I'm that crazy English guy. The one who has developed a habit of finding dead motorcycles and breathing new life into them. Once that is accomplished I climb aboard and ride them. Sometimes I ride them a very long way.
I would love to be able to walk into the local BMW Dealership and plonk down two hundred and fifty large bills for the latest and greatest, but my budget has to stick within about a tenth of that, maximum.
The last motorcycle I wrote about cost $250. This one was a little more, but not much and now it has to cover over one thousand miles this weekend.
So on Saturday morning I will hop on, and get comfy for the next thirty hours.
You can come along for the ride!
The Long Distance motorcycle community arranges a number of events. They range from the humble "SaddleSore 1000", a ride of 1000 miles in twenty four hours or less, through a number of longer rides. There are Rallies, which are like the rides, but scavenger hunts right up to the pinnacle of the sport, the Iron Butt Rally. That is usually billed as "11000 miles in 11 Days". It is a bi-annual event last held in June of this year. The winner covered 14400 miles. During that rally riders hit every one of the 49 States and were as far apart as San Ysidro, CA, Hyder, Alaska and Key West, Florida. They visited Madawaska in Maine, and Blaine in Washington State. If it's on the map, they went there. Those four, by the way, are usually part of a separate tour called "The Four Corners".
In between are many other events, and I am taking part in my first Rally this weekend.
It is called the "Autumn Equinox". It is held entirely in Oklahoma. The minimum distance is 1000 miles, and the maximum is 1350. There is a compulsory rest stop minimum four hours and the object is to collect points by visiting as many of the locations shown on the map as possible. The winner will be the rider who completes any mileage between the set limits, and achieves the best "points per mile" score. This ride is all about efficiency, and efficiency is not easy when you have already ridden seven hundred miles, with another four hundred to go, and much of it on Oklahoma back roads.
There may be red dirt on my tires when I arrive home.
This rally is not a race. Indeed, speed will not be your friend. There is plenty of time to ride even the maximum allowable. What counts here is planning the ride, then riding the plan.
The twist in the tale is that the State is split into quadrants by Interstates I35 and I40. There are approximately twelve bonus locations in each quadrant, some of them linked for extra points, but you cannot collect two successive bonuses in the same quadrant.
This makes for some intriguing planning decisions, and is a departure from the regular rally format. Normally the riders are given a list and they grab as many as possible in the time allowed. This often, but not always, means that the rider prepared to go the farthest will win, but the Rally Master (usually abbreviated to "Rally Bastard") had other ideas this time. The longest route is unlikely to be the most efficient, indeed, the most efficient route I could find is close to the minimum at 1050 miles.
The following map shows my intended route. It's fair to say that you realise just how big a State Oklahoma is when you start to plan something like this.
The Eastern circle route will be Leg One run between 9.00am and 5.00pm Saturday. The route out West and back is from 7.00pm Saturday to 3.00pm Sunday. Times are approximate, and CDT.
As can be seen from the map, the entire route will have me close to Arkansas and the Red River on the east and south, and almost to the Texas Panhandle on the west.
Anyone interested enough to want to follow some or all of this may do so using the following links:
This link is my own Spot tracking page.
This one is the Rally Public Page, which should have several riders viewable.
At 9.00am on Saturday morning the planning is done. The bikes have full gas tanks, main and auxiliary, water in the jug and food in the tankbag, and we will be off.
I know that I will feel like the red-haired stepchild. I am competing against experienced riders on their shiny modern motorcycles. My bike is old, and shabby, as am I if truth be known. We have a combined age of 77 years young. But underneath the shabbiness beats a heart, strong and reliable, and I think we may have a trick or two up our sleeves.
Sunday will tell.