Small Thoughts: HW3 Rally & A Few Dams, Too

Just got home from a long week on the road for the How the West Was Won rally in Grand Junction, CO. Rally Master Justin did a fantastic job putting on a very nice event. The rally was as challenging as you wanted it to be and covered some fantastic motorcycling roads.

I took advantage of having a few extra days on the return trip to visit a few more dams. I am going to try to capture the rally experience from the perspective of a novice (that would be me). I benefit from a supportive family and some experienced friends who are willing to share their wisdom.

First things first - the rally pack. Sent out about a week in advance so that we could do pre-ride route planning before showing up, if desired. I took advantage of the time to digest the bonus locations and make some decisions based on a few constraints I imposed on myself:

- No dirt. I don't like dirt much anyway, but even less on my 900+ lb bike. So I immediately eliminated bonus locations that required riding a significant distance on dirt roads.
- Finish! A rider had to ride at least 1150 corrected miles, score at least 5,000 points and return to rally central by 2pm on Sunday.
- I wanted to do well. I had ridden BMRx the year before with a goal of finishing and no worries about points. I wanted to be a little more aggressive this year, and that factored into my route planning.
- Take advantage of the rest bonus. A period of up to 4 hours that starts between 10pm and 2am, the rider can actually gain points by making use of the rest bonus.

Here's what the initial map looked like after I coded up the waypoints. Each symbol represents a bonus category (frowny faces are bonus locations requiring dirt roads). Category was important because if you got credit for multiple locations within a category you could get a multiplier bonus. For example, ride to 2 in a category and get 2x points, ride to 4 and get 3x points. This was important as the higher scores would likely make use of the multipliers.

Bonus locations with category applied.

I decided to approach the route by focusing on one category, maximizing the number of locations on my route, and then looking for ways to double up on other categories near the route. After trying several categories, I zeroed in on dams. I found a reasonable route that visited 6 dams with a possibility for a 7th if time permitted. I was also able to visit 4 locations form 2 other categories. My route is shown on the map below as the red loop.

Great, so now I had a route of roughly 1350 miles. What's next? Research! A couple of dynamic categories were in the rally pack. One was to find names of presidents (first, middle or last) on DOT county name signage, and the other was to find signs with letters to spell out "How The West Was Won". Both categories provided good points and couldn't be ignored. I used Google Maps Streetview to look for the signs in advance along my planned route. I figured that knowing where to stop would reduce my stress while riding. It worked well for me.

Example of a city name DOT sign - I used the letter "T" for one of the words.

Another word bonus sign - turns out "W" was one of the more difficult letters to find.

The president category - had ot use a county sign. This also illustrates one of the challenges of riding at night!

Next up, where's the gas? I knew going in that my range would limit my progress, especially if I had to double back for a gas stop. So I looked at my route and planned a gas stop about every 200 miles. 2 things became evident - it was a very good idea to plan ahead, and I need an aux fuel tank. Maybe for Christmas...

Friday was pretty chill. We had to present our bikes and paperwork for inspection and perform a roughly 25 mile odometer check to get a correction factor. Very few motorcycles have accurate odometers, and since this rally required a minimum mileage to finish and used mileage as a possible tie-breaker, the rally master had to be able to correct odometer mileage to actual mileage. A rider dinner and meeting wrapped up the night and then we were on our own again.

I learned that alone time before the rally start is bad. I resisted the urge to tweak my route because I felt I had done enough to make it rideable, but it wasn't easy. Sleep came fairly easily for me but the alarm seemed pretty early :)

Saturday morning and the rally master wants us lined up at 5:30 for a 6am start. We have breakfast at 5am pretty much together and I have to admit I am a bundle of nerves. I am not familiar with how the rally will be started and am nervous I will mess it up for myself or someone else. I have asked other riders about how it will work and it seems pretty straightforward, but until you do it yourself...

It is still dark at 6am with sunrise about 30 minutes away still. We make it out to the parking lot and I am pretty sure I haven't forgotten anything. I made my lists and checked them twice, so am trying to not get wrapped up in second guessing myself.

About 50 bikes all lined up for the start. Everyone double checking everything.

Before you know it 6am arrives. The starter gets everyone going one at a time and we are all headed in different directions. With a group this size it is inevitable that several riders will follow the same route, at least initially, and I find myself with a small group initially. To calm my nerves a bit I slow down and watch them gain some separation. It is not the last time I remind myself to ride the plan. Not surprisingly, a very nice sunrise is all it takes to bring me back to center.

Sunrise over the Rocky Mountains on Saturday morning.

Drink water, I remind myself. Dehydration causes a lot of discomfort while riding, and water loss is tricky to monitor because evaporation happens rapidly. I had rigged a small cooler with a 3L Camalback bladder and some blue ice to make it easier and it worked like a champ. I plan to look at more permanent solutions for future rallies. Problem number 1 of the day - the cooler interferes with opening my trunk, and I plan to work out of the trunk all day. A small adjustment solves the problem.

My first bonus comes quickly and so does problem number 2...a wrong turn! But it was short lived and teaches me an important lesson - it is better to briefly stop and sort it out than to keep riding and dig yourself in to a bigger delay. A bit of frustration and I am off again.

Bonus locations were scouted out in advance and described well in the rally pack.

Down the road a bit and I arrive at the only dirt riding I will encounter all day. It is short and well marked and not really a problem. I do encounter another rider on his way down from the location, and the surprise almost results in me dropping my bike. That would have been a major bummer!

My only dirt riding for the day to get this one.

My route winds down western Colorado to northwest New Mexico, over to northern Arizona and then up to Utah before returning to Colorado. Lots of 2 lane state highways with good speed limits and light traffic keeps me on my target pace of roughly 50 mph overall. Doesn't sound like much, but with the large number of stops for bonus pictures and my Goldwing's somewhat limited gas range, 50 will take me to my desired rest stop between 10 and 11 pm. I did take advantage of a few recreational picture opportunities.

Monument Valley - a bonus stop and one of my favorites.

Looking over Silverton, CO from a bonus stop at roughly 10,000 feet.

Looking over Silverton, CO from a bonus stop.

Lots of elevation changes throughout the rally - from around 5400 feet in Grand Junction to a couple 11,000 feet passes and lots of 6,000+ feet riding. I extracted the elevation detail from my GPS to show the variations. The numbers are hard to read, but low is about 4,000 feet near Glen Canyon Dam and the peaks are up at 11,000 feet on CO-550 in western Colorado.

Elevation for the entire 32 hour rally on my route.

A fairly uneventful nighttime ride up through central Utah takes me to my rest bonus stop a little late on my desired timeline but still well within the window. Why late? Eat. I did well for lunch and snacks by eating along the way without a stop - I brought Powerbars and trail mix, and had plenty of water. I didn't get hungry until around 7, and then I couldn't think about anything else. I grabbed a couple cheeseburgers and chowed down next to my bike in the parking lot to save time, but that time spent meant it was a little bit later, a little bit darker.

Nighttime riding isn't my favorite. My vision isn't what it used to be and I haven't upgraded my lights, yet, so my progress was slower than I had planned. I still used the full 4 hours, but now left my hotel a little later on Sunday morning. That pretty much eliminated the possibility of riding up to the 7th dam. I might have made it...but chose to ride my plan. It was interesting to reflect on those stops that were not "efficient", and wonder if improvement would have given me the time I needed. My finishing position would have been 4 or 5 spots higher if I had gone to that dam. Damn.

As it turned out I arrived about 90 minutes early and had a much more relaxed scoring experience. A quick milkshake and then I went to welcome other riders.

Here are some things I learned (or relearned?):
- If the rally master gives you the rally pack early, use the time to plan your ride. Many rallies do not afford the rider that option - the pack is delivered the night before the rally or even as late as 1 hour before the rally starts. A different skill to be sure.
- Drink water early. Make sure you drink enough. Even 3L wasn't enough each day.
- Understand your route so that when your stupid GPS tries to send you off the edge of the world like a lemming you can insert some logic and ignore it. I had learned that lesson before and was able to apply it this time.
- Don't sweat the small stuff. How will the rally start? Small stuff - you'll have help. Dressed with enough layers - not small stuff, go ahead and sweat that detail.
- Plan gas stops. This was a huge stressor that I managed to remove entirely by knowing where and when I would be stopping for gas. Didn't have to fiddle with the GPS to search along my route because my route already had the stop. My route notes also indicated about how far I would have to go on a tank so I knew how much throttle was available. The Wing gets good mileage up to about 70mph. After that I think I could watch the gas gage drop.
- Make a plan for eating. I'm not sure how this works, yet. Clearly my plan was not good for me. I wouldn't suggest a sit-down meal while on the clock if you are trying to push it, but clearly a diet of powerbars didn't do it, either.

All-in-all I was happy with my ride. 32 hours, about 1350 miles, 19,300+ points and a 9th place (out of around 50 riders) finish. And that was my first time riding in Colorado and New Mexico, too. Here's my route from Spotwalla. If you compare it to my planned route, you should find it nearly identical.

My HW3 route from Spotwalla.

After the thrill of the rally and a good night's sleep, it was time to head home. I chose to take 3 days and take a path that would visit the remaining dams from DamTour - I have never captured all 20 in the 7 years I have done that ride, so it was important for me this year. I was looking at about 2,000 more miles spread over 3 days and really didn't want the final day to be a long one, so days 1 and 2 were pretty long. I managed to visit all 6 remaining dams and made it home on day 3 in time for dinner.