RenoJohn
2010 Utah 1088  Ride Report

 3

....and I make my way to Great Basin:
 



As if there aren't already enough reasons to ride the Utah1088
The MERA folks always have hot chicks at undisclosed bonuses to hold your rally towel -or in my case "The Rock"    Of course the fun offered by this volunteer is only extended to non-grumpy riders.  Just ask to see Ken Morton's picture.  The hot chick is not in it.


Just because it's on the internet, doesn't make it true.

It seems some folks like to stretch the truth when it comes to their ride reports, of course that never happens on a RenoJohn report.

...but here is an example of something that was posted ..and it needs some clarification:

(click on text above to go to Ken's awesome report)

So for the truth curious:  Here is how it went down:

I had just finished up the Great Basin Bonus and rolled the few miles into Baker Nevada, -where I decided to grab a snack, review my rally pack and just appreciate life in general.

+ Approaching into town ....a bike that sounded like a sewing machine 
..OH!!  Hey it's my favorite buddy Ken Morton!  --And look he's blown right by the obvious road up to the bonus because he sees me and wants to chat!!   Gosh, I really don't have a lot of time, but glad to take some time out to say hello to Ken.  Gosh, and no doubt he's going to Vegas, maybe he wants to ride together(?)  ... Nothing better than rally camaraderie. 
These were all the obvious thoughts going through my mind.

+  Ken rolls up and hastily says "Do you know where the bonus is? -is it that road??"
Now, I wanted to say "what? are you fucking stupid? you just rolled by the sign pointing to the bonus  --and now you have the nerve to ask me?"
But I didn't say that. 
...Instead I said:    " ...Yes, it is that road ...2.2miles up and you can't miss the park sign - Where are you going next? 
(BTW, is obvious that we're both going to Vegas) ......and ken says "I don't know".

Meanwhile some chome and leather bikers are yelling as Ken has dropped some cracker wrappers from his bike onto the ground -which I gladly pick up for Ken to save him from a Hoka Hey style ass-kicking on main street in Baker NV.

Ken takes off and I figure about 6minutes until he's bagged the bonus and is back in Baker.  So I  review route for 5minutes and take off.

And to set the record straight:   I don't facebook, twitter etc ....but I do email Matt's mom live from bonus stops.

Nice to see you found the bonus Ken ...glad I could help  :-)

And just as truthful:
Ken ran a great rally and earned 3rd place ....and did so with a route that would have been easier on a big-displacement bike.  He got his points on the men's route, not the girlie NP route.   Ken has a reputation of being able to get on any motorcyle and make it do amazing things.   That makes for good fun 

GREAT rally Ken -I'll laugh a long time at our Baker NV encounter, truly the memories are what make good fun. 


BTW:  Ken and I have a top secret rendevous planned for Friday, 18:00p at a brewery that Ken has chosen.   Ken is great fun and it'll be great to see him ..........I have lots to chat about :-)
 

I typically set my GPS to lay breadcrumbs on rallies  -as it makes for good fun to go back later and track everything from route, altitude, speed etc etc.

Here is a graph showing a cross section of the altitude i was at from start of rally to the end.


The Red dot is where Ken and I met up .......gosh, nearly the high point of the day!!
(uhh, but it went down fast from there  :-)



So heading south --


 I would be sharing the road with open range cattle.   "Open range" means the cows have the right-of way, whether on the road or not.  So if you hit one:  You surely lose your bike, possibly lose your life and you get to buy the cow -and they ain't cheap.
Daylight usually easy to see, but if this had been night, and the cow in my lane ...it can get ugly.




The amazing connections the RallyBastard has are not limited to Utah, or even planet earth.   During the 1088 the MERA folks call in favors from their extra terrestrial friends to help clear the roads of open range cattle.   It is fascinating to watch --->and this alone is worth the price of admission to the Utah 1088.

The spaceships hovers over cattle on the road and sucks them up into the spacecraft.   Then then flies to to open fields and lower the cattle back down  ----->which is what is happening in the picture above.
Caution:   Riders are still responsible for their own safety, ...even with the valiant efforts of the extra-terrestrial friends of the Utah 1088 --there can still be the occassional cow in the road.

My route was simple, yet I couldn't help myself and was over-thinking -as I ran scenerios.   There was a bonus west of Cedar city and my GPS says it's 70air miles, and 170miles is the fastest route.  Hmm  ..but the GPS says the "shortest" route is only 90miles.   There were actually two short routes, both dirt


This was the first option dirt route ...would save about 80mile ..but not a great high-speed road?  I would stick to pavement.
A few miles later another short route ---the 2nd road looked solid, easy and fast ...again I chose "no" but if short on time it could have made for a tough decision.

.....and more easy crusing here on my own private corner of planet earth:


 

This was kinda weird.

No traffic, not a person for miles .....and I come upon this bird at a rate of speed ..Uhh,  well you are free to speculate on what the pace was.

Bird caught my attention as it was BIG and always the possibility it could fly into may path.   The green mile marker is a couple of feet high to give you and idea of the size of this bird:


Rode by the bird and the sonic boom didn't scare it ...a look in the rearview mirrow and it was still there ..

So I turned around and another (but slower) pass from the opposite direction and the bird was still there.
 

Now, I'm curious, this bird is not chicken and I want to see how close I can get... so I turn around again now in my original direction and I see how close I can get.
 
 


So I park this close and get off the bike and grab my DSLR for some pictures


Jeeze funny ......

And now I'm thinking I should be shooting with a gun and not a camera and consider grabbing my 9mm P6 and bringing this bird back to rally HQ as a souvenir
But really, this bird and I are the only life around, and the bird is more social than Ken Morton so I can't bring myself to kill it.


......but I'm not about to let this bird win, I'm not leaving this spot until AFTER the bird has left.
 

So I tell the bird:
"Ken Morton be here any minute -and he's grumpy as phuck"
 

....and the bird wanted no part of that:

 
 


The bird was BIG, pictures don't do justice to it's size.   Not sure what flavor of fowl, but surely this bird was no chicken, rather quite brave.

Back to easy cruising.....
 
 


not sure what is going on here ...probably busy emailing Matt's mom.
 


Amazing  ......all alone here on planet earth.

The Vegas bonus was to get TWO keno tickets.   This new twist in qty was no accident, many of the casinos are going away from old-skewl pingpong ball Keno to computerized games, I'm assuming many riders might think getting two might be difficult.

But I knew if I went downtown I could secure two without too much effort.   Got into vegas effortlessly and hit Binnion's valet, shed my aerostich and gave the valet kid 5bucks to watch my bike for a few minutes..

Warm night in vegas and it felt great to shed the gear be off the bike and stretch the legs via runing the streets for Keno tickets.


Ain't much better than Vegas  --one big street party downtown and folks were having as much fun as possible without competing in the Utah 1088

Golden Nugget, then a sprint to Fitzgerald's  -I had secured my needed tickets   -then back to the bike ...

A Clean sweep out of town.   I entered LV city limits and left LV city limits in well under 20minutes -including getting downtown, parking, gear off, securing the bonus, back to bike, gear back on,  and leaving   ....amazing!!!


-----> Not open for discussion <-----
If anyone asks me about the Massacre bonus west of Cedar City:
I will punch you in the face.
So now a beautiful night-time ride back toward Salt Lake City and Rally HQ.

...but I make a stop in Mesquite to buy some booze ...coming back with refreshments is a bonus and worth points .... and I'd much prefer to buy booze in Nevada vs Utard.   Amazing though, on the main strip not a liquor store was open this late.   I knew with the Double M (Maura and Melchild) tequila would be a good thing to have.   But I had to settle for beer.   No big deal, no extra points based on alchohol percentage.

Kudos to the rallymaster for this bonus.    I made note of this bonus immediately and tagged it on my rally pack ---->so that I could have it facing straight up in the event of an LEO encounter.   Nothing better than being able to tell you friendly fuzz that you're out paying respect to fallen officers.  (regardless of where you are in the rally)
--they'll instantly recognize that  you have high respect for the fuzz.    All rallies should have a fallen officer bonus for this very reason.

My motto:   Love the fuzz and they'll love you back.
 
 

BTW:  the directions to this bonus pretty much sucked.
But~!!! that did give the opportunity for me to stumble into my buddy Eric V ..he was searching this bonus from the north, and me from the south -Eric beat me to it by a mintue or two and seeing Eric on the side of the road was a helpful clue.     It was great to see Eric  -and no need to ask where he was going, we were both headed for the barn.
 


RIP
...as a beatiful sunrise is coming up over Salt Lake City.

Eric and I rode back to Rally HQ together, it was good fun watching his car tire take on the twists and turns of suburbia freeway off/on ramps etc.   Thanks for the fun Eric.


Scoring:

Wow, there was a new and very unique scoring scheme in place.   We were given a list of all possible bonuses, then had to cross out the ones we did NOT get.   Then this sheet was ran through an optical scanner and instantly the score was fed to an Excel spreadsheet where it was tallied, ranked etc.     Of course all of this was verified against the actual rally packet.
AWESOME !!! -And the best part it was easy, lightening fast and very straight-forward

Thumbs Up on the scoring methodology!


After the 3minutes it took to get scored ...a massage by the massage therapists who were there

...and then Tom M, offers me a shot of tequila.  Not an ordinary shot mind you ...some very very special stuff that Tom had smuggled into Utard.      At 7:30am -after riding moto-bike all night it didn't take too much and me was feeling silly.   Thanks Tom  ...you're the best of fun.

I then stumbled into Warchild and Wargirl and we headed over to the Hyatt for lunch.  Jeeze was that an experience that will be shared at another time.

Now hours later and still no sleep for me, it was time for the awards banquet.   Good fun, good fun and even a custom made "Soap Box" where thoughts could be openly shared.   Above,  Matt Watkins shares a few thoughts. (picture stolen from Ken Morton)

Great stories were told, but my favorite was the amazing fourth place finish by Thane Beckstrand   ...Thane very much put the early release of the paperwork to use.   ...Uhh, and how about this:  Thane is 79years old!!  Man-0-Man can you believe that!?
 

When you run a rally, it is impossible to not wonder how you might have routed differently --impossible to not wonder about how other people came up with their routes.    Matt and I compared notes after the rally and he shared with me his route and some of the planning ...here is a screen shot of matt's preparation.   Looks much the same as on of my route options at first glance, but a closer look --->he had a few things that I didn't.   Great that riders will share with others so that we can all improve:


Rally Report Card
RenoJohn Grades the 2010 Utah1088

--->The optional route options on this rally were interesting, fun and tempting.

Thumbs Up

The Bonuses were well layed out, interesting and straight forward with minimal BS like counting bolts, windows or stupid trivia!!  This rider likes that.

Thumbs Up

---> There were no cute games on this rally, no push-ups, goat roaping, hula-hoops etc. 

Thumbs Up

----> So, the above combined made for a rally where riders' efforts, smarts and risks translated directly to their scoring postion.  Riders like that!

Thumbs Up



---> How about that novel (about 300 words) of an odometer  route with about 37 turns in 12 miles??

Thumbs Down

--->And how about all of that great camaraderie  ...including the open bar for riders after the banquet?   Yep, that was some gooood fun.

Thumbs UP!

 

 
 
My favorite memory:
No doubt, watching two great riders and brilliant thinkers battle out first place in an epic old-skewl brawl

The only thing that exceeded this was the sportsmanship, smiles and fun that these two shared. 

Ken Meese and Matt Watkins ...nice job, truly a credit to motobike fun.

 
 
What Happened To The Rock?:
Yep, I stole that thing and it's here in Reno.   Not sure what the Rallybastard can do about it?  -I guess he could punish me with the rock ...but I've already got it.

I suspect that rock might see a few intersting sites and see some groovy people in the next year .....before making it's way back to Utah for the 20th anniversary of the Utah 1088 Endurance Rally.

Put it on your calendar, surely it's gonna be some good fun.
June 24-26 
2011

 


The morning after:

Tom Mechild and I got an early start out of Utard .......


Here in Winnemucca, Tom likes to fuel up at the truck / toy hauler pump.
 


And I led Tom over to the Puckerbrush sign.   Good memories from the last Cognoscente rally --where the Torter's caused havoc by claiming this bootleg sign as a bonus!!  -Next up the Wild Wild West rally .....and this Nevada kid will be ready  :-)


My goodness, that was bit long ...but thanks for riding along.
 

For the final thought ....I'll leave you with this Utah 1088 artwork.
Truly unique and like all good art .....it says much more than words possibly could:

Riding moto-bike in the Utah 1088 is good fun



 
 

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