Some who are older will remember the halcyon days of TV game shows, when the losers would be sent home with a stack of consolation prizes, which always included the Home Edition of the game they had just lost. Just in case they wanted to relive their national humiliation on Password or The Match Game, or to take another crack at it to show their kids they’re really not a bad player and if only Allen Ludden or Gene Rayburn had asked a different question. . .

We’re all losers in the pandemic. Your rallymasters have spent 2 years crafting a rally to challenge the best long-distance riders in the world. You, our riders, have prepared, and planned, and anticipated, and rearranged your lives twice to be able to prove yourselves in head-to-head competition against your peers in a historic event that will never happen again. None of you will get to the championship round, and we won’t get to award the grand prize to the lucky winner of the last Butt Lite.

But, as a consolation prize, instead of Butt Lite X – The Last One, we present Butt Lite X – The Home Edition. Maybe you can’t ride Butt Lite X, but you can imagine it.

On Tuesday September 8, at 8:00 pm Central, right about the time we would have been handing out rally packs, we will post here on the Butt Lite blog,  the rally packs and data files for what would have been Leg 1 of Butt Lite X. Instead of running back to your hotel rooms to stay up all night planning your route, you can retreat to the comfort of your kitchen table and stay up all night planning your route. Instead of going out and riding your route, send it to us at buttlite@outlook.com. You can send us a spreadsheet, a GPX file, a Garmin file, an email with the bonuses you would have gone to, whatever.

Then on Saturday, September 12, at 6:00 am Central, we’ll post the rally packs and data files for Leg 2. Plan your route (keeping in mind that the clock is ticking) and send us your leg 2 route.

It shouldn’t need to be said, but don’t go out and try to ride your route. There are some bonuses that depend on people being in places where they won’t be. We’re really sure that a lot of the bonuses will be closed or unreachable and if you try to go there, you will be very sad.

What do you win? Nothing. This is a consolation prize. We’ll look at your submitted routes, we’ll calculate the points you would have scored, we’ll consider whether it took you 2 hours or 2 days or 2 weeks to figure out your route, Bart will (virtually) yell at the riders who make bad choices, and we’ll see what the best riders in the world could have done with our puzzle.

If you dropped out of Butt Lite X when we rescheduled, or even if you didn’t enter, join the fun anyway and send us your route.

But, you say, I won’t get to actually *go to* the places you would have sent us. True for now, but don’t touch that dial, tune in tomorrow . . . .

Let’s have a little fun and make the best we can out of a bad situation.  We’ll even rescind the helmet rule for this rally.