Thursday 9/22/2016 (Prologue)
SE Mass to Barton VT
~ 240 miles
For two months, I’d been eagerly awaiting the day to arrive to participate in the BMRx Rally, a 66.6 hour endurance motorcycle rally that was being held in multiple locations around the US simultaneously (http://bigmoneyrally.com/bmrx/?page_id=118017). This would be my first multi-day endurance rally, and I felt it was the next logical step to see how my experience would translate from running the past two 24-hour Minuteman 1000 events. Also of key importance was that the closest starting point to me was in northern VT, within a few hours ride, making it possible to complete the event and travel to/from within the timeframe of a long weekend. Many rallies are held too far away from New England to be able to attend without taking several days off from work and I was getting short on vacation days.
Like other rallies, the BMRx is a scavenger hunt of sorts, with riders being required to collect points by riding to certain locations to take photographs of something specific with their special rally ID placard and/or bike in the picture. However, the organizers have really pushed the envelope of technology use for this event, introducing real-time scoring via a smartphone app the rider uses to take the photos and upload to the rally website. Bonus photos are scored within minutes and hence friends, family, and rally fans can follow the action online during the course of the event, rather than waiting for riders to arrive at checkpoints or the finish to have everything tallied up. In addition, riders had the option to publish a GPS tracking map of themselves (using spotwalla.com) for the scoring team and spectators to follow their track in near real time and make guesses as to where the rider would be going next. Pretty cool innovations if you are into this stuff!
The mandatory objectives of the rally were based around nine “Triangle”-shaped routes spread across the country. I did Triangle “I”.
Riders had to get to each corner of their chosen triangle to take two special bonus photos and make it back to their original corner within the 66.6 hour time limit. There were also two mandatory 4-hour rest stops, during which your bike could not move. My three corners were in Newport VT, Belleville ON, and Elkins WV. Fastest route calculated between them via my Basecamp software was 1700 miles and looked something like this:
However, on top of that, a list of optional bonus locations (worth varying point values) was released to riders just one hour prior to the start of the rally. Competitive riders who wanted to score well, and not just finish, then had to work on creating a route to maximize their points from the optional bonuses. Once the hour passed and the rally clock started, they would then need to balance their need to work on routing for max points vs getting on the road to make some miles.
Rather than a rally towel with a rider number, we were emailed a standard size PDF document, the bottom half of which we were encouraged to decorate and customize as we saw fit. Some guys got pretty creative, but I settled for photos of my wife and my dog to keep me smiling, plus logos representing the New England Riders group and ST Owners.
On Wednesday afternoon (day before leaving), I began to feel the familiar effects of a head cold coming on, with a tired feeling and tickle in the throat. Just wonderful, right on the eve of the rally! I dosed myself with Nyquil and hoped it would proved to be a quick 24-hour bug. Thursday morning, still feeling cruddy, so began gargling with Listerine every few hours to kill the throat germs. Not sure of the science, but it has worked for me in the past in staving off the full effects of a cold before it gets a good hold of me. I took some Dayquil early in the day, but then realized it was actually making me feel “not right in the head” and like curling up under a blanket…NOT what I wanted so I stopped taking it and figured I’d just continue with the courses of Listerine, go up to Vermont and see how things worked out.
Got out of work an hour early to get a head start on the four hour blast up the Interstates to the North East Kingdom (NEK) of Vermont, where I had a reservation at the Pinecrest Motel, a little family-owned establishment in Barton. Half hour later, I was turning around to go back home, after luckily checking for my wallet in my pants pocket and finding it missing (!). Good thing I checked before I went 200 miles and needed it at a gas station! Not right in the head, indeed! I hoped I didn’t continue making dumb mistakes like this during the rally… gotta think, stupid! After securing my billfold, the rest of the ride up through NH on I-93 was uneventful and mostly in the dark. That was the last warmish evening before the nights started to grow really chilly. My room key was left taped to the office door, but the owners were still up and checked me in efficiently.
Notice those codes at the bottom of the last pic? That was taken with the BMRx app on my phone – the codes are a date/time stamp that is understood by the wizards at rally HQ, to verify when I took the picture. Again, this eliminates some manual effort at each bonus, when you’d usually have to write down the time and your odometer settings, etc. during a more conventional rally. In addition to bonus photos for points, you are encouraged to take as many “Personal Photos” (PP) as you like during the course of the event, to keep things interesting for yourself and the spectators.
The motel room was clean and homey and I settled in, prepping my riding clothes and laptop for the rally start. Oh yeah, and swigging Listerine…fun, but seemed to be working well so far, and I was starting to feel like this rally was going to be doable after all. Hmmm…maybe I’m still not quite right in the head….
The optional bonuses were to be released at 6:15a EDT, with the rally beginning an hour later at 7:15a. My first corner was 15 miles up the highway in Newport VT, but I figured I’d be spending a bit of time routing on the rally clock anyway. Better to try to start with a good plan and let it go to hell later, than vice versa….
