BITE Rally - Pre Day 2
While my laptop continues to do the heavy number crunching on route options in the background, this seemed like a good time to get my Sunday evening update in.
The BITE will be an interesting challenge for me. First, it's my first multi-day rally. Ok, I've done some reading on previous multi-day events, but of course every event has their own unique spin to the format.
So what's the catch with the BITE? First of all, it's a 5 day event, rather than the typical 24-26 hour events that I've ridden in the past. In true multi-day form, the event is actually broken into segments or legs. The bonus lists for each leg are handed out after the previous leg is complete, so part of the strategy is to anticipate the tricks that a rallymaster (or in the case, the team of rallymasters) might play. As was stressed many times during the dinner, as a multi-day endurance event, it's not about just how many miles you can pound down in 24-36 hours ... but setting a pace so that you have energy in the tank when days 4 and 5 come around.
The BITE is basically broken down into two legs. The first leg starts tomorrow morning at 5am here in Statesville, NC. Before we leave, we have to declare our route ... but more on that in a few. The first leg runs 36 hours ... ok, really 34 hours if you plan to stay out of the penalty window .... well, maybe it's only 31 riding hours if you want to claim the 3 hour rest bonus. So 31 hours of realistic seat time. After the checkpoint in Wilkes-Barr PA, we then head back out sometime Tuesday night and don't meet back again until Friday afternoon. There will be two more rest stops in those 3.5 days, plus any power nap sessions as needed.
At the riders meeting this afternoon, we were given two sets of route sheets to choose from, a "pick your poison" as they like to call it. The two route sheets have different requirements ... different locations and/or point values for stops. Each rider must pick a single sheet to ride from, and you can't get points from both sheets. One sheet is interesting ... I can skip the checkpoint in PA and instead ride all out to collect 29 state capitols. Sounds good, points look good, but I have no idea what the point values will be for leg 2, and the rallymasters usually raise the stakes in the last leg. The other route sheet is more of the traditional rally format ... locations tossed about all over, some reachable in 31 hours, others not so much. With the easy route worked out, that's the next route to focus attention on.
At dinner, two hours after the riders meeting, the first trick was played. A third route sheet was provided to riders. Now ... two hours into the planning process, most riders are still a ways off from having a plan finalized (as "finalized" as a plan can be, since there is still much planning that takes place from the riders seat while rolling between stops). Some interesting changes in the new plan, so it definitely merits looking at a little closer. So now, rather than the usually multi-hour planning session that goes into each endurance rally, we have three unique sets of routes to consider, essentially bumping the planning effort up by a factor of 3.
We have the option to make minor revisions to the plan while riding, or for that matter we can completely throw out the route sheet we start with and switch over to a different sheet ... but doing that slashes our available time, as any time spent on the initial route sheet is lost and can't be reclaimed. And then there's the state capitol route ... is it worth it, and if so do you just run it for the initial 31 hours or stick with it for the whole 5 days? Decisions decisions (but then this is a big part of why we do this, in addition to getting out and seeing the country).
So here I am, running route options for three different routes, and looking at possible points and efficiency ratings for each. I'll have my route finalized and locked in before I go to bed for the night ... but it might be early AM before that's done.
More to come ...
The BITE will be an interesting challenge for me. First, it's my first multi-day rally. Ok, I've done some reading on previous multi-day events, but of course every event has their own unique spin to the format.
So what's the catch with the BITE? First of all, it's a 5 day event, rather than the typical 24-26 hour events that I've ridden in the past. In true multi-day form, the event is actually broken into segments or legs. The bonus lists for each leg are handed out after the previous leg is complete, so part of the strategy is to anticipate the tricks that a rallymaster (or in the case, the team of rallymasters) might play. As was stressed many times during the dinner, as a multi-day endurance event, it's not about just how many miles you can pound down in 24-36 hours ... but setting a pace so that you have energy in the tank when days 4 and 5 come around.
The BITE is basically broken down into two legs. The first leg starts tomorrow morning at 5am here in Statesville, NC. Before we leave, we have to declare our route ... but more on that in a few. The first leg runs 36 hours ... ok, really 34 hours if you plan to stay out of the penalty window .... well, maybe it's only 31 riding hours if you want to claim the 3 hour rest bonus. So 31 hours of realistic seat time. After the checkpoint in Wilkes-Barr PA, we then head back out sometime Tuesday night and don't meet back again until Friday afternoon. There will be two more rest stops in those 3.5 days, plus any power nap sessions as needed.
At the riders meeting this afternoon, we were given two sets of route sheets to choose from, a "pick your poison" as they like to call it. The two route sheets have different requirements ... different locations and/or point values for stops. Each rider must pick a single sheet to ride from, and you can't get points from both sheets. One sheet is interesting ... I can skip the checkpoint in PA and instead ride all out to collect 29 state capitols. Sounds good, points look good, but I have no idea what the point values will be for leg 2, and the rallymasters usually raise the stakes in the last leg. The other route sheet is more of the traditional rally format ... locations tossed about all over, some reachable in 31 hours, others not so much. With the easy route worked out, that's the next route to focus attention on.
At dinner, two hours after the riders meeting, the first trick was played. A third route sheet was provided to riders. Now ... two hours into the planning process, most riders are still a ways off from having a plan finalized (as "finalized" as a plan can be, since there is still much planning that takes place from the riders seat while rolling between stops). Some interesting changes in the new plan, so it definitely merits looking at a little closer. So now, rather than the usually multi-hour planning session that goes into each endurance rally, we have three unique sets of routes to consider, essentially bumping the planning effort up by a factor of 3.
We have the option to make minor revisions to the plan while riding, or for that matter we can completely throw out the route sheet we start with and switch over to a different sheet ... but doing that slashes our available time, as any time spent on the initial route sheet is lost and can't be reclaimed. And then there's the state capitol route ... is it worth it, and if so do you just run it for the initial 31 hours or stick with it for the whole 5 days? Decisions decisions (but then this is a big part of why we do this, in addition to getting out and seeing the country).
So here I am, running route options for three different routes, and looking at possible points and efficiency ratings for each. I'll have my route finalized and locked in before I go to bed for the night ... but it might be early AM before that's done.
More to come ...
posted by Charlie at
7:37 PM
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