DAY 1 –  Southeast MA to Windsor Locks CT
Friday, June 9
(~ 95 miles)

After having tested the rally waters riding with me in the 2016 Team Lyle New England 8-hour event, my wife Charlotte asked “Do you think I could make it through the 24-hour one too?”  After a few months to think it over and talk it over, she decided she was indeed ready, and I already knew she is tough enough once she set her mind to it. We have worked together on similar (non-MC) hobbies involving navigation and treasure hunting etc. in the past.

For the past two years starting in February, I eagerly await word from Rallymaster Rob Nye to confirm there will be a Minuteman 1000 rally and when registration opens. We were signed up and planning our June weekend the day the rally was announced on Feb 13. To change things up this year, Rob decided to withhold dissemination of ALL rally pack information, including GPS files, until the night before the start, in emulation of the Iron Butt Rally being held later in June. Most rallies I’ve done so far (BMRx being the exception), you get the GPS files at least a week in advance, giving you time to create some sample routes and get familiar in general with the scatter pattern of the bonuses on the map. This would be a real challenge and give us a taste of what the riders in the IBR have to face with routing on the fly.

As rally weekend approached, the inclement spring weather patterns finally began to give way to clear skies and warmth. A lot of warmth, actually, that would end up being called a heat wave as temps rose over 90F for a couple days in a row. We both had Friday off, so we were able to have a relaxing morning getting the bike packed, the dog to boarding, and set off on our way via back roads across RI and halfway through CT. We stopped off at Marika’s Place, a small family restaurant in Putnam CT that I’d always ridden by. It was standard breakfast fare, nothing special or particularly noteworthy or worth going back for.

Odometer checks started at 13:00 and we arrived at 14:00 in no rush. Checked in to the hotel, brought our stuff up, and I went back down to take care of the odo calibration run, a quick one of about 11 miles on the nearby highways. Then we just hung around our room, waiting for registration to open at 16:00.

A few days prior to the rally, the riders received our first bonus information: bring a book to rally registration. Any book, but it had to have an ISBN number. No further information was given, so we were left to wonder what would be required of us regarding the book. Possibly, it would need to appear in every picture like the duck mascot from 2016?

We chose a small thin paperback copy of two classic Greek plays (Oedipus and Antigone), leftover from some literature class in the past. Here we are at registration, bright-eyed and bushy tailed.

Registration went smoothly, though there was some confusion amongst the rally staff and riders about what to do with our books. We ended up leaving them in a locked room on a bookshelf, with a mysterious promise that we’d be getting them back.

We had some time before the dinner banquet and so wandered around the lobby and parking lot, looking at bikes and chatting with other riders.

This is a 1977 Honda Goldwing that the rider customized in preparation for the big Iron Butt Rally (11 days, ~11K miles) being held in a few weeks. Bikes this old are lumped into what is affectionately called the “hopeless class”, though they do regularly finish the event. This baby may actually have a leg up on many of the competition after all the work he put into it! It was tricked out to the gills, a real rally machine. That white rear rack is an auxiliary fuel cell, and the white box is a cooling system to connect to his riding suit for an air conditioning effect. Pret-ty fancy!

TRUE double-darkside – car tires on front and back wheels! Makes sense since you can’t lean anyway, with a hack.

These guys were looking for day work…no wait those are actually rally participants enjoying a pre-madness stogie. Mark, far left, is Rallymaster for the Team Lyle New England 8-hour rally. If you are reading this and wanting to dip your toe into rallying, go to Mark’s rally – they put on a great event with a relaxed vibe that is very rookie friendly.

More scenes from the lot. Riders were chilling out in quiet groups – a somewhat different vibe than other rallies I’ve been at, probably because of the anticipation of getting ALL the rally info tonight and knowing there would be little sleep for most of us over the next couple of nights.

Dinner time approached. Look at these overachievers ready for what’s next (of course we were in there too, so…)

Dinner was served, and was delicious – steak, fish, chicken plus some decadent cake that must have been planted by the RM as an obstacle to clear-minded routing that night. As I worked on my seconds, Rob got things underway, welcoming us to the rally, yahdah yahdah yahdah. He’s really got a great loyal team to put on this event year after year and we all applauded them. Hope they get a lot of syrup in tribute.

Then, rally flags and packs were distributed (at last!) and it was time to get focused. The theme for this year was Literature and books (of course).

Char and I took notes and snapshots of the directions on the screen, to ensure we didn’t forget something simple later when our minds were mush. The files would be emailed to us all immediately following the meeting.

Regarding the books that we were asked to bring (for points of course), we were going to be tasked with doing a “book report” during the rally. The book report form was included with the rally pack and included several factual fields to fill in about the book. We also had to write three sentences about the book. Our report would be graded later for accuracy, spelling, etc. with 10,000 points for an A, going down from there.

Here is one of the final slides, which I found amusing. “No tricks” – yes, because Rallymasters never would try to trick you. Sorry fellas, after 207-W, I’ll never be completely at ease taking things at face value!

A few rider questions were asked and answered while everyone flipped through the rally pack looking for such tricks or mistakes. Then Rob sent us forth into the world to hatch our plans, so he could meet with the Saddlesore 1000 riders about their ride, occurring simultaneously with the open rally tomorrow.

Though the rally hadn’t officially started, we were now basically on the clock, trying to get our planning done so that there would be adequate time for some sleep tonight before having to wake up at 04:00 to prep for the morning bike impound (05:00), rider’s meeting (05:25), and the start at 06:00. Char and I had already discussed our plan of attack and division of responsibilities. I processed the emailed computer files using my customized checklists and spreadsheets, while she began reviewing and processing the rally pack. While things were a bit tense due to the time crunch and adrenaline, we worked together well I think, and stayed out of each other’s way for the most part.

Here is the bonus scatter pattern:

Pretty standard spread for the Minuteman, all over the New England states, with a few far-flung bonuses outside the area luring the unwary rookie or those just looking to crank out some miles. There were three main combo bonuses listed in the rally pack (once some old duplicate data was clarified via email by the RM), and we immediately focused on the big WHLE combo, which included (loosely quoted) “all bonuses mentioning or having reference to Herman Melville or his book Moby Dick”. It did not specifically list which bonuses those were, however, so we had to identify them ourselves and hope that we didn’t miss something or we’d lose out on the 40,000 points for the entire combo. Char found seven such locations in the rally pack and to hit them all would require a huge ride all around southern New England including the eastern edge of New York state.

Based on time restrictions for some of the bonuses along the route, I planned a figure-8 route with Albany NY as our first “corner”. I completed the route plan, ensuring it fit within the necessary time window while Char continued to research additional tidbits in the rally pack. She mentioned one bonus in Martha’s Vineyard we couldn’t get, and I told her there was no bonus showing there on the map. Upon closer inspection, the rally pack gave MV as the location, but per a quick Google search, the 20,000 point bonus in question was actually in Fairhaven MA on the mainland. Whatever – it was added to the route!

I completed the route plan around 23:30 and Char was already dozing. I went out to cover the bike and stretch my legs, then came back to attempt a plan B route. I still had to lay everything out for departure tomorrow and create a route sheet for the tank bag. I couldn’t see a better route and after about a half hour, I gave up on Plan B figuring that if the RM threw us any major curve balls at the morning rider’s meeting, we’d just deal with it then. We now had our one and only route and I got the rest of the prepwork done before hitting the hay around 01:30.