Northwest Cycle Report

Following is the third and final installment of Tim Watts’ story of the 2007 SPANK Rally held in San Diego, California.

Part 3 - The Accidental Saddle Sore

…I was pretty sure there was a Starbuck’s across the street from Shell station at the base of this big hill…

Not only was there a Starbuck’s at the bottom of the hill but a Quizno’s right next door. I suddenly realized that I hadn’t had any real food all day. So, I strolled in and ordered my usual - small Mesquite Chicken and Bacon, easy on the Ranch - and headed over to ‘Buck’s to get an iced tea, plug in and see if I could do a better job of planning Leg 2 than I did Leg 1.

The first thing I noticed, since it was at the top of page one, was the 100,000+ bonus, number 116. I knew I had to make that one. I had totally dismissed the 200k point bonus in Leg 1 because it was so close by and worth so many points I figured there HAD to be a catch. It must be down 50 miles of goat path or worse. I wasn’t going to make that mistake again.

There were lots of bonii in the Hollywood area and it seemed that would be the place to go. The trouble was I had only logged 565 uncorrected miles on Leg 1 and I distinctly remembered being told at the pre-Rally meeting that we had to ride at least a thousand miles in the 30 hours to be considered a finisher. Hollywood to 116 to Escondido didn’t seem to offer enough miles.

My Leg 2 route fairly jumped out of my laptop at me. I kept trying to find something else that offered as many points and miles but it was obvious that I was headed back out to Salton Sea. Calipatria had reappeared only this time it was worth roughly three times the points. Unlike earlier in the day, I would come in from the north, avoiding the construction. I was pretty confident that I could easily get there and back to 116 by 5 AM. I decided I wasn’t going to push my luck with the elevated scores that were available by arriving later.

After reading and re-reading the instructions and caveat for the rest bonii, I decided I could, in good conscience, take them for the time I was spending planning my route. I dug around and found my Quizno’s receipt which had a time stamp of 8:50 PM. The instructions said we could combine the 60 minute and the 30 minute bonii so I went back to Quizno’s to make sure they would still be open at 10:30 PM. No such luck but Starbuck’s would be. That would work if I hadn’t lost my ‘Buck’s receipt. Oh well, since I was done planning, 60 minutes would still give me a few to rest and then I could take off. Maybe I’d need the 30 minutes even more later.

After briefly chatting with Ken Meece and Dave Biasotti, both of whom showed up about the same time I did, and obtaining a receipt for an oatmeal-raisin cookie, (time stamp: 9:52 PM), it was off into the night and back below sea level. The light traffic on I-10 was moving very briskly on this Friday night. Not yet owning a radar detector, this was great news for me as I got to Indio much faster than I had figured. As I had hoped, CA-111 was completely free of road construction all the way into Calipatria and I was able to quickly recreate the photo I had taken hours earlier.

As I was packing up, I saw a lone headlight approaching. It was safe to assume that it was another SPANK participant. I’m sorry to have forgotten who it was but he was on a Concours and was a welcome sight. At least I wasn’t the only one who didn’t go to Hollywood. After a quick exchange of where we’d been and where we were going, I was off for some hot springs spa, the name of which escapes me, (Bashford? Brashford?), for a photo and then back up CA-111 and I-10 to the waypoint that had to be hand entered and routed to prior to routing to the 116 bonus.

As I was closing in on Palmdale, and the map on the 2610 zoomed further and further, I began to notice a waypoint southwest of my route. I recognized the number, 140, as being from Leg 2 and couldn’t help but wonder what it was and why I hadn’t considered it before. I didn’t want to take the time to research it then but I made a mental note to look it up at the next opportunity. I had already decided that I would head back to Escondido via Palmdale after 116 and stay away from I-5 so I could determine then if I had time to add this stop.

Before long, I was turning onto Caliente-Bodfish Road and heading for the pre-bonus locale. This is a truly awesome motorcycle road and I must come back and experience it when the sun is up and I haven’t been up all night. It’s pretty technical and I kept reminding myself to take it easy. This was no place or time to be screwing up and breaking my motorcycle, or worse. Then I noticed the tail light of another bike a ways ahead of me and started thinking how much nicer it would be to be following someone else up this road. I decided to see if I could catch up just a little and benefit from this other rider’s lines without getting so close as to be a nuisance.

That worked pretty well and soon we were approaching the target waypoint. We both came to a stop and I began scrolling through the stored waypoints for number 116A, (I may have 116 and 116A mixed up here - not sure). The other rider approached and asked if he could write down the coordinates for the bonus waypoint as, for some reason, he didn’t have them in his GPS. Not that I would’ve refused anybody this request but I especially couldn’t turn down the guy who’d just led me through a very twisty route when I was feeling pretty fatigued. As soon as he was done writing I headed off, following the directions from my GPS. As I was proceeding down the specified road, I began to suspect that I had fallen for the trap that I suspected from the big bonus in Leg 1. This road kept deteriorating the farther I went. If it got much worse, I was going to have to admit defeat, turn around and head back to HQ without the 100k points.

Time for a reality check. I took a closer look at the GPS screen and realized that it was just trying to turn me around and get me back on Caliente-Bodfish Rd. to take me a couple of miles back for a right-hander towards the bonus location. Somehow, I found a place to turn around and headed back to where the other rider was still waiting, probably wondering what in the world I was thinking taking off down that cow trail. He was saying something about a sign that said something about Breckenridge so that must be the way to go. “Sign? What sign? I hadn’t even noticed a sign. And what’s Breckenridge?”

Sure enough, there was a sign that we had just passed before we stopped. It was dark colored and I hadn’t even noticed the first time by. Then, I had spent this whole time thinking of my target as a number that I’d forgotten it had a name. I rode up to the sign and quickly surmised that this was the road we wanted. So, off I went, up this road called Breckenridge Trail. They don’t even call it a Road or a Lane or Avenue. Nope. It’s a Trail. Barely one lane wide, covered in sand, leaves, branches and pine cones. The road - er trail itself reminded me somewhat of the road up to Mt. Evans, in Colorado as far as switching back and climbing. This made Caliente-Bodfish look like I-10. The whole time I kept wondering if I’d left the other rider too soon. Did he see where I went? Had he followed the sign? My concern was misplaced as I found out much later that the other rider was Terry Neale, the eventual winner, (Congrats Terry).

In about twice the time that Garmin originally estimated, I finally arrived at the 100k point bonus. I wasn’t sure but I suspected that I had just more than doubled my score. Lisa Landry held my Rally drawers up for my photo then I headed over to where Stave Hobart was waiting. In the back of an SUV was what I will describe as a plastic statue. Beside that was a basket of individually wrapped - uh - balloons. For a thousand extra points, all I had to do was fit one of these balloons over the statue. Okay, easy enough. I decided to forgo the additional 10,000 point activity. What can I say? I have my reasons.

I now had about 5 and a half hours to get back to Rally HQ. I felt really good about this until I started back down the trail. I was worried about dodging other riders coming in for the higher, later points but I hadn’t considered the clouds that were moving in. Since I was above about 7,000 feet, the clouds came wafting across the road in the dark, making visibility extremely poor. Fortunately, this condition only lasted until I dipped to about 5,000 feet then it was clear sailing.

At the next gas stop, I looked up bonus 140. Agua Dulce, nearly 13,000 points, available from 8:30 AM till whenever, I don’t remember. Perfect. I should be going through there about 8:45 - easy money. It was at this same stop that I put my jacket liner and heavy gloves on for the first time in the Rally. The wind was picking up and it looked like I might be heading into my first rain, as well.

Once again, my failure to familiarize myself with the actual name of the bonus instead of the bonus number, bit me big time here. The Agua Dulce bonus was at Vasquez Rocks Natural Area. Had I paid attention to that little detail, I’d have realized that the GPS was leading me to the wrong place. After being so careful all day to make sure that my photos were exactly right, I let my guard down on this one. I took the pic from the wrong location and screwed this one up. When I was confused about the location I should’ve re-read the bonus instructions instead of assuming that it’d be okay. What a great learning opportunity.

Now, I was heading for the house and feeling pretty cocky, (I didn’t know about screwing up 140 yet). I hadn’t deluded myself into thinking I had a good score but I felt that I had learned a ton and had so much fun. I started thinking about one of my favorite things about being in California. In-N-Out Burger. We don’t have In-N-Out in Washington State and I make it my goal, every time I visit California, to average more than one visit to In-N-Out per day that I’m there. To this point, I had not been one time this trip. I was also thinking that I probably had time to take my 30 minute rest bonus. If only I could’ve spotted that familiar sign from the freeway once I got close enough to HQ to know that I was okay on time. How awesome would it have been to not only have a double-double on the clock, but get 7,000 some odd points in the process? A guy can dream, can’t he?

Instead, I arrived in the Holiday Inn parking lot about 10 minutes till eleven AM. I had more than an hour before the window closed. George approached and asked if I had had fun. I said something like, “I had a blast! I hate YOU, but I had blast!” He grinned and nodded like that was his goal all along. I told him I was thinking about stopping at the convenience store on the corner to take my 30 minute rest but I wasn’t sure if that would be cheating or not. He told me as long as I hadn’t checked in it was fair game. I had already donned my rally drawers at “Agua Dulce” and I was in no mood to remove and reinstall them so I left them on while I went in to get a receipt, milled about the parking lot, talked with my wife on the phone and generally killed a half hour before going back to check in.

As I sat, waiting my turn to get scored, I decided I should proof read my documentation one more time. As I was looking over my Bonus Summary sheet, it suddenly occurred to me that from the official starting time of the Rally, 6 AM, till my arrival at the Breckenridge Bonus at about 5:35 AM, I had logged an uncorrected 1040 miles, or so. Though I had no intentions of trying for an IBA Cert on the Rally, I couldn’t resist claiming this accidental, all California Saddle Sore. I think it’s the cool looking pin.

More important than the cert, though, is that I finished! I am a finisher. I ended up in 11th place. 11th place! I couldn’t be happier. I had an awesome time, met and got reacquainted with some great people and even won a door prize at the banquet. Oh, and I ate at In-N-Out twice on Sunday on my way home.

Thanks, George. I had a great time. I can’t imagine how much time and effort went into making it so much fun.