BITE Rally - Scoring

Post 1 - Statesville NC

After that grueling final day (ok, technically a day and a half), it was time to hit scoring. Scoring would be easy. I only accumulated 3 bonus locations on the last leg, so the main emphasis was with getting the fuel log complete and the 3 pictures organized in the order they come up in the rally book. My fatigue would start to show here ... of the roughly 15 gas stops on this leg (at least I think the count was 15), ONE of the log entries I accidently wrote down the price per gallon, rather than the gallons purchased. This one typo cost me the entire fuel log bonus, all 150 points. It wasn't going to kill my score, and Tom (my scorer) was nice enough about it, flagging it for protest with Rick ... but I knew I had no leg to stand on and couldn't mount a credible protest. While I was getting my paperwork organized, I heard confirmation on my worst fear ... that there were other riders who had managed to grab at least two of the +15,000 bonus locations. I was sunk. No worries, I had completed the rally, which was my only goal for my first multi-day. Given all the things that could have gone wrong, I completed the event. I completed the event, and wasn't last ... though even finishing last would have been an accomplishment.

With scoring out of the way, I checked into the hotel, relocated my bike around to the side of the hotel with easier access to my room, unloaded, and decided to take a shower. The afternoon heat was starting to build for those last few hours coming into Statesville, so a nice cold shower was welcome to cool off.

Unpacked and shower out of the way, I decided to lay down and grab an hour nap before dinner and the awards banquet. That would be a big mistake. Even though I had set the Screamin Meanie as well as my phone's alarm clock, I slept through them both. I didn't wake up to realize the time until after 10pm. Knowing I needed to be back up at 07:00 for my ride down to Charlotte for service, I decided just to go back to sleep and rest up for the ride home.

I mean ... who needed to eat on Friday anyway? I would have ordered room service and then gone to sleep, but the hotel restaurant closed at 9pm, so I was just out of luck. At least the next couple days would be easier.

BITE Rally - Day 4

Day 4 - St Cloud MN to Statesville NC, 1342 Miles
States Visited: MN, WI, IL, IN, KY, WV, OH, VA, NC

Today was the day that everything fell apart. From the blog perspective, Day four covers all of Thursday and the first half of Friday until getting back to the hotel.

The morning started off easy enough. With Donahue H-D not opening until 09:00, there wasn't a rush to get up and out the door in a hurry. The dealership was only 2.5 miles form the hotel, so my plan was to be there right when they opened.

Yesterday was an easy ride, getting 7 hours sleep at the hotel in Streetsboro OH before heading out, and only having one bonus stop to worry about. Looking at the route for today, some 1550 miles planned, I was starting to have second doubts. If the H-D shop doesn't open until 09:00, and I expected this wouldn't be my fastest stop, that would put me back on the route around 09:30 .... 09:30 Central that is, effectively 10:30 Eastern. I had to be back in NC by 14:00, so essentially I had another 28 hours to go ... less time that we had for the first leg, but with more miles.

Re-evaluating stops, I only had three planned for Thursday. The first being the H-D dealership of course, then a stop in Alton, IL, and finally a stop out on the Natchez Trace down south of Nashville, TN. I quickly decided to toss out the Alton stop, it was only worth 28 points, and not really worth the diversion off route to snag it, I didn't think. Finally I started taking a hard look at the TN stop. The GPS was indicating that I would be there around 02:00 ... right in my usual "getting sleepy" time. Making this stop would net me 1001 points, but was it really worth the miles to bag it? My biggest fear was that someone had found a way to snag a couple of the +15,000 point stops, in which case this leg wouldn't mean anything for me. After weighing back and forth, I decided to stick with the plan to just make sure I finished, knowing that I needed to work on multi-day pace. Pulling TN out of the route would bump my route down to more like 1100 miles, and had me slated to get into Statesville around 08:00. Crazy early, but it would meet the revised goals I had after what I believed was a botched leg 1.



Just after 09:00, I pulled into the parking lot for Donahue H-D. Brett was already in the office ... I had tried to give him a heads up the day before, but he was there regardless. Got in, snagged my picture with one of the two mascots they have at the dealerships ... a pair of pigs since Harley has the Hog association. Brett knew I was on the clock, so kept conversation short and I was back on the road by 09:15. Traffic was a little more dense for once, since it was still Thursday morning rush hour as I took the loop around Minneapolis/St. Paul and back in to Wisconsin. Just as the night before, the police presence was still pretty strong across Wisconsin.

After having driven through Chicago on a more direct route yesterday, I decided to try and steer clear of Chicago proper, while also avoiding toll roads as much as possible. I opted instead to take I-39 south down to Normal, IL, and then start heading back east. It was not long after I had connected with I-74 that I pulled off at a rest stop to re-evaluate things.

One of the things I was re-evaluating was my seat ... the Airhawk seat pad I had bought right before the Cal24 ... it wasn't doing me any good. I lasted longer this time, without the sheepskin pad over the Airhawk. As I sat on the food picnic table, I decided to give the bead-rider cover that Norm Grills had talked me into buying a try. I had brought it along with me to try on the way home from Statesville back to Dallas, expecting that it wouldn't work well enough ... was I in for a surprise!!

Second, on my periodic check of the cell phone, I saw that Jim Owen had also made the Donahue stop, but much later in the afternoon. Why was he so late??? I got that sinking feeling knew he had bagged some other big bonus, and now he had grabbed his second. About the same time, I got an IM from my friend Curt Gran, letting me know that after all that happened on leg 1, I had still managed to turn in enough points to claim 5th at the checkpoint.

Well crap. My whole second leg had been constructed under the thought that I had botched leg 1, and this was just to save a rally finish, without being competitive. Now that I knew I was competitive, and really stinking up leg 2, I had to try for something else ... but I was already most the way to Indianapolis. Pulling out the rally book, I started looking for bonus items that fell along the route I had already committed myself too this morning. There was only one possibility ... Point Pleasant, West Virginia. The interesting thing here, the bonus location was a monument to the Mothman legacy, which had been made into a movie not too long ago. I had enjoyed the movie, so the connection kind of stuck with me. Plus, it didn't look like it was adding too many miles onto my route. I made the route updates to the GPS, and set my new course.

The GPS was predicting I'd hit the site around 05:30 am, and had me getting to Statesville around noon. Knowing that the GPS tends to try to start with an optimistic estimation, I wanted to make as much time as possible before stopping. This was the leg where I would over-extend myself.

The last two hundred miles out into Point Pleasant where the hardest. While the RT lacks any aux lighting right now, I could occasionally see deer off on the side of the road. I was starting to get tired, but battling through that with stops every other rest stop for a walk around the park and another soda to keep things going.

As I made the cross over the Ohio river for the final 40 miles into Point Pleasant, I got my second wind and had the energy and focus to make it into town for the picture.



After getting the picture locked down, I made my way back to I-64 in order to meet up with I-77 for the descent into Statesville. As soon as I hit I-64, I knew I was in trouble. Fatigue was hitting, and it was hitting hard. As soon as I hit I-64, I was right back off and into the first Red Roof Inn I saw. After explaining to the nice lady at the counter why I had darkened her doorway at 07:30 in the morning asking for a room, she felt pity on me and gave me a quiet handicapped room around back of the parking lot. Checked in, I headed straight to the room, and it was lights out not 2 minutes after my head hit the pillow.

Fearing a mistake similar to the first leg, I had set the Screaming Meanie to give me exactly one hour sleep.

With one hour up, I was back on the bike, and at the front counter ready to check out. Again, the same friendly lady at the front desk looked in disbelief as I was ready to get back on the road. She then declared that she couldn't charge me for just using the room for one hour on the same day ... and to have a nice ride. She never did run my credit card. It was with that that I was back on the road and headed towards Statesville. I-64 quickly met up with I-77, and the tollroad portion of West Virginia soon transitioned into the beauty of Virginia. Not long after crossing into Virginia, there were temporary construction billboards on the side of the road warning or an accident further south. I reached the traffic backup just as an exit made itself available, so a quick detour calculated by Ms. Garmin had me running an alternate route to avoid the next 5 miles of I-77 through some incredibly nice backroad 2-lane in Virginia. It was almost a shame to have to get back on I-77 after that stretch of road, but I needed to make Statesville in a hurry.

Not much longer now, and I would pull into the Holiday Inn Statesville and get checked in by Leon just after 13:00 ... one hour before the deadline.

BITE Rally - Day 3

Day 3 - Streetsboro OH to St Cloud MN, 977 Miles
States Visited: OH, IN, IL, WI, MN

Today was Wednesday, July 4th. With the destination for this westward leg being Donahue Harley-Davidson in St. Cloud MN, and it being closed for the July 4th holiday, there was no pressing need to get to MN by a certain time schedule. I used my initial time in the hotel to get caught up on rest, and with that out of the way it was time to plan out the rest of my ride.

With the run out to Minnesota, my calculations showed me having realistically 4 possible bonus stops: Cairo IN, Sauk Rapids MN, Hohenwald TN, and Alton IL. Streets and Trips was showing benefit by grabbing the Cairo stop on the way to Minnesota, which sounded like a plan since there wasn't a time crunch today ... and anything snagged today would be one more thing I wouldn't have to pick up Thursday/Friday.

Today's route would be predominately Interstate, with the exception of the roughly dozen miles needed to deviate from the Interstate across farm roads to the Cairo stop. The stop in Cairo Indiana was a historical marker honoring the Skywatch Tower, built in 1952 at the start of the Cold War against Russia, and the escalation of the Korean War. This tower pre-dated any kind of national radar system, and was manned by volunteers 24 hours a day. The civilian volunteers monitored the skies looking for enemy planes. This site seemed like a fitting bonus location given the date ... July 4th.



I was expecting a larger tower, or at least something fairly sturdy if built by military standards, but instead found a aging, rotting, wood structure.



With my one bonus for the day behind me, it was time to head for Chicago and holiday rush hour traffic. Having avoided Chicago on my previous trips up north, I wasn't sure what to expect, and was somewhat disappointed when Garmin routed me right into the tollroads around Chicago during rush hour. The Chicago metro area had for me the worst drivers encountered in the rally. It seemed like I was always having my lane encroached on by other drivers, or being cut off. The Chicago tollways also had gates on several of the lanes, and this is where I found my EZ-Pass really didn't want to work with how I had it mounted. After getting manually charged at the first two tollbooths, I decided just to pay cash for the remaining booths.

After finally making my way through the Chicago traffic, I decided to stop for a dinner break. This would be my last break, save for fuel stops, until I hit the hotel in St. Cloud MN.

Just as I crossed over the IL/WI border, I was met with some light rain showers which helped cool down the temps, and cooled down my Stich. The sun wouldn't set until well into Wisconsin, and I would again be entertained by various fireworks shows. I was also greeted with a greater police presence in Wisconsin than almost anywhere else, save for Ohio which had gone overboard with the police patrols. After the initial rain showers, the weather would be very pleasant for the rest of the evening. One more fuel stop before leaving Wisconsin, and I could only find pay-at-the-pump stations where the station itself was closed, so I fueled up in the dark.

The cross into Minnesota from Wisconsin would be uneventful, with enough fuel onboard to make it to the hotel without the need for another stop. Traffic was surprisingly light, and so I'd make good time to the hotel. Garmin was indicating that there was a Days Inn near Donahue's, but as I got to the neighborhood, I could only find a Best Western where the Days Inn was supposed to be. Best Western works just as well for me, so I went in to secure a room. My first bit of good luck ... since it was after 02:00 when I got there, the gal at the desk felt bad for me and so discounted the room half price. As it was, I was only 2 miles from Donahue's, so the plan was to grab some sleep, up in the morning for breakfast and to re-check route plans, then to be at the dealership by the time they opened at 09:00.

Today was a relaxing day, no incidents, and no real pressure.

BITE Rally - Day 2

Day 2 - Milford DE to Streetsboro OH, 796 Miles
States Visited: DE, NJ, NY, PA, OH

Alarm clock set, it was time for sleep. In the room at 02:20, I should be awake at 03:30. When I awoke, I found it to be 07:15!!! I had slept through the alarm on my cell phone, and the alarm clock in the room hadn't gone off ... it didn't make any sound. That was it ... I knew I was done. Panic was starting to set in. I started weighing my options ... do I call the rallymasters and let them know I had DNF'ed already, or make a straight line towards Wilkes-Barre? Back at the bike, I had the GPS revise my route with NJ no longer on the route, and also dropping the smaller Pennsylvania stops ... basically just running up to Flanders NY, and then making a dash back to the checkpoint. Garmin told me with that revised route, I would be there just after 15:00, which was the magic window at which penalty points would start accruing.

Traffic was generally good getting through New Jersey and into New York state. I had no problems finding the giant duck at Flanders, with only one speed laser trap to have to avoid (which was really the only speed trap I had encountered the entire rally). By the time I stopped for the Flanders stop, Garmin was telling me I would be hitting the checkpoint right around 15:30. Not good ... I needed to be making time, not losing time, and if I made it to Wilkes-Barr after 17:00, it wouldn't do me any good at all.

Here is where I made my next mistake. I had misunderstood the penalty calculation for riders returning after 15:00. Knowing that the penalties increased exponentially after the 3:00pm penalty start, I had understood the calculation to be the number of minutes after 3:00pm, squared. Looking at my three possible PA stops enroute back to the checkpoint, two being worth 500 points and the other being only 87 points, it looked as though my penalty points would far outweigh the benefit of making the stops, so I pressed on for the checkpoint. In reality, the penalty calculation was to take the number of minutes past 3:00pm, divide that by 2, and then square that number. As it was, I arrived at the checkpoint at 15:21 and received a 110 point penalty.

Since the 500 point bonus that I passed up was also obtainable from the checkpoint, had I understood the penalty process better, I could have still claimed 390 more points that I managed. This would have moved me to 3rd place instead of 5th, but after the ferry incident and then oversleeping in Milford, I figured I was so far behind the curve that it wouldn't really matter. By the time I made it to Wilkes-Barre, I hadn't eaten at all, and had only gone through the water and electrolyte mix that I had on the bike and refilled at gas stops. I was rested, but frustrated ... and not on a pace I could sustain for the rest of the rally.

With the checkpoint finished and scoring for the first leg complete, it was time to wait until the 17:00 riders meeting and the release of the next leg's route sheets. Fortunately, the rallymaster team had planned for food to be provided at the checkpoint, so I was able to grab some much needed grub, as well as a couple drinks to bring up the fluid levels. Several riders were sleeping out behind the dumpsters or back in the dealership service area. I used the down time to grab a t-shirt from the shop (which was the bonus criteria for 500 points ... had I done it before checking into the checkpoint). The idea was to spend time off the bike, and not at all focused on routes or bonus locations ... recharge the emotional batteries as it was since they had been near depleted by the ferry and oversleeping problems earlier in the ride.

The funny thing about rally riding, at least for me ... any time I think I did horribly awful, I end up ranked pretty well. The reciprocal is also true; when I think I've ridden a competitive segment, I find out that it wasn't as competitive as I had hoped. As the 17:00 riders meeting started, I opted to not try and find out where I was ranked, as I expected it to only be more demoralizing. Because I hadn't eaten or otherwise maintained a a sustainable pace, so I planned to hold back some on the second leg while still capturing competitive points.

Promptly at 17:00, the riders meeting started. New route sheets were handed out, this time routes C, E, and F. Route C had been posted online a couple weeks before the event, so most of us had a route pre-planned around that sheet. What we didn't know was whether Route C would be used for the 36 hour leg 1, or show up on the 2.5 day leg 2. Route F was a revised version of the original Route A ... 29 capitols available, this time the point values being larger than what was offered in leg 1. I wasn't interested in the capitol tour in leg 1, so I quickly wrote off this option for leg 2. The other route of interest was Route E. While there was some reuse of bonus locations from Route D, there was also more possible locations than Route C. As people started heading out with what I thought was a completed route (only later to learn that several people simply left the dealership and headed to a nearby hotel at which to complete their planning), I decided to declare my Route C option and hit the road. I didn't have a complete route worked out, but knew that I wanted to hit St. Cloud MN for the bonus at Donahue Harley-Davidson. There wouldn't be many bonus options along this route, but I had a reason for heading to Donahue's, it would be easy riding, held some competitive points, and would get me to some states I had not previously visited. My plan was to start heading towards Minnesota, and as soon as the local clock rolled over to July 4th (which made either of the two rest stops for this leg available), I would grab a hotel room to complete the route plan.

At just before 18:00, I pulled out of the Two Jacks parking lot, topped off the fuel tank, and headed West across Pennsylvania. This was my second time to ride across Pennsylvania, and the state continues to intrigue me. I definitely need to make it back and explore more of the state's back roads. As I was headed west, still with the mountains on the horizon and the sun setting behind them, I was entertained by fireworks displays from several small towns scattered between Philly and Pittsburgh. Darkness would fall before I got out of the state, and right around 23:00 I would find myself at a truck stop in far eastern Ohio. I used this opportunity to pick up a Screaming Meanie ... a favorite alarm clock among truckers and long distance riders, this thing is guaranteed to wake you, the dead, and the people sleeping 3 rooms down in your hotel when it goes off. There was no way I was going to accidently oversleep a rest bonus again this ride.

Back on the road and headed west, I made it as far as Streetsboro OH before the clock rolled to 12:01am and it was time to pull off and grab a room for the night. Even considering the experience I had out in Milford DE, I decided to stop in at the Super 8, managed to get a room, and decided to sleep first and then plan in the morning while I was fresh. It wouldn't take long for sleep to come.

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.

BITE Completed

Back in the hotel with the rally completed. The last 29 hours were by far the hardest, and I'm left pretty well wiped out. After going through scoring, I checked into the hotel, unloaded the bike, then headed for the showers. Had an hour to go from the time I finished my shower until the banquet dinner, so figured I'd lay down for a short nap ... even set the Screaming Meanie to make sure I'd be up. Overslept. It's now after 10, I'm still beat, and I've missed dinner. Sleep sounds good.

Daily posts from the rally will be upcoming. Since I didn't have time to update the blog each day, I did leave myself a series of voicemail messages of the things I wanted to post, so I'll sort through those once I get back to Dallas and get things posted up early next week.

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 ...

BITE Rally - Pre Day 1

Saturday was my travel day from Dallas to Statesville, NC. With roughly 1100 miles, this would be (I think) one of the longer days for the event. At least Sunday is an off day, so plenty of time to rest up, hopefully de-stress, and prep for Monday's start.

I didn't get the 5am start I was planning. The alarm was set for 4, but I didn't even hear it or get up until 5:15. Was on the road by 6:30am ... not really a problem, but would delay lunch.

It's been raining like crazy in Texas the past couple of weeks, so the camera stayed packed away as I started off. There were a few times when the damp road would indicate that I wasn't far behind the rain clouds, but the rain would stay away until West Memphis. The weather was muggy most of the morning, with temps hoovering around 95 degrees, but getting as high as 102. Traffic wasn't too bad, until I hit I-40 just east of Little Rock. I-40 would stay a zoo from Arkansas through most of Tennessee.

At 1:30pm I finally made it to lunch. Sunday is Dad's birthday, so the idea was to have lunch with Dad and Brian. Dad was already there when I got there, and Brian was able to get off work a little early to hang out. My one good picture of the day (and I didn't even take it)...



From Memphis on, the weather would stay muggy, so it would be a great time to test out the evaporative cooling vest that Cass for me for my birthday. I've done cooling tricks in the past ... packing the pockets with ice, soaking my shirt in ice water before putting it on ... I was curious to see how the vest worked. I'm not sure I did it right. I ended up getting pretty soaked, but can't say that I was any cooler than when I packed the pockets of my Aerostich riding suit with ice. The problem, I think, was that the humidity was just too high, so the water on the vest was not able to evaporate very quickly at all. I wasn't hot ... so in that regard it worked, but I'm not sure that it was significantly different than just soaking my shirt in ice water first. I'll keep testing with it.

Along the line of comfort, for this ride I did switch back to my primary helmet. Helmet discomfort and earplug discomfort were a thing of the past ... back to what they were before. With the seat, I left the sheepskin pad at home, and this time am using just the Airhawk seat pad. The Airhawk by itself seems to be working ok, but isn't the magic cure that I was looking for. I also brought a beadrider cover with me as well, but I haven't put it on yet. I'm not sure that this is going to do any better for me, but I'll give it a try at some point over the week. The only new comfort problem to come up has been with my intercom ... the vox gate on the microphone is triggering WAY to early, resulting in the mic being open more than not so I get road and wind noise amplified back into my ears. The intercom isn't located where I can make adjustments easily while riding, so I ended up unplugging the mic and turning off my phone (really the only thing that's using the mic with my current rally setup). I'll fix the vox setting in the hotel parking lot Sunday.

More to come as the event unfolds. I'm not sure that I'll be able to do daily postings during the rally, but I will post as possible.