Monday, June 7, 2010

Moto Rally Indoc

I mentioned in an earlier post that I was planning to do the Minuteman 1000 24-hour Rally this year. I did it this past weekend and had a blast. There are two types of motorcyle rallies. There are the kind where you hang out with a bunch of like-minded riders like Sturgis or Laconia Bike Week and then there are real rallies where you are competing with other riders in a scavanger hunt kind of game. The way it works is that you get a bonus listing and you need to map the optimal route collecting the most points in a limited time. The Minuteman is a 24-hour rally so you have 24 hours to collect the most points. Points are given for a variety of things at the discretion of the Rallymaster. In this rally there were 80 bonus locations scattered around the mid-Atlantic, primarily New England, but with a couple locations in Canada. We were given the locations on Wednesday night and the Rally started Saturday morning at 6:00. When I got the locations I mapped a few different route options because we did not get the actual rules of the Rally until the group dinner Friday night. Sometimes you are given constraints like you can only visit this location from 8:00 to 10:00 or a daytime or nightime bonus. This rally is targeted for beginners so we were not slammed with a bunch of rules. Also, we were given additional point collecting opportunities on Friday night like 3,000 points for purchasing a pint of Vermont-made syrup in Vermont. We were also given points for resting. To earn the rest bonus you need a receipt with a date/time stamp from a place at the beginning of your rest period and a receipt from the same place at the end of your rest period. It could be an ATM receipt or a gas receipt or a coffee shop receipt, it doesn't really matter if both receipts are from the same place. Mine happened to be gas receipts. You also received points for maintaining a fuel log (receipts and odometer readings for each fuel purchase). Most of the bonus locations required a photo to prove you were there in order to claim the points. We were issued rally flags with a number and we needed to have our flag in the picture in order to collect the points. Some bonuses required a receipt and others required answering a question about the location visited like "how many flag poles are on top of the building at this location?" That's a little background about rallying. There are rules, but mostly it is about having fun. I am going to break this post into two. More specific details about my ride in the rally in part 2.

No comments: