95 from this stop and I would have my one "idiot incident" of the whole rally, where a car decided at the last minute that it needed to make that left at the Y in the road when it had already missed that turn ... so the driver made several of us panic stop to avoid rear-ending him as he tried to figure out how to avoid turning around and still making his turn-off.
After my second stop in South Carolina, my route had me running North up I-95 and into Virginia. The fourth stop of this leg would be Assawoman VA, for a picture of the United Methodist Church with the same name. This leg of the route would be a highlight for me in a couple aspects. I made it to Virginia just before dusk. In fact, I would make it up to Emporia, and then east on US-58 before night fall. This part of Virginia was visually stimulating, and seemed much different than my previous run through Virginia ... seeming almost like I was in another country. Continuing to head east, I would eventually hit Norfolk, and then take the Chesapeake Bay Bridge-Tunnel across the Chesapeake Bay. My only regret here was that it was after dark, so there wasn't much to see, but as much as I enjoy bridges this was still rewarding. I would also hit just past the 1000 mile mark on the other side of the bridge, with the odometer rolling past 1002.1 miles as I was back on solid ground.
The ride up the eastern side of Virginia was through a wildlife preserve, although there still wasn't much to see because of the darkness. The final few miles on the approach to Assawoman would be small roads through farm fields, but I would make that location right on time at ~ 23:30. I tried to get a picture of the sign while lighting the sign with my motorcycle, however I couldn't get my rally flag to stay on the sign, and my duct tape wouldn't stick with the dew on the sign. I ended up parking the bike next to the sign with the towel hung on my bike, then used the flash on my camera to get the picture.
With that, my fifth bonus bagged, I would start heading for Toms River NJ ... and this is where the adventure would really begin. During route planning, the thought had crossed my mind that Streets and Trips might be trying to dump me on a ferry for some of the water crossings. I specifically looked into this with the Chesapeake crossing, and when I saw the bridge decided I was good to go. What I didn't account for was the Delaware Bay. Still on schedule, I found myself in Lewes Delaware at the Cape May-Lewes Ferry crossing at 01:30am ... obviously while there was no ferry service running. While I was trying to figure out what my backup plan would be, I was greeted by a Lewes police officer, who also happened to be a rider, who filled me in on the ferry's travel schedule. Unfortunately, the first ship out wasn't until 7:00am, and I just didn't feel I could wait that long. I needed to take a 3 hour rest stop, but not a 6 hour stop. The officer pointed out that I could continue north on Route 1 to make the route around the bay, and that it wouldn't add much more time than if I had taken the ferry route across anyway ... either the loop around or the ferry ride were both approx 1.5 hours in duration. Not having a choice, I headed north to route 1 to make my loop.
By the time I made it to Milford DE, I was starting to fight fatigue. I decided I would go ahead and stop for my rest stop, grab an hour sleep, and make sure I was still on plan with the reroute around the ferry crossing. I was considering dropping the NJ bonus from my route, depending on how timing worked out. Toms River wasn't a huge bonus, only 567 points, but every point was going to matter since there were so many riders who seemed to be riding a similar route to mine. I found a Super 8 hotel and checked in for the night. First off ... this is HANDS DOWN, the *WORST* hotel I've ever stayed at. I was on the clock, so decided to make the best of it. Alarm clock set, it was time for sleep. In the room at 02:20, I should be awake at 03:30.
The real drama would start tomorrow.
posted by Charlie at
1:26 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home