My Cal24 report, pasted from an email to a friend:
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Fun time! Ended up being about 1100 miles in 24 hours for me, along with the 120 miles each way to get up to the start/finish point. Almost 50 bikes entered, and mine wasn't the most uncomfortable.
Someone actually had a brand-new 2004 R1 that they used for the rally (stock seat!) and there were a few more sportbikes. But, the vast majority of folks were on GS's, RT's, Gold Wings, ST's, or FJR's. Many more folks than I expected had really customized their bikes with add-on fuel cells. A number of folks also did what I did, which was put some gas cans in luggage or bungeed to the bike. On the way up on the 1st day, I noticed that the 2.5 gallon plastic canister had a hole in it, and was leaking into my ventura pack. So I went back and used 2 1-gallon ones that I had used before. In the first rally pack, they had said that we might have to go 200 miles between gas, but later on they said that it would be no more than 150 miles. My bike was fixed up right before the rally (different story, but now my power is back and my mileage is back up to 33-34 rather than 25-27), so in fact I never had to use any extra gas anyway. What it did do is make me more comfortable running the bike to empty, knowing it wouldn't be a tragedy with the extra gas on board. Twice I got 155 miles out of the tank, which was a new record for me.
The route was great, took us all the way up some great roads through Bucks lake (1st checkpoint was the bucks lake lodge). Made it all the way up to Klamath Falls Oregon, before heading west towards Yreka and then Eureka. 2 hours in to the rally I got another speeding ticket on 70 (82 in a 55). So I'm up to a 3 week cycle between tickets now; I'm not sure if this is sustainable.
Couple interesting parts. Newest part for me was all of the dark riding. We had to get from Yreka to Eureka on route 96, which is this twisty little two-lane road through the forest for about 160 miles. In the pitch dark. My lights are plenty bright, and threw a beam way down the road. But, in the tight corners (of which there seemed to be a few thousand), it was freaky bending into a corner where you see nothing but black until the bike turns farther. I see why the rally guys put a bunch of extra lights up front, and I'll think about doing it for next year. There was a Triumph TT600 that had a big floodlight mounted right up front, which looked like a good idea.
GPS was a godsend. During the ticket, I was stuck on the side of the road for 20 minutes or so, and I had also taken a bonus loop that leg (70 in fact, was the bonus loop that I didn't have to be on). I was worried about missing the first checkpoint, but I made it in by 12:30 (it closed at 1 PM). But, I knew I was behind the curve for the next checkpoint. I also had heard a hint from the rally organizer that it would be helpful to get to the 2nd checkpoint close to when it opened in order to get a significant bonus that leg. I aimed my GPS right at the 2nd checkpoint and took a different route to get straight there. I probably saved about an hour or more and got there in time to chase a bonus between checkpoints 2 & 3. It was a neat cave at the lava national monument. The great thing about that bonus was that the road to get out there was totally deserted, and allowed some serious high speed travel. Also, I was able to keep going in the right direction after getting to the park (rather than backtracking), and GPS routed me directly to the next checkpoint areas up towards Oregon. My biggest injury during the rally was hitting my head on that damn cave (drew blood!).
Last checkpoint before the end was Fort Bragg (after a long drive down 101/1 on the coast). It was open from 2 AM to 5 AM, and I made it in around 4 AM. I was riding with another rider that I had synced up with during the night, which made things easier. From Fort Bragg, there was one last leg to get back to Dunnigan, with the finish being open from 6 - 8 AM. Sometime before Fort Bragg, I lost all will to get any points, and stopped filling out the sheets, just concentrating on riding safely and making the main checkpoints. In Fort Bragg, I still had the same thought, and had agreement from my riding buddy. So we just aimed the GPS directly to Dunnigan, and took 20 all the way to Route 5. (instead of some of the turns off of 20 that the base route suggested). There were a ton of 500 point entries along 20, but I was just too loopy to care. In fact, I really felt weird on the bike at times so I got off the road a couple times just to jump around, clear my head, and will myself on. I had some times where I would suddenly come to my senses and realize I had absolutely no memory of the prior mile or two. The gadget was telling us that we had plenty of time to make the checkpoint. When we started on 20, it estimated we'd pull in around 7 AM, so we both knew that stopping for a minute or two a couple times wouldn't be a problem. And there are no bonus points for coming in early (but huge penalties for coming in late).
We ended up in Dunnigan around 7:15 or so. I went to a gas station there first to fill up, and to organize my documents away from the main group at the finish line (getting all 5 legs into 1 envelope, writing my rider # on each page, organizing the polaroids that I took, receipts that were necessary, etc). It actually took me a few minutes, but then when I pulled in to the finish, it was a piece of cake to hand everything over and know it was in order. I waited around for a while to see some of the other bikes come in. Dave (a fellow rider that had convinced me to do the rally) worried me a bit when he didn't come in by 8, but after I went back to the room to grab a shower, he did make it in at 8:30 or so. All in all it worked out OK for me points-wise, because the checkpoints alone are huge points. You can miss 1 checkpoint and still count as a finisher, and many of the bikes didn't make the last checkpoint. I got almost nothing on the 2nd leg, very little on the 4th leg, and nothing on the 5th leg, but between the points and bonuses on the 1st & 3rd legs, plus all the main checkpoints, I ended up 9th out of 47 or so. The guy I was riding with finished right in front of me, as he was more diligent in getting points in the first few legs before we synced up.
I'm definitely looking forward to next year, and have a number of ideas to make it easier. Comfort wasn't a huge problem while on the bike, but after I got off in the morning, everything started to hurt a bit. In fact, my back aches a bit now, even a few days later. I also need to find an easier way to store the rally instructions to get to them easier, and re-store them easier, so I take less time at each stop. Hope you can make it next year!
- Alex
. Oh well there is next year. 
Maybe we could all team up for next year. And I'll make sure to bring a rope just incase my bimmer needs to tow you to the finish. 
.....bring on those reports...WW you have my respect for the effort 
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