Month: July 2018
The Rally Red Wagon
Not to be out done by the Rally Van the BL IX photog in the RRW has been out collecting bonuses too.
Not Mayberry, but it could be. BTW, none of these are real bonuses but they’re worth HUGE points.
I generally loath the east for travel but sometimes there are roads!
Need A SPOT Gen II
Mike Nolan’s SPOT has died. If anyone who will be at the Check point in Maggie Valley or is in the area has one he can borrow for leg 2 we would all appreciate it. Otherwise he’ll be lost for the duration of the rally. You can comment here or ping me (Lisa) directly. Thanks.
Just Me & The Rally Phone
The first 24 hours is now over. All in all, it was a quiet day. Spending the night with the rally phone can be a surreal experience. Getting woken up at 3:30 in the morning from a very deep sleep and attempting to sound coherent when a bonus isn’t where it’s supposed to be can be challenging. Kind of like when you’ve had a few too many adult beverages and you are attempting to act completely sober. Not that any of the rally masters would know anything about that.
Quite a few riders have made the trek out to Broken Bow, Oklahoma to take a photo of the Whispering Giant only to find that the giant isn’t there. Luckily there is a nice monument of three broken arrows that will surely make a lovely photo. Yes, the rally masters are capable of making a mistake. Even after untold reviews and edits of the rally book by three sets of eyes, stuff can happen.
We’ve had a couple of camera issues – like Rider #1 has lost his already. With all of his Day One bonus photos on it. He is sad. Nothing like finding a Wal Mart during a rally to replace an important tool (not that I would know anything about that either). He plans on buying all of them (see below) but quickly noted they don’t take AA batteries so now charging the new camera has been added to his “to do” list.
Another rider is sad today because he forgot to change the time zone on his camera to Eastern time.
And there is the No Social Media Rule. They can give up caffeine and alcohol before a rally but asking them to give up Facebook is just way too difficult. Someone is going to be sad about that too.
The rally van continues to rack up the points with a stop at the happiest place on earth. We don’t think this Kentucky branch of Casa Bonita has cliff divers though.
Data analysis from the start
86 motorcycles and 94 riders started Butt Lite IX.
The lineup of brands is:
| BMW | 34 |
| Honda | 22 |
| Yamaha | 12 |
| Triumph | 7 |
| Harley-Davidson | 3 |
| Kawasaki | 3 |
| Aprilia | 1 |
| Can-Am | 1 |
| Ducati | 1 |
| Indian | 1 |
| Victory | 1 |
The high-mileage and oldest bike is Rick Snyder’s 1995 BMW R1100GS at 286,585 miles, followed by Rob Carlo’s 2011 Harley-Davidson Road Glide with 212,431 miles that somehow managed to pass the sound check.
The low-mileage and newest bike is Dylan Spink’s 2018 Honda Gold Wing with 810 (!) miles, followed by Ryan Rahjes’ 2016 Honda Goldwing with 1398 miles (at least that’s what the odo says).
The average starting mileage is 59,328 miles. The motorcycles in the rally taken together have already gone over 5 million miles (5,102,265 to be exact).
The single most common model in the rally is the BMW R1200GS, 13 of them.
This year’s exotic bikes are Karen McCauley’s Can-Am Spyder (with 108,293 miles and two-up with Mariah), Yancey McCauley’s Indian Roadmaster (a late replacement for a V-Strom), and Kurt Worden’s Versys 300. There’s also Raven’s Aprilia Caponord, Jim Burriss’ Victory Cross Country, and Adrian Scudella’s Honda Gold Wing trike, which might be exotic to some, but they’re veterans and old friends to Butt Lite.
Then there’s Corey and Brian Nuehring who look identical and ride Yamaha FJRs that look identical and have the same license plate numbers from different states. That defies analysis.
10 Hours In
We’re not even 10 hours into the rally and we’ve had the first report of gear left behind at a bonus (a clear face shield in a bag, which someone will be wanting when the sun goes down shortly), the first flat tire (repaired and back on the road), and the first road closure that blocks access to a bonus location. And already Bart is yelling at the Spot tracking page “What are they thinking? Where are they going?”
It looks like Missouri is a popular destination today.
We’ve got the last of the start photos up on the photo gallery here.
The Rally Van Scores
The Rally Van takes the lead with 1100 points as we go for the distillery combo. This isn’t in the rally pack but we don’t care as long as we get bourbon.
Butt Lite - Fini 