Not content with the 66.6 hours of the recent BMRx Rally, I found this cheeky little 12-Hour for some light entertainment. Twelve hour rallies are a common format, but they are different to the longer events in a few ways. First is that they are shorter, which allows little room for error, and even less room to recover if you do make an error. I made at least two minor mistakes in this one, and they cost me.
The advantage of this format is that the rally really is a short blast, usually in a great place for motorcycling, and it serves well for training riders to maximize their efficiency at bonus and gas stops. In the recent BMRx I made only around fifteen bonus stops in the allowed sixty six hours. By contrast, this twelve hour rally had twenty three stops. In the BMRx I had to ride hundreds of miles between bonuses, in this one they were coming at two to three an hour.
The Rally was a "shotgun" start, which basically means the riders can start from anywhere they like, but the common finishing point was The Lodge at Magazine Mountain, Arkansas. To gain the most points a rider would have to anticipate starting at various locations, and work out the best route from each one, something I would normally do. In this case, however, I wanted to start as close to home as possible so I didn't analyze routes from other places. I went with the best I could find and hoped it would be enough.
Here is the route I finally rode. It was around four hundred and fifty miles, starting in Tahlaquah, Oklahoma at six am:
The green lines represent departures from the original planned route in BaseCamp. The effect is close to zero, as the Garmin GPS recalculates routes and any departures from an original plan are so close in time it makes no difference. The black line is the track-log from the GPS, ie, that is where I went.
I arrived in Tahlaquah in good time to scout the first bonus before grabbing an ATM receipt from a bank about two hundred yards away. It was a picture of the north side of a museum in the town square:
I always like to collect a bonus early in a rally as it settles me into the event. This one was about as close as it gets. For the purposes of scoring, we were emailing the pictures to Rally HQ (Paul Tong's Laptop). This makes the stops a little slower than normal, but it also cuts hours from the tedious scoring process at the end. On balance, it works quite well. I was coping with a brand new phone which made the pictures better, but I was hoping I hadn't forgotten any crucial settings. So far, so good. As usual with night-time bonuses, this one was lit by the lights on the bike.
That one out of the way it was forty five miles to Jay, Oklahoma, and a memorial outside the courthouse. Courthouse bonuses are a mixed blessing. They are easy to get to, and easy to find and park, but they are in towns and cities and that can slow you down. No such problems in Jay, at seven am on a Saturday.
The problem I did have here was that I dropped the bike (again). As I climbed off it rolled forwards off the sidestand and onto the ground ::sigh:: It already carries the scars of previous rallies, now it has a few more. Oh well, it's a working tool, not a Garage Queen. The main issue is that it isn't easy to pick up without removing a bunch of top-heavy stuff. Fortunately, within a couple of minutes a guy in a truck stopped to help. Problem was soon solved and he said a bunch of them were having breakfast round the corner at eight. I could join them if I wanted. I did want, but I had a date with the Kindley House Museum (below), before then:
Daylight now, and the thick fog and cold temperatures of the dark hours were behind me. The electric jacket takes care of the cold, but the fog is the fog and it slows you down. This was a quick stop. Maybe a couple of minutes tops, and off to a Chapel in Bella Vista. So far all of the bonuses had been available twenty four hours. The next one was daylight only, or so I thought. It was daylight and I am on a roll.
The Mildred B Cooper Memorial Chapel is a beautiful place. I was there at eight am. already there were plenty of other folks around so I got the picture below, and left feeling very happy:
Ten minutes, and ten miles later I get a phone call. Unfortunately the fancy new phone has disconnected from my GPS so I can't answer it while riding, but the call is from the Rally Master so I pulled over and called him back (I called him all sorts of other things a few minutes later, but it's best not to dwell on that).
"Hi Steve, I can't allow that bonus" ... What!
"It's not available until 9.00 am, and you were there at 8.00 am." ... Bugger, I didn't read the Rally Pack correctly, but I was nice and polite because Paul has a job to do, and it wasn't his fault that I'm an idiot.
I had a choice now. Go back and wait forty five minutes for the large number of points (939), or press on and put it down to experience. I decided to press on, mainly because waiting that long on such a short rally is counter-intuitive. It was the wrong decision and I learned from it. I should have gone back, submitted the bonus correctly and dropped a later, smaller bonus if necessary. That decision alone cost me one place in the final standings.
Next up was Elkhorn Tavern at the Pea Ridge National Battlefield. There were a couple of minor issues with this one. First, the road layout has changed recently so the GPS wasn't entirely sure which way to go in, or out. I got turned around both ways. It cost a couple of miles and a few minutes. No big deal, but it's irritating when you are wanting a clean bonus to make up for the previous debacle.
The ride in included a six mile loop around the battlefield. This was a place I could have stayed a while, but I was on a mission and I can't promise that I stuck to the twenty five mph speed limit, but it was important to not drive over the many joggers at too high a speed ... they tend to get pissed if you do.
Another chapel was next up, twenty two miles away. I'm so not used to bonuses being quite so close together. On my last adventure they were spaced hundreds of miles apart, but I guess that's not going to work on a twelve hour event.. So, a short hop to Eureka Springs, Arkansas:
Not as good a picture, it was tricky finding somewhere to place the Rally Flag, but at least I got the points for this one! As an aside, as I approach a bonus I am thinking about how to frame the shot, where to place the flag, what elements I need in the picture, etc. There is very little time for simply admiring the view. I almost always get that right, except one occasion where I didn't and that's coming up later today.
Thorncrown Chapel out of the way and it's thirty miles to the Rogers Daisy Airgun Museum. A picture is needed of the Daisy Model 35 Buck Rogers 25th Century Rocket Pistol. These can be a pig to find. One exhibit out of hundreds. On this occasion, another rider found it quickly and I benefited from his observational skills:
Fifteen miles down the road are two bonuses together, and a total of twenty one hundred valuable points. Basically they are two pictures, from different vantages, of the War Eagle Mill. First from one side of the bridge:
Then from the other. Crossing the bridge was interesting. It has a wooden deck with wood planks to drive over. The planks are raised from the deck and about eighteen inches wide, one for each wheel track. Well a motorcycle only has one track, so pick a plank and ride over. Two-thirds of the way across there is an SUV coming towards me with no way to pass. It's a stand-off, until the car driver realizes there is no way I can reverse the bike across the bridge to let him through. One of us has to reverse, it wasn't me. Nice guy who wished me a "good day", but he seemed to have some fingers missing as he only was able to raise one in my direction.
The historic Marker commemorating the Huntsville Massacre was next. Last time I went to a "Massacre marker" it was twenty miles down a dirt road, at night. Hopefully this one was going to be easier. It was. It took a few minutes to actually find it, but definitely easier:
Onwards, ever onwards as the clock isn't slowing down, and the Johnson Mill is next:
Again, it's off the bike and a short trek across grass to the proper location, but an easy bonus and a welcome 788 points gained (or lost depending on how you look at it).
Wilson Park Castle was the last bonus before my time-check. I really don't know what this is, except it's there and I could get close enough for a decent picture:
Before the rally started I had built a time-check into the plan. Dennys was a decent place to take the five hundred point lunch bonus (stop for thirty minutes). However, I had a different idea. If I could be back at the finish hotel by 5.25 pm, I could take it there instead. This was a good one to keep in my pocket. Five hundred points is useful, but there are bigger points out there and not stopping now was a good way to keep the options open. This was more of a thinking man's approach than I had demonstrated earlier at the chapel. As it was I rode in at 5.30 pm, so I couldn't make it happen. On time was 12.30 pm, and I rode past Dennys at 12.15 pm. Not bad.
The next two bonuses are only nine miles down the road, and less than half a mile apart. The first one was collected flawlessly, well almost:
The marker for Borden House would have been straightforward. I would have seen it as I drove in, had it actually been there. As it was, I walked all the way down to the house itself before realizing that the marker was gone. The post remained so I submitted the above picture and got the points.
Just down the road, another seven hundred plus points were on offer for a picture of a telephone box. I have a wonderful picture of said box, with my rally flag beautifully arranged. Unfortunately there is no sign of my motorcycle anywhere in the shot, and that was a requirement:
I have learned a lot about framing rally pictures from none other than John Austin (RenoJohn). The requirements for well-framed pictures on his Big Money Rally are legendary, and he likes the ones I submit. Here I made a beginner error. My motorcycle was in the shot as I knew it had to be. It's just there, on the right. When I framed the picture it was visible. I then had a brain-fart. I figured the rally flag could be more prominent, so I zoomed the shot and in doing so cut the bike out. Ultimately these couple of cumulative errors dropped me two places in the final standings. I would not find this out until the banquet. When you are out there, doing it, these are not things I think about. I have a plan that I am trying to ride. It takes a great deal of mental effort to accomplish that, especially if you planned a big ride that, by definition, demands efficiency and concentration to pull off.
You have to trust that you planned a good route, then simply pour heart and soul into making it happen. Anything less than total commitment means you will be beaten by someone who kept their head in the game. There is no room for error in twelve hours, and although I didn't yet know it I had already made at least two. Then when you get in to the finish, you gave it everything, you left nothing on the road and anyone finishing higher in the standings beat you on merit. So you don't think about things in the past, you think only of the next bonus and getting it right, and getting there safely. One of the reasons I do not like BOLO (be on the lookout for) bonuses is that you have enough to do riding on today's roads, although those bonuses are great for two-up couples as they give the passenger a useful task.
St Marys Catholic Church, Altus, Arkansas was a tricky ride up, but a gorgeous building. Although quite why, in this sparsely populated area, is anyone's guess. The nearly eighty mile ride to this location, from the sadly doomed telephone box points, was a good chance to relax a little. Most of it was south on I-49 and east on I-40, a welcome break from the madness of the day:
That was the first in a cluster of five bonuses. The next three were to prove straightforward, but the fifth anything but:
A grave marker for a Civil War soldier, Andrew Jackson was next. His final resting place was in an idyllic country location. Graveyard bonuses can be a little tricky. Sometimes the location of the graveyard is all you have, and if it is a large one then finding the marker can take forever, and that is in daylight. Fortunately, the Rally Master had marked the grave so I knew where it was:
I had the video camera rolling on the approach to this one. The stop is not as fast as I usually manage, but the video gives a decent idea of what we do on these events:
Eight miles down the road is the Zion Lutheran Church, and its bell. I was really enjoying this section. Beautiful Fall colors, good roads and the end in sight:
Eighteen miles now to the Confederate Mothers Memorial Park, and a stone marker set back in the forest from the parking area. Worth pointing out here that I keep running into other riders. Going to and from, and indeed at bonuses I am rarely on my own so close to the end. Everyone seems to have the same idea which is usually an indicator that you are doing something correctly:
The marker for the Treaty of Council Oaks is another that is set just back from a parking place. Easy bonus:
Then, just seven and a half measly miles ahead, is the visitor center for Mt Nebo State Park. I can honestly say, without fear of contradiction, that the road up to St Nebo is the worst, most difficult, paved road it has ever been my mis-fortune to ride. It is very hard to put into words quite how tough the ride up was. The gradient was 18%, and it clearly exceeded that around the TEN miles per hour switchbacks. When Arkansas says "Road ahead crooked and steep" they mean it. When they post 10 mph on the bends, what they mean is that if you try it at 11 mph you will fall off and probably die. I've been really nice to Paul in this report ... the bastard! Let me condense this a bit. I rode to the top, and I rode down again. Next time I'm doing it in a 4X4.
Just one more stop. I start feeling a little sad at this point in a rally, although today I was still recovering from St Nebo. One more bonus, the last stop before the barn and an event you have planned for hours and looked forward to for months, will be all over bar the scoring.
I was too late to get lunch at the finish hotel, but had oodles of time with nowhere to go except Subiaco Abbey, for my final 841 points:
A handy bench for two of us to place flags, a nice picture of a grotto and all that is left is a slow and careful twenty miles to the finish, and plenty of time to do it. The other rider there with me was Bob Bowman. He finished second after a stellar ride in the 36-Hour version of this event.
I arrived at The Lodge at Magazine Mountain at five thirty pm, and the 2016 NIITWIT Rally was now just a memory.
Thanks to the email system, scoring comprised of checking that the riders were claiming points already approved for them to claim, and sorting out any minor snafus. It was all over very quickly. Brian Walters scored me. He is fast, efficient and a good friend. He seemed at least a little bit impressed with my performance, but that was all the clues I had until the banquet.
I'll skip over most of that and simply announce that I came in third:
Many thanks to Paul Tong - Rally Master, and Troy Martin - Score Master.
Events like this take many, many hours of unpaid work to put on. Without people prepared to do that work there would be no rallies to ride. So if you are thinking of trying one, please do so. It isn't hard or complicated, and we need to support these events or they won't be there.
Paul is a terrific RM. He knows what it takes to collect these bonuses, and he is determined that the riders will get all the points he can give them. Troy is an experienced and accomplished rider who put together the scoring system, then managed it and probably did a thousand other things.
Thanks too to Brian and Decker Walters, and all the others who made this possible.
Not least, thanks to the other riders. Without you, whether I beat your ass or you kicked my butt, there wouldn't be any rallies. I enjoy your company before and after the event, and I feel your presence on the road.
Until next time!