What Does Each Rider Receive at the Starters Banquet
Each rider receives:
1.
Their Rally Flag and number
2.
A USB key with all the waypoints, but no point’s
value for any.
3.
The Rally Book showing all the Bonus locations
and description
4.
The Scoring sheet and points value (which vary
widely) for that Leg only. (The points for the next two legs were provided on
paper at 6am on the day of the start of the rally).
My General Navigation Strategy
After the bike, and wherewithal, the critical element turns
out to be each rider’s planning and navigational skills. Initially it was
surprising to me how much many accomplished riders were prepared to share with
me. So here is my summary:
1.
Load your
Maps. Ahead of rally time, connect your favorite GPS to your computer and
load the current maps, so that you have them on both your Computer and GPS.
Surprisingly few rookies do this, wasting time on preparation.
2.
Zen-Guru
1: take months to become a guru on your particular software, so that using
it is second nature (as I aimed to do with Garmin Base Camp). The best way to
do this is by riding in shorter rallies and trying it out.
3.
Zen Guru
2: learn how to drive every single function in your particular GPS unit (or
GPS’s) so that you can quickly find things even late at night when you are
exhausted. Many of the Garmin features are NOT in the manual. Become a GPS
guru.
4.
How Far? Before
the rally, mathematically calculate what your time and miles will be for each
leg. I do this for my “comfortable ride”, “proposed ride”, and
“blow-them-all-out-of-the-water” ride. It goes without saying that you need to
know your personal limits, riding style and miles per day possible – also what
speed you can sustain (east of the Mississippi and West of it).
5.
Read the
Rally Book. At 8pm when you receive the book (about 130 pages) read it.
Understand the theme, and what makes this year’s rally special. Check that all
the pages are there, and read the special terms and bonuses. (E.g. the
“Call-in” bonus, “Rest Bonus”, “Theme bonus” etc.) Put these into your
calculation.
6.
Clear
your Computer. Get rid of any miscellaneous data files you’re your computer
and from Garmin Base-Camp (or your favorite mapping program such as Map Share
or Streets and Trips, if you have not already done so). Remember that clearing
the previous rally folders and lists DOES NOT clear the data in total! This is
a common problem that will reveal itself to you when you are tired.
7.
Load the
Waypoints. Generally all the
waypoints for the rally are available in GPX and other formats. Put them into your
computer with their four letter code name. There were 347 in 2015. Generally
the default symbol will be a dot only. I change this in bulk, for a plain blue flag;
so that I can see them on the BC map easily (this is surprisingly important).
8.
Read the
Leg 1 Scoring Sheet. About a third of the waypoints, actually
had a score for leg one this year. The
rest were zero. As the first evening is “off the clock” most riders will enter
ALL waypoints in their preferred manner.
This could take some hours.
9.
Re-name
the Waypoints. Everyone has a different method for this, but a typical
syntax might be “P2-YELL-260-A-T-Yellowstone NP”. While this is not my system,
it would work and I have used it successfully in the past. It means
a.
Page 2 to read the description and see the photo
of the Bonus
b.
YELL = the code for that bonus, in this case
Yellowstone National Park
c.
260 is the number of points it is worth ON THIS
LEG. (some people put this number first so as to sort the bonuses by value
easily)
d.
“A” means “available all hours”, D = Daylight
only, 8-4 means 8am to 4pm for example
e.
T means a “Theme bonus” (of which there were
none in 2015)
f.
Change the symbol for each bonus so that it is
meaningful to you. For example you might make all bonus worth 0-200 points Blue
(meaning cold, small), all worth 200-600 Green, meaning good, worth a look and
then 600-1000 Red, meaning “Hot” – go for these! Bonuses with bigger points
than 1000 may be a different symbol still (say a Star).
g.
I would leave the waypoints that are for other
legs, as a blue flag (for example, so that they are visible to me on my map,
but not in my initial consideration
h.
Lastly, whatever syntax you use, you must be
able to build it as quickly as possible, so that all waypoints are visible, but
you don’t take all night to get your plan together.
10. Create a Leg “Folder” and “List” in
Basecamp and put the waypoints that are relevant to THIS LEG into it. (Create
separate folders for Leg 2 and Leg3).
a.
Note when going to Leg 2, do NOT erase the
waypoints from your GPS or BC, as some will be available from the previous
legs. Erasing waypoints has lost some rallies for some riders.
b.
Likewise always load ALL waypoints as
“favorites” so you can find an alternate bonus at any time, if you need to do
so.
11. Scan the Map for the Big Points. Go
there, by using the “pencil” tool to draw a rough map around the big-points
bonuses. Run the calculation and see how feasible this is in the time and
distance you have calculated. I look for
four things
a.
Single places with big points
b.
Multiple places with short distances between
them (often hidden under on another on the larger scale maps)
c.
Multiple places with a theme bonus, if all are
obtained.
d.
I also look for “Sucker Bonuses” – those with
huge points that are just miles from anywhere – once in a while, one of these
is worth chasing, but you need to calculate carefully to see if this is true. A
combination of smaller bonuses may be easier and safer to get, and just as many
points.
12. “Spiral in” or “Spiral Out”: the rally
master will try to induce each rider away from the Checkpoint to start,
increasing the risk to the rider. I call this spiraling out. An example was
those who rode NE from Kingsport TN, towards DC, VT, ME etc. before heading
back to Albuquerque for the final checkpoint. The issue here is that there is
an increasing risk of not being able to make it to “the barn” in time. The
alternate is a “spiral in” where you take a few risks nearer the rhumb-line
route, then spiral in, via a large number of smaller bonuses to the Checkpoint.
The advantage is that, once you are nearer to the CP, if time runs out, the
rider can cut across the spiral – direct for home.
13. Consider the Alternate: after making an
initial decision on your route, ask yourself, what is the next option you might
consider? Or more importantly what would the last rally-winner be likely to do,
and why are you not going there? Make the final decision.
14. Calculate it: after putting in the
rhumb-line waypoints, add those others that make sense as additionals.
Calculate your points on this. What does your points total look like in terms
of the minimum to be a finisher? Are you going for a) equal, b) Plus 10%, c)
plus 25% or d) plus 45% (where the winner is likely to be!) Also set the time
for the starting CP, and the times for each Bonus – recalculate the total and
decide if you will make it back in time?!
15. Write it up: onto a piece of card or
paper, for your tank bag, so that you can see where you are going as you ride
(or put it into a tablet).
16. Load the Route and Waypoints: onto each
of your three GPS’s, and a backup onto a USB key, so that if your computer
fails, you can go to another.
17. Set all Units to base time: (reset the
standards on your bike computer, and starting times and data on each GPS.
18. Ride your Plan!
No comments:
Post a Comment