Cal24 2008 - BARF style

[PitHo]

 

[Whodat]

Fun ride. Congrats to Alex for being top barf finisher.

 

[Ironbutt]

Fun ride. Congrats to Alex for being top barf finisher.

Thanks for everything dude!

 

[aciurczak]

Fantastic rally! Really had a great time this year. The layout suited me pretty well in the way I like to work these, and it took us over some pretty great areas. The bullets (bonuses on first leg) were very GPS friendly, and before setting off I had a pretty good idea where every one was. On the second leg I ignored the base route and locked onto 6 or 7 very high point value bonuses all the way out in the middle of nowhere, and just tried to collect as many of those as I could. I only got 4 of them, but that along with a fair amount of bullets in the first leg was enough for 9th place. I ended up with a little over 1200 miles in the 24 hr period, about 150 - 200 miles more than I usually do in these rallies, so I definitely covered quite a bit of ground. Need to unpack, clean up, and get my head together, but I'll post in more detail (with some more pics) soon.

 

[Map8]

Congratulations on the great finish. I really enjoyed the updates from your dedicated support staff. Looking forward to hearing more.

 

[aciurczak2]

A Few More Details for Those Who Want to Know

Detail 1 - Alex did not break his left toe, but it might be bruised.

Detail 2 - Bullet 6 was the nail polish and also the location of where the CAL24 police set up. Bullet 5 was the lipstick and I believe it was somewhere near Walker Lake.

We're home and tired. I'm sure Alex is much more tired than I am, but with all the calls last night, I'm pretty tired too. The banquet was good fun with good food and lots of laughs.

Tune in again next year! arty

 

[lionserpent]

Sounds like a hell of a ride. Congrats!

 

[aperture8]

Congratulations! arty

 

[budman]

Welcome home guys..

Great job

Looking forward to hearing more.

 

[silversvs]

Nice work gentlemen. Congratulations on finishing and riding safely.

Will you both be at the Barf Bash? I'd love to get a copy of the checkpoints etc. so I can see what I missed out on, and listen to some stories about the rally.

 

[aciurczak]

Well that was fun! I'll try and lay out many of the details of the rally in the next few posts. I'll likely forget a bunch, so some updates may be put into this post later, maybe some will be in posts after this. And at this point, if any of the details are a little off, forgive me and my tired, fuzzy brain. (which is getting less tired and less fuzzy as time goes on...)

The rider meeting on Friday night is typically split into two parts. The first hour is for newbies, where the rally folks (Mark Crane, Rallymaster, and Tom Melchild, Cal24 head honcho) lay out in broad strokes what new rally riders can expect. This year Eric Jewell shared a bunch of his rally experiences as well. Eric is a past winner of the Cal24, and has also run the full Iron Butt rally a few times. Most folks, even those who have done this before, end up attending both meetings anyway.

The second meeting is the second hour, where the rally folks go through some of the new details in this year's rally. For example, they let us know that there was only 1 checkpoint in this rally. To be a finisher, all you needed to do was be at that checkpoint (which turned out to be about 11 miles south of Yerrington, NV) during the time it was open, and get back to Dunnigan before 8 AM (9 AM drop-dead time with penalty), and you would be classified as a finisher. Last-place finisher, of course, but a finisher. Everything else on the rally was a bonus of some sort or another which would increase your score. Some of the other rules that they went over were the picture rules (yes, the rally flag needed to be in every picture you took, and if it says that you need to be in the picture, you need to be wearing that flag), and the fuel log rules. They also described how the scoring process would work. All of this is laid out as clearly as possible so there is no question later about what they meant. There is pretty much no leeway in these rules later, and no crying about it allowed. For example, if you take a picture of the right bonus at the right time with the flag in it, but it says that you need to be in the picture and you're not, you get zero points for that bonus. No partial credit. Binary. If you have 3 of the 4 fuel log receipts, but lost one, zero credit for fuel log. Not 3/4ths. Everyone is scored this way, and everyone knows the rules going in.

The final rule discussed, and the newest addition to the Cal24 rally, is the presence of the Cal24 police. I didn't think the rally had much of a speeding problem in the past, most folks realize over time that going overboard on the speed tends to tire you out much faster, and you're likely to finish worse off than if things were a little more moderate. My first Cal24 5 years ago I was on a 12R and ended up with a performance award on Highway 70, which cost me a couple hundred dollars and 30+ minutes on the side of the road, which utterly and completely negated any advantage I would have received for going that quickly. (of course that 30 minutes on the side of the road meant I had to go even faster the rest of that leg if I wanted to make the checkpoint in time, which I ended up making). I haven't gotten a ticket on the rally since, and haven't even had many close calls. Anyway, sorry for the sidetrack. So even though most folks probably weren't breaking many speed records in the past, perhaps some of the newer rally riders were from time to time. And the new rule means that somewhere out there, there were an unknown number of Cal24 police on the road, with the ability to accurately measure your speed. If you were 20 mph over the posted limit, you're busted. The specific penalty wasn't discussed in the evening meeting, but was detailed in the morning meeting when the packets were handed out. If you were busted, you would be held in Cal24 jail for the number of minutes you were over the posted limit. And the kicker was that your total score would be reduced by the same percentage. So if you got busted for 75 mph in a 50 zone, that's 25 minutes at the side of the road going nowhere, and 25% removed from your overall score. Ouch. And because there could be multiple Cal24 police either on or off the base route, there's nothing that would keep you from picking up multiple citations, and getting your score all the way back down to zilch. There was very little belly-aching over the rule, less than I would have expected, in fact, and I didn't mind it much. Some others minded it a bit during the rally, but most folks who ended up getting caught were in good enough spirits. Cheaper than the highway patrol.

So that was the evening meeting. After the meetings, Annie and I headed to dinner at the restaurant next to the hotel. Decent burger. When we got back to the room, I started to pack the bike for the next morning, and make sure everything was in the right place. In doing so, I couldn't find any of my flashlights, pens, or lanyards to hold them. Ugh. Though we have several checklists which we went through multiple times before leaving the house, something we were both positive we packed somehow didn't make it to the hotel room. So it's 10:30 PM at night, and I need to go buy supplies. Luckily, the mini-mart next door happened to be open late. I bought the last highlighter that they had, a bunch of pens, and a couple of LED flashlights that they had at the front counter. I always have a backup mini-maglite hidden in my bike's glove compartment, but it's a pain in the neck to keep getting out and putting back in. The rally folks had handed out a lanyard for one of the bonuses (never found out which one), so I re-used it to attach to one of the LED flashlights, and I was back in business. Turns out that the new lights were significantly brighter (10+ LED's instead of 3) than my older lights, so this ended up being an upgrade anyway. So all was well again, and we were asleep by 11ish. More to come...

 

[Whodat]

I had an interesting rally. The 1st half was some of the most fun I've ever had on a bike. Made every bonus and picked up six bullets. Rode some fantastic roads. Got nabbed by the Cal24 Police for 65 in a 35 .

Second half of the rally was a night mare for me. I had some mechanical issues with my bike that If I had a brain I would have cut short my ride and called it a day. But seeing as I'm pretty much brainless I kept going.

I went off the planned route to try and nab some high point bonuses. I grabbed a bonus in Gerlach Nevada cuz I had always wanted to go there. Leaving Gerlach I though I was on 447 but in actuality I was on 35. I was crusing along at ~85 when the speed limit dropped from 65 to 45. I slowed to 65 just in case the Cal24 popo were around. I passed the 45 speed limit sign doing 65....and the pavement ended . Scared the crap outta me going from pavement to gravel at speed. I continued for a couple miles before I turned back.
Finally found 447 and headed for Alturas. Rabbits everywhere at night must like the road cuz it's warm. There are two less bunny's in Nevada now the left leg of my aerostich is covered in bunny guts.

My bike was out to fuck me. It decided to overheat, ran just below the red on the temp gauge. This caused the fan to stay on using enough juice that I could run my driving lights or my heated gear but not both. Warm and blind or cold and able to see. And I had to shut everything down a couple of miles before any stop to get enough battery to start the bike.

After Alturas i got too tired to safely ride. I pulled in to a Post Office parking lot,m set the alarm on my cell phone and slept next to my bike for 15-20 minutes. That got me an hour and then I had to sleep again. This time just off the road sleeping for 15 minutes leaned up against a pile of dirt next to the bike. This got me another hour on the bike.
I had to sleep again. I was falling asleep on the bike on 299 east of Burney when I found a wide enough turn out. As I was postiong the bike I dropped it mad. At an odd angle with the wheels uphill and at such an angle that I couldn't pick it up. I was well and truly fucked. This was just after sunrise and I would see one car every five minutes or so, and no cell signal. i started waving at folks going by as I was standing next to my downed bike maybe 100 feet off the road.
Some folks were really nice and waved back as they kept going . Finally one guy waved and then must have did a double take because he came back two minutes later and helped me lift my bike. Yay I was back on the road again.
Pulled in to Redding to get enough gas to make it to the finish in Dunnigan, Filled the radiator overflow with water and added a quart of oil. And the bike wouldn't start. Between a flat parking lot and how tired I was I couldn't bump it by myself. Some 19-20 year old kid was walking by and I said I'd give him $20 to help push my bike. Fired up and back on the road again arty.

After Redding the bike ran fine. Temp stayed well below midpoint and all the electrics worked perfectly. Fucking bike.

I made it back to the finish with 10 minutes remaining in the penalty period before I would officially be DNF.
Somehow I still ended up in 14th place but damn that second half was a lot of work.

 

[aciurczak]

The next morning I overslept a bit. Damn snooze button. But I got ready quickly, and was happy that the bike was pretty much fully packed the night before anyway. Went to the rider's meeting a little before seven, which was held right out in the parking lot. Some pics... These folks will not look nearly this fresh 24 hours from now.

Mark and Tom are on the right of this pic:

Valentino bored with this whole rally thing:

Some information was given at the beginning of the meeting, like emergency numbers and some small typos that they had found in the leg 1 packet which they were going to hand out. They discussed that there would be a thread during the rally. A thread is a series of bonuses that the more you get, the more points they are worth. 1st would be worth a small amount, but if you got 4 of them, the 4th would be worth 4 times as much, etc. More the better. I promptly forgot this. There was a discussion that firearms may be involved in the rally (hence the "bite the bullet" designation), and there was one more warning not to act like a knob around them, it would piss off the people in charge to no end. And they had guns.

Once the Leg 1 bonus sheets were handed out, I got back to the room to start planning.

 

[NoGall]

Congrats on finishing the Rally, guys!

 

[aciurczak]

Planning went pretty damn well. There were only 8 bullets in the first leg, 6 of them with time restrictions, plus the checkpoint. I was able to find the locations of all of them reasonably quickly. Some of them weren't exact, but I knew they'd be within a few miles of where I placed them, so close enough for government work. I have never, ever been able to get everything from a leg into a GPS before, I always just get the checkpoints and then as many of the larger bonuses as I can before time runs out and I need to get going. So I was feeling pretty good about how things were going so far. I loaded up both GPS's with the data from the laptop, and got myself and my gear onto the bike. On the way out of the parking lot, a rally volunteer takes down your mileage and the time you left. We were able to leave at 8 AM, I was on the road before 8:15.

I headed to the first bullet, which was only a few miles away at a paintball range. We got to fire at our rally shirt (luckily we didn't have to be wearing the shirt at the time) and were on our way. Had a bit of a scare, the range was down a short but reasonably challenging gravel road. Parts were deep, and the front end moved around a bit more than I like. But when I went to get off the bike, my sidestand went so far into the gravel that my bike almost went all the way over. It was balanced precariously at about 45 degrees, steeper than I could get it back up with my left leg, so I yelled for some help and another rider nearby quickly helped me right the bike so it didn't go all the way over. Found a better parking spot, and calamity averted. A friend that was doing this rally for the first time met up with me at this first bullet, and he asked if he could tag along for awhile. He wasn't feeling great for the past few days, and wasn't sure if he would be able to finish the rally, but I hoped he could and didn't mind a bit if we rode together for awhile. We both knew that in these types of events, it's pretty much understood that if 1 rider is holding up another, most folks will end up separating rather than staying together for the group's sake. But if people end up riding a similar pace and aren't holding eachother up, it can be more fun and even easier to ride in a group of 2 or 3 at times. So we were on our way out of paintball. I aimed one GPS at bullet 2, and the other at bullet 3, to keep track of how we were doing on time. I knew that getting all bullets in a row would be pretty much impossible, so I needed to know when it looked like we'd have to skip 1 to make the next one in time. Right away, the GPS found a quicker route to get to bullet 2 than the base route. Unfortunately that meant getting back on highway 5 instead of what I'm sure was a more fun road, but quicker is quicker. And better. So even though Don and I weren't the earliest leaving bullet 1, I hoped we'd make up some time on the way to bullet 2.

As soon as we got on the highway, I went to put my windscreen up, and rose a bit funny and was sitting at a weird angle. I leaned forward and saw that one of the front mounts had broken. Damn. The large windscreen stresses the support arms, and I have broken the upper mounts multiple times, and replaced them with heavy duty parts that are specifically made for this purpose. The heavy duty mounts have been fine for thousands of miles. But this time one of the lower mounts was the one that broke, which shouldn't be as stressed, but who knows. I had to put the windscreen all the way back down, and then it was fine. Reminds me, I need to order replacement parts after this post... So my ability to make the wind noise go away was out the window, but that's not huge in the scheme of things; I use earplugs and an iPod, so there isn't much wind noise getting to me anyway. And it was starting to get so freaking hot already that I doubt I would have wanted the screen in full-up mode much anyway.

On the highway I set the cruise a little over the limit. Cal24 police would allow me 19 over, but in a 70 mph zone on 5, 89 mph will likely get you a discussion with the the CHP, so I didn't press my luck. 2nd bullet was right near the Oroville dam, and we made it in decent time. When we got close it turned out that the location I had in the GPS was off from the actual spot by a few miles, but there were enough bikes around that it was easy to find out way to the right location. We made it about in the middle of the available time, so things were still on track. Here's Tom Melchild at bullet #2:

No good pics of the dam (which was pretty cool when we got to ride right over the top of it) but heres a gratuitous shot of bikes in the lot. That's Razel at his bike (2nd from right):

After Tom snapped a picture of me and Don with our rally flags in front of the dam, which I'm sure I will be blackmailed with in future years, we were back on our way toward bullet 3.

 

[Ironbutt]

I had a great time.. Andy and Ray are the 'great enablers' and talked me into calling Tom and signing up for the rally at the last minute. I was #42... last person to sign up.

Andy was a huge help for me, he gave me maps, a spot in a cool hotel room to sleep and even let me follow him around on Saturday until he got that wild hair to go for the big bonus, which by the way paid off in spades for him. Don't let him play this down, you have to have some serious conviction and intestinal fortitude to finish as well as he did. I'm very impressed with Andy, he's got some BIG balls.. and I'm disappointed in myself for a whole bunch of reasons.

I was under prepared in so many ways and was lacking the needed sleep to finish well.. so after we split up I went for the next bonus at the lake.. Around 3:30pm on Saturday; the lack of sleep the week prior, a mild case of heat exhaustion and a case of loosing my cool and bearings, led me the wrong way... so I missed the last two bullets on Saturday and decide to saunter 11 miles back through the same town that I had filled up my fuel tank three times prior.. yes.. I was literately riding around in circles.. or so it seemed to me..

After what seemed like hours of distress and being lost.. I made it to the first check point of the day and found out that I wasn't as far behind as I had thought.. HAH!

The funny part was seeing everyone who had made the last two check points, was wearing lipstick.. hehehe.. one guy was even upset about getting pulled over by the cal police and he had a "heat tantrum" as I would call it.. except he was wearing lipstick.. It's hard to take the guy serious.. hehehe.. that made me feel better.. I wasn't the only one up shits creek.. and cranky.. anyway.. he DNF'd ... nice guy.. he lost his cool though.. which is really hard not to do. I wanted his bra but I thought asking might make things worse..

Andy and I met back up at the shooting range and by then I had regained my cool, so I waited for him and he I plotted out the next 8 hours of bonus. Andy decided to go big..Girlack, NV! Me.. I was feeling not so good.. and I know myself pretty well.. so I decided to take the 'easy' route' down 339? over to 108 and onto 49 to 16.. then SLEEP!!!

Andy was nice and didn't come right out and call me a pussy.. but I knew he was thinking it..

Anyway... I made it as far as Angles camp and by then my eyes couldn't focus and I was making some really stupid decisions.. Like.. 75 in a 30... and putting my feet down in corners.. ohhh.. shit.. so I decided to take a hour long nap.. WOW I felt great after that.. but not really well enough to have the will to do anything but head back that that nice cool hotel room and get sleep. and that's what I did.. I mentally lost.. bummer..

I arrived in Dunnigan at 4:40am.. plenty of time to pick off more bonus's but I wasn't feeling safe at that point so the only regrets I have is not being better prepared. This was a good experience for me, learned that I have what it takes but piss poor planning bit me in the ass.. ALL weekend long.

My rally cheery has been popped! Next year... I'll give you guys some competition.

The Cal24 is not for the faint of heart or the ill prepared, I can tell you that.

 

[aciurczak]

On the way to Bullet 3, the time started to creep up on us. I was monitoring both Bullet 3 and Bullet 4 on my 2 GPS's, and it looked like we were getting close to time-barred on Bullet 4. Here's where I misunderstood the rules. The sheets listed the 8 bullets in order, then they listed the points for each bullet. 1 = 100, 2 = 200, 3 = 300, etc. This was explained in the pre-ride as a thread, so the 1st bullet, no matter which one you get, is 100; the 2nd you get is 200, etc. Total brain fart, and I equated bullet 1 itself = 100, bullet 2 itself = 200, etc. So what I was planning is that as soon as it looked like I couldn't get to the one after the one I was going for, I was going to bail on the current one and go for the next one, because I thought the next ones would be worth more. That strategy makes a hell of a lot of sense if the bullets were scored the way I thought they were. Makes a little less sense since it was a thread, but it generally works anyway, because if you're going to be time barred on one, you're already behind the curve and should be trying to jump up anyway.

So on the way to bullet 3, we were almost going to miss bullet 4. I stopped by the side of the road to do a mapcheck, and Don and I tried to figure out whether it made sense to bail on 3 and go straight to 4. The GPS was routing us backwards to get to 4, so the time kept growing well past the time-barred point. But Don was convincing, noting on the map that the quickest way to 4 was likely in the direction of 3 anyway. We got back on the road, still aiming for 3, and it turns out he was right. After a certain point, the GPS's started routing us more directly, and instead of expecting us to show up at 2:20 or later for bullet 4, now it was showing closer to 2. That fourth bullet was only open until 2. So we made Bullet 3 on time. The GPS took us right to a dirt road that may or may not have been open to the public, but we could see the Bullet location (Quincy Chevron) on the other side of the short path, so we took a slight shortcut to get us where we needed to be. At the bullet, we were greeted by the rally volunteers dressed as, well, I'll let you see yourself. Here's Dale (Warchild) Wilson:

We were encouraged to "buy karma" for a $5 donation. I picked up some karma for both me and Don (I still owed him for the first edition of my rally flag), and we were given two flowers, which we were told to hang on to for later. And we were on our way to Bullet 4, Daggett Pass.

When we left Quincy, it looked like we were going to be about 10 minutes late for the 4th bullet. The next bullet after 4 from a geography standpoint was definitely bullet 7, at the Grover Hot Springs. So even if we missed Bullet 4, we were going in the right direction for Bullet 7, and 7 had no time restriction so we were going there no matter what. And I thought Bullet 7 was worth 700 points, remember, because I was .

 

[aciurczak]

On the way to Bullet 4 the rally gods did not shine brightly on us. The ETA on the GPS started at about 2:13 when we left that Chevron, and it needed to be 2:00. And the route was all the way around Lake Tahoe, with weekend traffic. Ugh. Don and I got held up when we turned ourselves around for a minute in Truckee, so the ETA for me was still after 2:00 PM. I set my limit at +19 on the speed limit and did that wherever possible all the way there, but this involved passing quite a few cars, riding aggressively (but not unsafely), and generally knowing that I couldn't stop or slow down for even a minute if I had any chance of making this. Don was in front of me for awhile on the road around the lake, and we were in some pretty heavy traffic. One of the GPS's was routing me off the main road, so I peeled off and took the back road, which allowed me to make up some more time. It got me back on the main road about 5 or 6 miles later, and then there was no traffic. Wasn't sure at the time if I made up time or lost time compared to Don, which is exactly where I'd be if I hadn't have peeled off.

As I got closer and closer to the bonus, one of my GPS's had an ETA of 2:01, the other was saying 2:03. When I got to the last intersection, only 4 miles away, it still said 2:01. Which was actually 2 minutes late, because even if I showed up at 2:00 and 10 seconds, I would be late. But, it didn't matter because I got held up for what seemed like 2+ minutes at that last traffic light where I had to make a left. Too much traffic to run the red and cut left, and it looked like there may have been a camera on that intersection anyway. So when I finally turned on that road I knew I'd come in about 2 minutes late, and that's exactly what happened. Wasn't sure if Don had made it, but he came in just a few minutes behind me, so I wouldn't have made it either way.

That bullet involved making a sandwich with some interesting ingredients for the rider behind you to consume. Since we got there late and didn't get the bullet, Don and I didn't have to make or eat any of that. Probably worth missing the points, in the long run. So we had a quick drink and a quick powerbar and were right on our way to bullet 7.

 

[aciurczak]

I should add, that while at Bullet 4 (Daggett Pass), the GPS already confirmed for me that there was no chance to make Bullet 5 in time. So we were planning the rest of the leg this way. We'd shoot for Bullet 7, which had no time restrictions. After Bullet 7, we'd go for 6 & 8, then head toward the checkpoint.

The ride to Grover Hot Springs was a blast. Great roads, great weather, limited traffic, just fun all around. When we finally got to the Springs, there had already been quite a few riders there, so we were not the ones who had to first explain why grown men had to wear brightly painted bras and get into the hot spring. Other people had paved that route for us already. So the cute lifeguard was more than willing to take pictures of both of us, and we appreciated that she wasn't giggling too loudly. We suited up and were on our way to the next bullets. Don and I worked both the map angle and the GPS angle, and the GPS's were convinced that 395 and 50 through Fallon was the fastest way to get to both Bullet 6 & 8, which were somewhat close to eachother. The main route didn't include those, of course, but again, fastest is fastest. And bullet 8 was actually on Highway 50 anyway. So we aimed to 395, and made our way to 50. At this point we were looking close to being timebarred on Bullet 6, and with my addled thinking, I thought that Bullet 8 was worth more points anyway. It was clear that we weren't going to make both, so I decided to go for Bullet 8 only.

We were cruising along on 50, with alot of time to think and plan while riding along. I played with both GPS's for much of the time, trying to figure out when we'd get to Bullet 8, when we'd likely make the checkpoint, etc. The problem with Bullet 8 is that the location was given as a range from the intersection of 361 & 50, and Cold Springs, which is up about 14 miles on 50. Our time was so close, that if the shoe tree turned out to be right next to Cold Springs, that extra 14 miles * 2 may be enough to time-bar us at the checkpoint. But if it was closer to the intersection of 361, then we should be fine. I figured this out when we were still about 60 miles away from the intersection, and pulled over to lay it out for Don. I let him know that we needed to drive out for an hour, get the bonus, drive back for an hour to that exact same spot, then it was about an hour more to get to the checkpoint. If the location of the bonus was somewhat favorable, we should make it back to the checkpoint with about 20 minutes to spare.

I was glad I stopped and we had this discussion, because with that information Don decided to hang a u-turn and head straight to the checkpoint. He would get there about an hour early, which would pay dividends later as he would be able to leave that checkpoint very early.

I continued alone on 50 heading toward the Shoe Tree. I started to pass more and more riders who were coming west on 50, either from the Rawhide bonus (Bullet 6) or the Shoe Tree (Bullet 8). As I came up to the intersection, I saw even more riders coming from that same direction. Seeing that I would have just missed the Bullet 6 timing anyway, I kept on cruising East on 50 heading toward Cold Springs and hoping that the shoe tree showed up sooner rather than later. 50 turns into an incredibly lonely place out there, the landscape is quite unique. All you can see for as far as you can see in any direction, is this lonely road that is raised off the surface, and just this empty playa with some moderate mountains in every direction (but awfully far away). It's one of those places where you can truly see every living thing within 10 miles, and pretty much confirm that you're the only living thing. Or at least the only living thing that would be interested in a radar gun. So knowing that, this was the only time on the rally where I opened the throttle a bit more to find that doggone shoe tree. As luck would have it, it was closer to the intersection than it was to Cold Spring, so it was promising that I'd be able to make it back to the checkpoint as planned. I was monitoring the GPS the whole time, and if it had ever reached an ETA past 7:50 PM, I was going to bail and head back without Bullet 8. But it only got to 7:40 PM, and that was enough leeway for me to get what I needed, grab a picture of the tree (with the flag, of course), and get back on my way. Here's a picture of that shoe tree that I've since found on the internet (my own pic was a polaroid and collected at the rally finish):

Now it was just a matter of riding for a few hours with no stops/rest/mistakes/mechanicals and I should be alright. Since the ETA had leveled off around 7:40, I did make a quick stop for gas as Mark had let on that the checkpoint was nowhere near gas, and without filling up I would have only had 30 - 40 miles left in the tank after hitting the checkpoint. Filling up took that worry away. As I got closer and closer, I realized that I was going to make it pretty easily, so I dialed the speed back from +19 to closer to +10, I knew that would be more than enough to get me there in time and lowered the likelihood of any unintended roadside conversations. When I got within a few miles of the checkpoint, I saw Don heading back in the opposite direction, so he had already made the checkpoint, completed the activity, and was on his way well before I would arrive. Riding through Yerington, I had a realization that I had been through there before many years back on a project that I was working on out in Nevada. Before the rally I would have bet any amount of money that I'd never heard of Yerington, let alone been there. But I forget alot.

Here's my GPS track from Leg 1: (Full res available right here)

 

[aciurczak]

At the checkpoint, I signed in with Tom and his son, and took some time to drink a bottle of water, and find a nearby bush. Was awful nice to be able to take a few minutes after not having that luxury for hours. Tom signed me in, checked to make sure that I had "Karma", and collected my paperwork for leg 1. He gave me the envelope for leg 2, but instructed me not to open it until I completed the activity a short ways down a nearby dirt road. Tom and Jack also let me know that there had been an accident on the rally, which was really too bad.

It had happened out on Bucks Lake road, early on in the rally, when a rider (2-up) who was making a u-turn got hit by another rider coming around the curve. Hearing those details generically seems to shoulder the blame on the u-turn rider, but more details from those who were there change that picture a bit. Not like it matters in the scheme of things, both bikes were out, and 2 riders were now heading to the hospital via air. Ugh. The passenger looks to have gotten the worst out of it, with a broken leg; the single rider had such a concussion that he was out cold for 5 minutes (hence the air taxi), but turned out to be OK, as did the pilot on the 2-up bike. He in fact rode that same bike back to LA, immediately, picked up his girlfriend's car, and drove it back to meet her at the hospital in Chico.

On to the checkpoint activity... After heading down the dirt road and parking on the side of the road, I saw that we were walking out a bit one by one to ventilate our rally shirt with the number of bullets that we had gotten so far in the rally. I hadn't fired a pistol in many years, but still managed hit the shirt each time, and even the target on the shirt itself a few times. Unimpressive, to say the least, compared to those nailing the 10 ring on the shirt time after time. But what the heck, it was fun.

I went back to the bike, opened the leg 2 packet, and started to plan. The packet was much longer than the first leg, 8 or 9 pages if I remember correctly. There was a main route with bonus after bonus on it, maybe 25 or so in all. That route took the rider back up over Sonora, I believe, and ended up around Berryessa, Napa, and maybe Williams before heading back to the checkpoint. Some of the bonuses were worth as little as 50 points, others were 100 - 200ish. But on the last few pages of the leg sheets, there were bonuses that were off the main route. Way off the main route. But some of them had point values of 900+. Hmm, this sounds interesting. So I took all of those bonuses worth over 500 points, searched for them on the laptop, got locations that would be close enough, and pushed them down to my GPS's. Looking at where they were on the map, I worked out a direction that I would try to take to get as many as I could. I knew they wouldn't all be feasible, but I'd have one of the GPS's pointing back at the finish line, so as soon as it gets close to time-bar, I would drop whatever I was doing and head back for home base. That was the plan. I spoke to another rider that I've ridden with before (Jerry) who like me was also late in leaving the checkpoint, and he and I had put together almost the same strategy.

I was feeling pretty good about this leg as well, because it was once again exactly what I like to do. Ride a bunch of hours with a single (or only a few) goal(s) in mind. As opposed to getting off the bike every 10 or 20 minutes to pick up bonus after bonus for a small amount of points (each). So off I went back to Yerington to find out when the 10 commandments monument was donated to their courthouse, for 848 points. Felt good getting that one so quickly. 800+ points! And then I was off to Susanville to get a picture of my bike in front of the High Desert State Prison.