Cal24 2009 - BARF Style Reloaded!

[aciurczak2]

Post Portland Bonus Update

Well, Alex just called in, but we couldn't really talk. The connection was terrible, so all I got was that he got the Bonus (well, let's hope there aren't any technical scoring issues... but assuming all is good, he got it) and is headed to a checkpoint.

This year the checkpoints aren't mandatory if you go over a certain number of miles (1039 miles). If you don't ride that many miles, you need to make the checkpoints. I think because he went to Portland, he'll make the mileage, but it looks like he's got time to head to the checkpoint and get a few more points by doing so. I didn't get where the checkpoint location is, so I'll have to ask when he calls again.

Not sure if Budman settled on a time to go to Fred's, but have a good time and have a beer for me and Kyle.

 

[aciurczak2]

Any News From the Others?

Last year Razel called me periodically to let me know what was going on. No one's called this year except Alex, so I have no idea what the other folks are up to. I've looked at the various SPOT pages and a few folks did take the Bay Area route, but haven't heard what their bonuses were about.

Last year there were bras, lipstick, nail polish , and shooting involved. I'm curious as to what kinds of activities these folks got to do this year. And what about the Cal24 police? There were some good stories last year, so I'm wondering if anyone got caught again this year.

Well, I guess we'll hear tomorrow at the Banquet and hopefully those folks will write about their adventures here too.

 

[aciurczak2]

More than half way done!

Well it's a little after 8pm and the Cal24 is more than 12 hours complete! I just talked to Alex and he is 379 miles from the checkpoint, which is located in Napa. The checkpoint is worth beaucoup points and is open from 1 am to 3 am. He should easiliy make it and will still have time to pick up more bonuses before heading back to San Jose.

I just hope he avoids those space bunnies that usually appear around 4 am.

 

[aciurczak2]

Midnight Update

So Alex called to check in again. He's still on 5 heading to Napa. Dmitriy called Alex to let him know he had to get a new rear tire. Well, not exactly new... he stopped in at Thunderhill where AFM races were taking place today. One of his friends who is in AFM put a race take off onto Dmitriy's bike so that he could still finish the Cal24 rally. Crazy stuff! I guess needing a new tire during the rally doesn't mean you have to call it quits.

Dmitriy is doing this year's thread - Giant Muffler Man. Something like that. I guess there's this company called Big Giant Muffler and even though the store today in some locations is no longer a Big Giant Muffler store, the giant Muffler Man is still out front. There are like 7 or 8 of these non-Muffler stores that still have the Giant Muffler Man upfront and you have to go find them. I assume you take a pic of the Giant Muffler Man with your bike and flag in the picture. Each one you get doubles in bonus points so the last one is worth over 3000 points or something like that. Again, the cell phone connection wasn't the best.

Personally, I think the thread sounds pretty hard! The threads are usually always hard and I'm not sure they are ever worth going for due to the difficulty and low chance of actually getting the whole thread.

I think Alex's ETA for the Napa checkpoint is 2:30 am, so only 30 minutes to spare before the checkpoint closes. It's almost midnight and his last spot point was 11:50 pm which showed him just South of Shasta on route 5. Man, he must LOVE route 5!

I think I'm headed for bed. Although, I'll have the phone next to the bed... Alex has always called me in the middle of the night. I guess if he's not sleeping, I'm not either, so I'm going to catch a few ZZZzzs now while I can.

 

[aciurczak2]

Morning Update - They're home!

Well, as expected Alex did call me in the middle of the night. I can't remember how many times, but at least twice. He called shortly after he made the checkpoint in Napa. He got to the checkpoint at 2:45, so made it, but with only 15 minutes to spare.

At that point, Alex, Don, and Andy M decided to split into two groups. Don and Andy M decided to head to some bonuses in San Francisco. Alex decided to go for another adventure and headed for the yet to be named bonuses. Everyone got the list of bonuses at the start of the rally, however, they said that there were another set of bonuses that they would be handing out at 5 am at a parking lot off of route 17 in Santa Cruz. Since it was 3 am, Alex decided he could make it to the parking lot by 5 am if he took took 880 down to 17.

Well, I hope the extra trip down south worked out for Alex. I did hear from him this morning around 7:30 am. He's back and waiting to get scored. He didn't say whether the trip to get the extra unknown bonuses in the parking lot was worth it, but I'm sure I'll hear more when he comes home to crash before the banquet.

One thing I did forget to mention was that on his way back to CA from Portland, they hit an area with pouring rain. He said it was pretty scary stuff, but that he and Don got through it just fine. There was just all kinds of water on the road, along with cars splashing up the water and so it was a bit hazardous.

Rain in June? Another reason never to leave CA.

Well, according to Alex's SPOT, he got in at 6:40 am to the hotel. That's 20 minutes early, so it leads me to believe he must have gotten what he wanted down south and came in to San Jose to finish off the rally.

Hopefully the extra bonus part allowed Alex to ride on some more motorcycle-friendly road. Else, his rally was pretty much made up of Highways... take that back, it was pretty much just Route 5. Again, he must really LOVE that highway!

I'm sure Alex will tell you in great detail, after he's slept a bit, his adventure first hand...

 

[Dmitriy]

Yep I tired to attempt the 'Thread' it was 'fun' Here are some pics of the men:

AFM guys and gals are awesome. My biggest Thank You's go out to Tangy Racing to helping mount and dismount the rear wheel and #1Freak for mounting up a brand new Michelin rear he got me for a smoking deal all @ 10pm. Cal24 on a sportbike = never a dull moment.

 

[budman]

Now a tire @ thill is cool... And unexpected!

Those are big men....

You guys are hard core

 

[aciurczak2]

2009 Cal24 RESULTS!

 

[aciurczak2]

BARF did well!

2nd Place - Alex
4th Place - Andy M
15th Place - Dmitriy

 

[budman]

Awesome guys! You look amazingly fresh..!

Congrats on finishing and the great finishes!

And to all those that rode this crazy rally

 

[budman]

So how did Andy not get third...?

Same points, but more miles... I guess the points per mile was the tie breaker??

Man I got to try this... ... no way..

I had a hard enough time with 24 hours with 5 guys sharing the bike.

 

[aciurczak]

So how did Andy not get third...?

Same points, but more miles... I guess the points per mile was the tie breaker??

That's exactly right. Less miles for same points is viewed as running a more "efficient" rally. Though in some cases, if the two riders rode together and ran the same exact roads the entire time, the only difference between the two is odometer calibration, so judging a winner by that may be splitting hairs that shouldn't really be split. But there are no cash prizes, so it's not a big deal either way. I'm not sure if Andy & Don ran the exact same roads, but it's likely they did different gas stops and other breaks that may have accounted for a difference in mileage even if the routes were similar.

Man I got to try this... ... no way..

I had a hard enough time with 24 hours with 5 guys sharing the bike.

You know you want to, just one of those things that needs to be checked off the list at some point, right?

 

[budman]

Maybe so... Everytime I woke up in the middle of the night.. I thought about you guys.. and it made me sleep a little better..

Now.. with the right mentor.. a check box might be fullfilled..

Awesome job Alex..!

You done good!

And props to Mrs. Alex for giving us the updates..!

 

[Whodat]

Don had less miles for the same ppoints, more efficient. My extra miles came from me losing my rally pack and the last bonus and having to go back and find it. Don is an excellent rider and a great guy, earning and deserving his 3rd place plaque .

Big congrats to Alex on taking 2nd place

And Dmitriy taking 15th in his rookie debut


Great rally. Got to see some old friends and make some new ones.

28 riders started, 27 finished. No accidents or performance awards

 

[Blacknblue]

Wow. Congratulations all around!arty

I can understand alot more of what it's about by spending the day reading:
Going the Extra Mile by Ron Ayres, a book I ordered after reading the
start of this thread. I'm just looking to expand my mileage past 500 a day
but: You guys rock! Count me in as another admiring fan.

 

[CuriousMike]

Congrats to all !

Damn near 1500 miles in 24 hours is butt-numbingly-good!

And 1000 miles on a GSXR 600 ?!

I'd like to see the above finishing results with their bike listed in the row.

 

[aciurczak2]

Daddy's Still #1 in Kyle's Book!

Here's Kyle's response to when Alex got called to receive his plaque... Yes, Alex finished 2nd, but Kyle still thinks he's #1!!!

 

[aciurczak]

I'd like to see the above finishing results with their bike listed in the row.

Not a bad suggestion, I'll see if I can get the bike info from Tom or his volunteers to update the finishers list. Top 3 were BMW's (K1200GT, R1200RT, R1150RT), and then Andy was on a Tiger. Dmitriy was the only rider I can remember on a full-on supersport bike this year. Popular bikes in the field are the BMW's, the FJR, an ST1300 or 2, and some VStroms.

 

[Cal24Rallymaster]

Congrats to all !

Damn near 1500 miles in 24 hours is butt-numbingly-good!

And 1000 miles on a GSXR 600 ?!

I'd like to see the above finishing results with their bike listed in the row.

1 Meese Ken K1200GT
2 Ciurczak Alex R1200
3 Beaton Don R1100S
4 Mackey Andy Tiger
5 McCambridge Andrew FJR 1300
6 Watts Tim ST1300
7 White Jerry FJR 1300
8 Neale Terry FJR1300
9 Westendorf Harald R1200GS
10 Biasotti Dave RT1150
11 Barbic Alan fjr1300
12 Parker Nathan RT1200
13 Franz David R1100RT
14 Legnosky Dave K1200GT
15 Yegoshin Dmitry GSXR 600
16 Harper Alex Bandit 1200
17 Reed Mike 1150RT
18 Hale Mike BMW GSA
19 Brister Cameron FJR1300
20 Godfrey Richard FJR1300
21 Pflugh Matt HD Ultra
22 Starrett Mark FJR1300
23 Flier David K100RT
24 Oxenbol Peter K1100LT
25 Daniels Richard ST1300
26 Hicks Turbo Dave FJR1300
27 Lively Kirk FJR1300
DNF Jewel Eric ST1300
DNS Ehlers Steve GSA1200

 

[aciurczak]

Sorry folks, I'm a tech in this thread. I've had that Jason Jonas SPoT page working for awhile, but it relies on Yahoo's FireEagle location software to get its info, and I had let that FireEagle link expire and didn't realize that the SPoT link in my first post wasn't working because of that. I re-enabled it and it won't happen again, but that doesn't help for this rally. :-( Looks like Budman was able to access my SPoT shared page directly, and at least that was working fine throughout.