The ride is over and I am a finisher! That sounds much easier than the ride so....
how did I get to that finish? With some good planning and some not so good execution! Add some luck and a dose of stupidity and you have the basis for the story to be told. My start was in Lake Placid, FL. Most of the riders stayed at the Holiday Inn Express and the ads must tell the truth. Many of those that stayed there did VERY well! Maybe I should stay there more often. Screw Hilton! I had dinner with some riders and after we debated our routes... changed it again, and again. Not until I left the hotel room was I sure of the route I was going to ride!
Friday morning found riders with a great deal of nervous energy...it is time go get going. Tick...tick...tick... the minutes went by VERY slowly. But soon it was closing in on 11:00am. I went to the bank and got a starting receipt, called in as rider 241 (more on that later) with a departure of 10:51am, and was off to my first destination...Gainesville, FL. A small bonus but I need gas and I might as well get point for fueling!
The ride was up route 27.... the first small dose of stupidity. Traffic was heavy at times and this was not in the plan. I was supposed to gain some time by riding hard while I was fresh. I spent more time sitting in traffic than I did riding for the first 30 minutes. Now...where was I?
The nice thing about this first stop is that I know it very well. I pulled off of I-75, into the Mobil station, and was back on I-75 in less than 5 minutes! Quick and easy...fuel and points!
The next scheduled stop was Valdosta, GA. The Void Rally was cancelled and this would have been one of the starting places. We had to spend 30 minutes at this mandatory stop. These 30 minutes went by very fast and soon I was heading for Macon, GA. The construction Gods were playing with any of us who chose to head north on I-75. A wee 1/2 mile back up equaled another lost 10 minutes.
Macon was another "receipt" stop and at more than 1300 points, it was very appealing. I expected another quick turnaround however the pump decided not to spit out a receipt. Prior to this stop, I was 45 minutes behind schedule, most of the loss coming as I rode up route 27 in Florida. After getting the receipt, I was a negative 55 minutes. Well, so what! It was early in the rally and just past 6:00pm. It wasn't all that bad and I had many hours in front of me.
Now I was off to Alabama and the Horseshoe Bend National Military Park. Obviously, the picture is from the website. It was not cold enough for snow....yet! About 12 miles from my destination, I decided to fuel up and be able to make it to Atlanta without additional fuel. The bank decided that my time was too good...."Call Bank". Seems that they didn't like my repetitive transactions every 2-3 hours in four different states. It took 40 minutes to get that cleared up. I had arrived at twilight. Now it was dark. And I was almost 1.5 hours behind.
I parked the bike in front of the sign, took the rally flag and placed it on the sign...click!.. One down. Off to the next bonus location... after a short jaunt on Alabama 49. As many know, my night vision is fair at best. Back roads don't help. And low and behold, a little deer darted across the road a 100 feet in front of me. Great. Forrest Rats. OK...where are the parents? I was suddenly looking at the bushes more than the road! Lets just say I was NOT going to be making up time. I was quite happy to finally arrive at I-85 and head back to Georgia!
The next bonus was the Susan Hayward burial site. I had looked up the location on Google the previous evening and knew exactly what to look for (other than the obvious cemetery). I made good time and was close to the revised arrival time.
Other than darkness, it is exactly as it appears above. While I and another rider were there, the pastor of the church on the cemetery grounds came to inquire about the number of motorcycles suddenly appearing on the grounds. A quick explanation and all was good.
Now off to the Varsity, a drive in restaurant in downtown Atlanta on the campus of Georgia Tech. Estimated time of arrival...12:20am. Closing time....12:30am. Oops. This was going to be close. The GPS took me to an access road that was closed for construction. GREAT! I knew how to get back onto I-75, made a quick U-turn and arrived. I got my receipt and hat and the time...12:24am. Add the hat to the list of things to discuss further!
Soon I was off to Babyland.., the home of the Cabbage Patch kids in Cleveland, GA. Another mountain road in the dark. What fun. And the comment about snow was applicable here. It was COLD. Regardless. it was the largest bonus point location in the rally book. It had to be taken. I had picked up some time and was only an hour behind so I made the decision that the mandatory 3 hour rest stop might as well come before the visit. There was a Day's Inn in Cleveland, GA, a mere 2 miles from Babyland. So it would be. After waking up the night desk clerk and repeatedly explaining that I needed some type of receipt with a date and time stamp on it, I had one in hand along with a room key. It shouldn't take 20 minutes to check in at 2:00am...uggh. Did I say I HAD picked up some of the deficit? I went to the room and after 30 minutes of catching up on paperwork, it was off to sleep for 90 minutes. I remained fully clothed with the exception of taking off the jacket. In case you ever visit the area and want to find a hotel....if you stay at the Day's Inn...you will want to remain fully clothed. Lets just say it wasn't clean.
The alarm rang way too soon and I proceeded to get gas (showing that the elapsed time from check-in to departure was indeed over 3 hours) and then to Babyland. I had dawned the heated gear and was very happy that I did. It took only 15 minutes to complete the stop and be back on the road. Current time...5:15am.
The Nancy Hart Memorial in Hartwell, GA was next on the list. It was about 70 minutes away and it was a nice, but cold ride. The coordinates were slightly off but the delay was minimal. I arrived at 6:30am. For the first time since the cemetery, I met up with another rider. We said a quick hello, both took our pictures, and we were off. Before continuing....
While this was my first true rally, I had participated in the MTF mini rally at the Founder's Feast in 2008. I had collected a large number of points, in fact, enough to win. However the clock beat me and I was a DNF. I was not going to fall into this trap again so I skipped the next bonus, which was worth 1700 points and headed for Forty Acre Rock in South Carolina. This was another 4000 plus point location. In other words, a must have.
It was a little over three hours away and I should arrive at 10:15am. Plenty of time to capture the bonus and be in Wilmington at my planned arrival time. Little did I know....
I arrived at the "bonus location"... the GPS wanted me to ride through a field. Huh? It was off before. The ACTUAL location must be just up the road. Nope. I looked for 30 minutes. The GPS, based on my direction of arrival brought me to the back side and there is no entry. I had no idea on where to find the actual parking area (even though it was a 10 minute ride had I had a CLUE as to where I was), so I made the tough decision to not stay and try to find it. I would risk a DNF. More on this one too.
Slightly aggravated, I made headway to the Water Tower location in the same town. Easy to find, I took the picture and headed out again.
Time was getting short but I was still OK. I knew it would be close as I had to stop and get the 1000 point "beverage" bonus. I chose to ride right past the Dizzy Gillespie statue. I should have stopped and taken the picture. I could have draped the rally flag on the handlebars and taken the shot without even getting off the bike. 20-20 hindsight!
I headed for Wilmington, picked up the liquid refreshment, and made the final push to the Greentree Inn. I pulled into the parking lot, circled the building, found the check-in and stopped. Final time....1:50pm. I kept insisting that I was rider 241. Hmmm... flag says 421; sticker says 421. But I was insisting 241. I had even set up my tracker in Spotwalla with 241! Dyslexia at its finest. Now I was still yet to realize that I was EARLY. I had finished with 1 minute to spare before I was in the penalty phase!!! Or did I? Nope. I had another hour to go.
Can you say oops.... I had enough time to get the Rock and a couple more. Simple math gone astray. I was on a 27 hour clock while the rest of the world was on 28. Oh well.
I went in and collected all the documents, finalized my paperwork and headed for the scorers table. It was there that I found out that the "hat" from the Varsity was the paper hat and it was free. I spent $20 on the nice baseball type. Fortunately, the rally book said "hat" and I had one! And the very nice RB let me keep it in spite of the rules. The rest of the scoring went well and I had zero penalties. I would be a finisher!!!
I never thought I'd get a podium finish so that was not my intent. I did not want a DNF and I avoided that. I wanted to maximize my points and minimize errors. No lost points but errors... oh yeah.
So what would I do differently in order to finish higher?
First, make sure that my time coincides with the official rally time. I lost 7,000 points to the lost hour, maybe more. Those points would have changed the scoring quite a bit.
Second, check every location with Google if you can. I would have found Forty Acre Rock had I done so. I looked at every other bonus that I had selected and this was the only one I did not verify with Google. Don't ask because any reason that I would give would be first class Bullsh*t. I just forgot! This was a large dose of stupidity.
Third, I should have continued to the Hart Memorial and maybe to Ninety Six Park (a location that I skipped) and then taken the 3 hour break I would have had much more time to spare had I done so by being only an hour from the big bonus location. I wasn't tired while at Babyland and the rest stop was not as beneficial. Not really an error; more so a change that I would consider if faced with a similar situation.
Fourth, use notepads to record the necessary information. Completing the log at each stop added 1 minute each. I could have saved 15 minutes or more.
Fifth, call the credit card bank before departure. I had read about others having these problems but I had never personally experienced it before. I have now. In ordinary circumstances, it is a inconvenience. While on the clock in a rally, it is a disaster in the making.
Out of the Lake Placid starting group, I finished 15th. While the rally does not rank riders by overall score (except from starting point), my 34, 141 points placed me 24th out of 77 in points earned.
The points were not equal nor were the route selections so it is not a true measure. In any case, I did better than expected and was able to outpoint some more experienced riders. Not too bad for my first true rally experience.
These are all lessons learned but I must say, that I am still quite happy with the results. . I finished the ride safely. I enjoyed the challenge. I arrived home the following evening. And I get to do it again.
Is it 2011 yet?
